The 4 Ravens Roster Concerns Most In Need Of Addressing In-Season

There are four critical personnel issues the Ravens must continue to monitor and be prepared to address if they want to maximize their opportunity to win big this season.

Two of them are eerily similar to a year ago, when their Super Bowl hopes faded fast and they failed to reach the postseason. Seasons are won and lost at the point of attack and the Ravens must cull markedly better play out of their offensive and defensive line, and while they have poured decide resources into the defensive side of things, questions remain, and the offensive line has much to prove and didn’t get nearly the financial backing as the other side of the ball.

In fact, their best player left for a record contract with the Raiders – center Tyler Linderbaum.

This should certainly be a very good football team, with a strong roster, but probably not as strong as some of the betting markets would suggest. Uncertainly reigns ahead of Week 1, with the offensive scheme unproven and the offensive coordinator unproven and there very little connective tissue between the pieces on the offensive line and very few proven, in-form pass catchers except for Zay Flowers.

General manager Eric DeCosta has failed to make in-season trades to greatly change this franchise’s fortunes since scooping up Roquan Smith in 2022 – the Chargers won the Odafe Oweh deal last year and DeCosta himself admitted he couldn’t complete deals for Derrick Henry and Calias Campbell before he inevitably signed them as free agents. That needs to be addressed in the coming weeks, with this roster quite old in key parts and two-time MVP quarterback Lamar Jackson in a potential lame-duck year and a bevvy of key potential free agents.

There needs to be an urgency in this front office unlike anything we’ve seen in a while. Hugging draft picks only takes you so far – they acknowledged by agreeing to the Maxx Crosby trade before pulling out – and there is a very good chance this team needs to swing a big move if thet want to keep up with the Rams and the Eagles and Chiefs, for starters.

Interior Offensive Line

I’m putting this first because this entire operation is new, if Ethan Pocic can’t come back from his Achilles surgery and be truly right, then there isn’t a starting-caliber NFL center on the roster and that could undermine everything. The Ravens not naming a starting center until a few days before the season is a bad, bad sign.

Rookie guard Vega Ioane hasn’t taken snaps with the guys to the left or right of him, really, ever. Only the starting tackles are back from last year. The interior was bad last year and really hurt this team in short yardage and the redzone and that was with Linderbaum still here.

They paid John Simpson $10M to play guard and drafted a guard 14th overall and if that gets undermined by not having a center, that would be quite something. DeCosta himself conceded this group is going to be inherently a work in progress.

“I do not know what it is going to look like Week 1, because I have not seen what it is going to look like yet,” DeCosta said. “But I am excited about it, and I think that we will probably build and build and build, and hopefully in January and February we are playing our best football."

Moving to an under-center based offense without decent center play would be quite a choice.

Interior Defensive Line

They’ll take their time with Nnamdi Madubuike’s return from neck surgery aiming for September, but I highly doubt Week 1. They won’t know exactly how his beck and spine will respond to the brutal position he plays until he starts playing it. They will go as far as he takes him. He is the biggest question with them.

“We feel like he is right on track,” DeCosta offered, while conceding it should be before Week 5 but the team isn't certain yet.

As great of a schemer as Jesse Minter is on defense, he needs a game-wrecking defensive tackle to make it all go. Everyone from Bucky Brooks to Charles Davis to Bryant McFadden to Kevin Clark to Cynthia Frelund who has come on “The Daily Flock” has pointed to Madubuike as the most potent gravitational force on this team not named Lamar Jackson.

If heaven forbid this doesn’t go well, you aren’t finding a replacement – sitting out the DT market basically in two straight strong drafts there was odd – but you will need to find a three-technique to chip in with some upside. Travis Jones won’t carry them

“It all looks good on paper until your defensive tackle does gown,” one longtime NFL personnel executive who has watched the Ravens closely told me. “If Madubuike is himself, it’s a probably a great defense. If he’s not, Minter is in trouble.”

Kicker

Maybe this should be first on the list. I have a hard time stacking these first three, because Madubuike’s situation is such a wild card.

DeCosta whiffed not bringing in a veteran kicker to push Tyler Loop all along, it’s clear their confidence has wavered in Loop, as it should, given how last season ended in Pittsburgh and how shaky his preseason was with three missed field goals and two in the first half of the funal exhibition.

I don’t know how they could trust him from 50-plus at a time when teams have young kickers pushing 70 yards. Jake Moody has been let go by a bunch of teams already and scrambling to bring in competition in early September is not ideal.

“Looking at it this preseason, we decided it was probably worthwhile to bring somebody else in to see how they look,” DeCosta said. You start cycling kickers in an out through the season, you probably aren’t going to have a great season.

Another Pass Catcher

Whether it’s a tight end or a receiver, this is going to be an issue, I figure.

They are carrying two rookie receivers and two rookie tight ends. Other teams didn’t want to give them a decent draft pick for Mark Andrews after the 2024 season and now he is more important to this pass game than ever while his slide in production is raising real questions.

Devontez Walker didn’t have a special summer, though he could still break out. Rashod Bateman got arrested on three counts of family violence and await further word from the league about any potential change in his status, and they should have moved on from Bateman and upgraded on his – low bar to clear all around – years ago but DeCosta really wants this one to work out, despite years of evidence it probably won’t.

He tends to cling to some draft picks far too long, or pay some guys too long. Or both.

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