The Players With The Most At Stake In Ravens Second Preseason Game

Ravens head coach Jesse Minter is even more conservative than his mentors when it comes to preseason usage.

If Minter could pull it off, I’m not sure any of his third-team veterans would play in these guys and it would be exclusively the domain of rookies and second-year guys. The math doesn’t quite work that way, even with 90-man rosters, however, and there will be a few players – and even some with NFL pedigrees – who perform Saturday afternoon against the Vikings.

Not many, but some.

Guys we thought would steal the show last weekend, like Trenton Simpson, who has yet to develop thus far since being a third-round pick but whom Minter deemed to too valuable to dress, ended up spectators. And Minter said after the joint practices this week in Minnesota that his philosophy is not changing for the second game.

Which will put an abundance of attention on the rookie class – especially on the offensive side of the ball where they constitute nearly every key skill position spot. And for these purposes, we’re going to clump them together otherwise they would dominate this list. There are some names that standout from the rest in terms of the import of how they perform:

Tyler Loop

The Ravens really do not seem inclined to leaning into a kicking competition of any sort, and they have their spin on the second year kicker and they are sticking to it. But another miss on Saturday and this is coming to a head. An inability to come close from 50 yards – in a dome – should be enough to grab one of the several proven vets out there and get real about this situation.

The kickoffs continue to leave something to be desired, too. If they are in Super Bowl or bust mode, they need a kicker who is at least dependable from distance.

Ethan Pocic

We told you all offseason the Ravens must sign him and would probably sign him, and our buddy Brian Baldinger intimated they would be fools not to sign him as their starting center given what was on their roster at the time, and now Pocic is fully recovered from Achilles surgery and the nominal competition is falling off.

Journeyman Danny Pinter suffered what certainly appears to be a season-ending injury, though Minter wouldn’t confirm a timeline.. Pocic is by far the most experienced and proven snapper on the roster, the importance of his position while a new offense is being installed can’t be overstated - and after playing 13 snaps last week this should be his last real tuneup before Week 1.

“I felt like we kind of targeted this second week of the preseason of kind of ramping up into more of the action anyway,” Minter sai

Rookie Skill Guys

No one in that organization thought un-drafted quarterback Joe Fagnano was going to come close to that performance last Saturday. As Evan Washburn on the Ravens broadcast team told us on “The Daily Flock Show” – “his name never even really came up in the production meeting.” He does anything close to what he did last week and he’s on the practice squad with real upside.

Adam Randall will get a heavy load running the ball and in pass protection, with the Ravens knowing he can perform the pass-catching duties for The Joker role he’ll be tested in. Ja’Kobi Lane might not play more than a few series in this game at this point with how he keeps playing, and they need Matthew Hibner to keep gaining confidence in the passing game. To name a few.

Dominic DeLuca

Okay this isn’t really about the former walk-on linebacker at Penn State who now could be wearing the green dot in this game. It’s more about the fact that he is in that role due to how conservative this staff is with who plays and some injuries around him. The Ravens have their eye on depth linebackers elsewhere – including a former third-round pick of theirs – and the final 53-man roster at this position group will quite likely fluctuate.

Subscribe To "The Daily Flock" On YouTube For Cutting Ravens Coverage:

Add us as a preferred source on Google