Ravens Banking On Seeing Their First Team DL By Next Week, Just In Time

The Baltimore Ravens received the best piece of medical news possible when All Pro defensive tackle Nnamdi Madubuike returned to practice from neck surgery, but through the first few weeks of training camp, that unit has yet to see the field together.

The Ravens are taking every precaution with Madubuike, obviously, and will be very judicious with the types of collisions he is a part of in the preseason. They were lauded for re-signing veteran lineman Calais Campbell, a move we championed well before it took place, but the 40-year old dealt with an unspeakable family tragedy that naturally took precedence over his earliest work back in Owings Mills.

Two veterans who carried a very heavy load last year in Madubuike’s absence – Travis Jones and John Jenkins, opened camp on the Physically Unable to Participate list, compromising their camp. Jenkins has returned but Jones is still overcoming a pec injury – which can be quite tricky especially on an athlete this size – and rookie head coach Jesse Minter, a defensive guru who will be calling plays on that side of the ball – has yet to really see much of his top talents among this all-important position group, let alone see them gelling and interacting as a unit.

That seems likely to be the case by early next week, if not sooner.

Getting Healthy In Time for Week 1

The Ravens schedule is already getting bifurcated with the preseason games about to start, and with the team off Monday and then off again Friday before facing the Eagles Saturday, it’s a tricky time to bring players back from long-term injury. Some of the sessions are quite heated to prepare for the games ahead and others are glorified walk throughs. But from the sound of it, Jones will be back in the mix soon and the coaches should start to see how the pieces fit up front.

“I think Travis will (be back) real, real soon, honestly,” Minter said Sunday, “be starting to work back in. It’s been great to get 'Jenk' back in there, Calais [Campbell] back in there. Calais was at Larry Fitzgerald's Hall of Fame ceremony (over the weekend), so we excused him from practice, but was great to see him back in the team periods - a few reps today, and John as well. Expect that room over the next week to two weeks to really, really take shape for us."

Indeed, hopefully that will be the case, because time is starting to run a little thin. Days off around the preseason games start to replicate more of a regular season schedule, time will be lost to travel, too, and even with so many of these absent players having a strong understanding of this defense and the core principles – Minter is running something very close to what Mike Macdonald ran here in 2022-2023 – there is no substitute for feeling things out together and starting to bond as a group.

And on the edge, this is new terrain for top pass rusher Trey Hendrickson and second-round pick Zion Young, and the more they can replicate twists and stunts and moves together up front the better. Getting a look at certain NASCAR packages and toggling different body types rushing from the inside has been virtually impossible to this point given the variance in the personnel availability and this is a group that absolutely must perform at a level far above what took place last season.

Minter lit up when talking about what it’s been like getting Campbell, still quite versatile in how he can be deployed, and Jenkins – a big space eater – back on the field. Their absence has allowed the team to get a nice look at players like seventh-round pick Rayshaun Benny, who we believe will surprise this season. But the closer we get to Week 1 the more uneasy any coach would get, let alone a first-time head coach who also runs the defense, not getting to see his first-team defensive line aligned.

“Both of them — just experience, physicality, size, length, the ability to impact the game both in the run and the pass,” Minter said of that veteran duo. “Great to have them back out there. It has been awesome, I would say, for some of the guys to get the amount of reps that they have gotten.

“I think they have all gotten better and taken advantage of that. So, as we get these guys back, I think that room will just become even better and more deep as a result of some of those guys missing a little bit of time."

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