ExtremeRavens Posted 9 hours ago Posted 9 hours ago The Ravens added bulk and depth over the weekend during the annual NFL draft, but it remains to be seen if any of the linemen (three offensive and one defensive) will have an immediate impact. The NFL season can be long and grueling, especially if a team is fortunate enough to play in the Super Bowl. Coaching legend Bill Belichick, now at the University of North Carolina, always said that a team can never have enough defensive linemen. The Ravens have seven on the roster, and one of those is undersized Aeneas Peebles, a 6-foot, 282-pound defensive tackle taken in the sixth round out of Virginia Tech. Peebles might have been a better option in years past, but 6-foot, 345-pound run-stopping nose guard Michael Pierce retired over a month ago, leaving the Ravens with one player — 6-4, 325-pound Travis Jones — in that class. The position is also brutal on the body because of the constant double teams and angle blocking. Jones suffered an ankle injury in Week 7 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and wasn’t quite the same for the rest of the season. Peebles might help in passing situations because of his quickness, but the Ravens still need another big body up front. “I think we got some great football players at important positions, guys that can make plays on the football, guys who can get to the quarterback,” Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta said. “I think that’s great, and probably the one thing we couldn’t do is get that big wide-body-type guy, and I think that’s something that we’ll assess and address after the draft, and we’re already starting to talk about that, so we’re aware of that. “Yes, just a big first- and second-down run-stuffing type of guy. We had a couple of guys late that got picked in late [rounds] in the draft that we were targeting potentially, and they got picked. But I think we do have some options with street free agents.” The same can be said about the three offensive linemen chosen over the weekend. Offensive tackle Emery Jones Jr. was a solid choice taken in the third round out of LSU, but offensive tackle Carson Vinson was a fifth-round selection from Alabama A&M and LSU guard Garrett Dellinger was a seventh-round pick. At least with Jones, he could be a stop-gap player filling in for a couple of games, but Vinson and Dellinger are basically projects who might end up on the practice squad. Jones gives the Ravens options. He can play either guard or tackle, even though the transition is tough for a player who has been on the right or left side his entire career. Jones, though, is a mauler who fits the Ravens’ criteria of being versatile. Baltimore also signed left tackle Ronnie Stanley to a three-year, $60 million contract before free agency began. He played well in 2024 after rebuilding the lower half of his body during the offseason, but there will always be questions about him being injury-prone after missing 36 regular-season games from 2020 to 2023 because of ankle and knee ailments. So, if Stanley goes down, the Ravens could move second-year right tackle Roger Rosengarten to the left side, but do they insert right guard Daniel Faalele back to his more natural position of right tackle, or do they put Jones in at right guard? Those are situations the Ravens can work out. A bigger question is if Andrew Vorhees can start at left guard in place of Patrick Mekari, who signed with the Jaguars as a free agent. Vorhees was a starter until he injured his ankle early in the season, and he never got back on the field after Mekari took over. The Ravens have fewer options among other starting offensive linemen outside of Ben Cleveland, the backup right guard. Vinson is 6-7 and 314 pounds. There have been others who have played in similar smaller conferences, but former Ravens such as center Wally Williams and the late Orlando Brown Sr. weren’t ready until after a couple of years in the league. Dellinger is a seventh-round pick, and that says it all. Every year, there are always questions about the Ravens’ interior lines, especially on the offensive side of the ball. Last year, the offensive line was in flux with Stanley coming back from injury, Vorhees and Faalele possibly starting at guard, and Rosengarten backing up an injury-prone Mekari. There are fewer questions this season, but they are still out there. The great neutralizer in all of this is quarterback Lamar Jackson, who can make an ineffective pass-blocking offensive line look much better. But even he might struggle more this season. The Ravens don’t have a big run stopper on defense, and they lack depth on the offensive line. Oh well, it’s business as usual for the Ravens. Have a news tip? Contact Mike Preston at epreston@baltsun.com, 410-332-6467 and x.com/MikePrestonSun. Emery Jones Jr., shown at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis in February, gives the Ravens options on their offensive line. (George Walker IV/AP file) View the full article Quote
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