The Ravens Need 1st Round Pick Vega Ioane To Play Like A Veteran Week 1 At Guard

This offensive line faces major questions, Colts former All Pro DeForest Buckner can still play and center could be a big problem for Baltimore

Jul 30, 2026; Owings Mills, MD, USA; Baltimore Ravens guard Vega Ioane (71) during practice at Under Armour Peformance Center. Mandatory Credit: Mitch Stringer-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The Baltimore Ravens lost four players on offense who contributed at least 400 snaps a year ago and face daunting questions on that side of the ball with a 30-year play caller who has never done the job before.

Their response to all of this, from a personnel standpoint, was to draft a guard with the 14th overall pick, pay a replacement-level guard $10M a year to start opposite him (John Simpson), and pin their hopes on 30-something tight end who has hit the wall and never scored a playoff touchdown, and a bunch of mid-to-late round rookie pass catchers. Or, more to the point, perhaps, they are expecting two time MVP Lamar Jackson – still without a contract extension that should have been done in March 2025 – to do more with less once again while novice coordinator Declan Doyle figures things out.

Regardless of this tapestry and how the pieces fit, in response to about 2,220 quality snaps leaving the building in the form of center Tyler Linderbaum, tight ends Isaiah Likely and Charlie Kolar, fullback Pat Ricard, and running back Keaton Mitchell – the transactional reflex was to select massive interior lineman Vega Ioane (Penn State) with their first back. Beyond that they managed to somehow do nothing with their other 10 draft selections to boost the offensive line, brought in an injured veteran center very late (Ethan Pocic) who they still aren’t sure can actually play in the opener, while they wait and see if mercurial – and not very good – starting receiver Rashod Bateman ends up disciplined by the NFL for three charges of family violence.

If you think any of this is lost on Ioane, or Doye for that matter, then you don’t know how things work. This youngster is going to have to be one of their best linemen right away, and he is going to be tested right away, with elite defensive tackle DeForest Buckner still anchoring the Colts defensive line a week from now.

"As everybody knows, it is definitely a lot of pressure,” Ioane said before the team broke for Labor Day weekend. “A lot of expectations and things like that, but it is out of my control. All I can do is go out there, play ball. make the guys I play next to trust me, knowing that I will be out there doing the best I can, knowing what I am doing. But at the end of the day, it is just playing ball."

That trust factor is huge and the Ravens coaching staff is banking on the preseason not mattering in that regard, because outside of a smattering of snaps in joint practices with other teams, this five-man unit – that had best be markedly better than the disaster general manager Eric DeCosta built last year – hasn’t ever been together in a real game situation when the QB gets hit, let alone thrived.

“I do not know what it is going to look like Week 1,” DeCosta said last week, “because I have not seen what it is going to look like yet. 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."

Everything Is Brand New

Ioane never played a snap with Pocic in the preseason games and he played 17 with journeyman Jovaughn Gwyn at center and he played no snaps next to right tackle Roger Rosengarten. So there’s that. Ioane mentioned back-up center Danny Pinter (on season ending IR since last month) as someone who was really helping him come along, and he knows Week 1 is going to be a bit of a baptism by fire.

“That is the whole part of playing this game,” Ioane said of the challenge that awaits. “You go against guys who have been in the league for 10 years, 10-plus, things like that. But going against an opponent like that is going to be a good thing for me.

“Going to be a challenge throughout the entire game, but I am a first-round pick. The team trusted me to be their first pick, so I just have to go out there and perform and prove the team right."

There is every reason to believe this young man is going to become a perennial All-Pro candidate. Some evaluators I trust around the league believe, if the Ravens have solid center play, that could happen as soon as 2026. “I told you, the comp for me is Quenton Nelson,” one longtime personnel evaluator said who watched Ioane quite a bit in college and believes he has rare traits that make a Canton, Ohio trip not out of the question despite the un-sexy position he plays.

But there are a lot of variables in the interim.

The offense Doyle helped install in Chicago last year, under first-year head coach Ben Johnson, suffered mightily from pre-snap and procedural issues into November. There is so much newness here in tempo and cadence and emphasis on under-center operation that will put heavy pressure immediately on the interior offensive line (it’s a serious concern for NFL analyst Cynthia Frelund, who usually quite bullish on the Ravens, explained on "The Daily Flock."). The Ravens have been the most plodding offense in the NFL in terms of when the ball is snapped during Jackson’s career, but that is changing and the line needs to be ready for it.

“There is certainly an emphasis on the tempo in which we break the huddle, the cadence we use,” Doyle said this summer. “That stuff is all a huge piece to what happens post-snap."

The big bodies up front must be aligned and of one mind, and that only comes with repetitions. Expect the Colts to throw some twists and stunts at this group and perhaps to borrow heavily from some of what Vikings coordinator Brian Flores did in the preseason that caused so many problems for the Ravens linemen (albeit without the starting tackles dressed for the game).

On the bright side, Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson is 9-1 all-time against Colts defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo (previously with the Bengals), excelling both running and passing). And he’s as fresh and healthy as he’ll be all season before he takes his first hit (full breakdown on Lamar vs Anarumo coming right here Monday morning).

Jackson has always been the magic elixir. And for all that is new on his side of the ball, with John Harbaugh finally gone, that hasn't changed one bit.

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