ExtremeRavens Posted September 24 Posted September 24 At 6-foot-8, 370 pounds, it’s impossible for Daniel Faalele to hide. The unusual size of the Ravens’ right guard also makes him an easy target for keyboard warriors. “Unfortunately, when he gets beat, he looks bad,” former NFL guard Jon Feliciano, who played 10 years for four teams before retiring in February, said. “That doesn’t help.” The Buffalo Bills in Week 1. The Cleveland Browns in Week 2. Even a preseason game against the Indianapolis Colts. Each included a dubious and viral mishap for the fourth-year, fourth-round draft pick out of Minnesota via Australia that has made him a lightning rod for fans’ wrath on social media and beyond. An interesting rep here from Daniel Faalele on this Lamar Jackson sack pic.twitter.com/SvXdU1mF2p — Kevin Oestreicher (@koestreicher34) September 15, 2025 Baltimore’s disastrous loss to the Detroit Lions on Monday night at M&T Bank Stadium, where quarterback Lamar Jackson was sacked a career-high tying seven times, pressured an astounding 30 and the Ravens managed a paltry 85 rushing yards on 19 carries, had its moments, too. Notably, veteran defensive end Al-Quadin Muhammad, who last year at this time was on his couch after being released from his fourth team in eight years, tallied three sacks and five pressures while running through Faalele, second-year right tackle Roger Rosengarten and Pro Bowl left tackle Ronnie Stanley and center Tyler Linderbaum. He got a game ball. It was a team effort — by the Ravens. Faalele, for all his detractors, was also not the worst performer among the group on the evening. That distinction went to Rosengarten, at least by Pro Football Focus standards, with a 53.3 grade for pass blocking that included six pressures allowed and an even more dismal mark of 44 for run blocking. Vorhees has likewise struggled from week to week. Faalele, meanwhile, was graded the best pass blocking guard in the league (minimum 50% snaps) going into the week (though he was 48th in run blocking) and evaluated out similarly against the Lions in what is just his second season at the position after switching from tackle. It’s not as bad as it has at times looked, and the explanation isn’t so simple, either. “Inside is completely different,” former Colts center and current ESPN analyst Jeff Saturday said in Faalele’s defense. “At tackle, 95% of the time, the dude walks up and that’s your guy. There are not a whole lot of decisions that need to be made.” Adds Feliciano: “While you’re not playing faster dudes inside, everything happens quicker because of the proximity of where everyone is. At tackle, you can get knocked back a little bit and be OK. But if you get knocked back inside, you’re in the quarterback’s lap and he can feel it and see it more. On the edge, it’s a lot more pretty. Defensive ends or outside linebackers are always working these pretty pass rush moves. Inside, most of the guys are using power.” If anything, both men say, Faalele is also merely a symptom of a larger, if not existential, problem. Or at least, a Ravens one that spans financial, quality control and roster construction issues. Adetomiwa Adebawore knocking Daniel Faalele over for the sack last night. Tomi was an animal against the Ravens pic.twitter.com/eMq44X3cvt — Zach Hicks (@ZachHicks2) August 8, 2025 Beginning with the first, you get what you pay for in the NFL. Just ask last season’s Super Bowl participants, the champion Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs, who ranked first and second in offensive line spending in 2024, respectively. The same is true again in 2025. Then there is Baltimore. With four players still on rookie contracts, only three teams — the New York Jets, Pittsburgh Steelers and Seattle Seahawks — have invested fewer dollars on average per year than the Ravens in their offensive line, according to SpoTrac. And that’s with Stanley having signed a three-year, $60 million extension this past offseason. Those are the hard pains of a salary cap league in which Baltimore’s quarterback and two-time NFL Most Valuable Player accounts for more than 15% of the Ravens’ salary cap, a math problem that will only continue to grow, perhaps even more complex in the years ahead. There are plenty of other expensive players too, including Roquan Smith, Nnamdi Madubuike, Marlon Humphrey, Kyle Hamilton and Derrick Henry. Put another way, something has to give, and it is the offensive line. Though the organization is steadfast in its belief of building a tough and strong group up front, the financial constraints make it tough to do so through free agency or trade, something general manager Eric DeCosta has previously acknowledged. That has made it imperative that the Ravens hit on their (inexpensive) draft picks. Sometimes, they have. See Stanley and Linderbaum, though both were also first-round selections in 2016 and 2022, respectively. Sometimes, not so much. See much maligned reserve Ben Cleveland, a third-round pick in 2021 who has fallen out of favor and on Monday night whiffed on a critical block at the Lions’ goal line, and this year’s third-round selection tackle Emery Jones Jr., who has still yet to practice because of shoulder surgery. Hell of a rep here by Ben Cleveland… pic.twitter.com/MUAUx4J7Mu — SleeperRavens (@SleeperRavenss) September 23, 2025 It also perhaps explains why coach John Harbaugh has remained bullish on Vorhees and Faalele through the rough patches and why Linderbaum says he believes Faalele has all the talent to one day be a Pro Bowl guard. “He just needs to keep chasing consistency,” Harbaugh said of Vorhees. “With pass protection things, he’s had some really good reps, and he’s had some reps where he has gotten outside of his center of gravity a little bit.” What does he like about Faalele? “I like the fact that he’s a big, strong guy, moves his feet well. He bends. He’s getting better at using his hands. I think he’s been doing a really good job in pass protection for the most part. Run blocking has been good, but he needs to be more consistent in both areas. … He’s had some bad plays that you’re talking about, probably, that haven’t looked great, but he’s a good football player. He is getting better, and he is young. Hopefully, he’ll continue to improve.” Both will need to for the Ravens’ chances to as well, but there are inherent concerns that linger. Offensive guard Daniel Faalele participates in a blocking drill at practice earlier this month. Faalele's performance through three games has angered some Ravens fans, but advanced metrics paint a better picture than what social media clips suggest. (Kevin Richardson/Staff) Feliciano spent part of his career in Buffalo, where he blocked for another mobile, extend-the-play quarterback, Josh Allen. So he can relate to what Jackson’s blockers are tasked with. “There’s times where it’s hard to know where he is back there,” Feliciano said of the quarterback. “There are times where you’re blocking a guy and you think you’re perfectly fine and that he’s back in a normal quarterback position, but he’s not. Then you give up a quarterback hit, a pressure or worse-case scenario, a sack. It is a double-edged sword because there are times when you get beat and Josh or Lamar will make you right.” Saturday, on the other hand, had no such concerns while blocking for one of the more stationary quarterbacks in NFL history, Peyton Manning. “I knew where he was gonna be every play,” Saturday said. “I knew if he was gonna be behind me, if he was gonna be behind the right tackle. I knew how many seconds before the ball was gonna come out. I knew all of that stuff. It was so precise. “When you get extend-the-play quarterbacks, there’s an inherent risk to extending plays all the time. What ends up happening is guys get in a mentality of ‘OK I’m gonna get my guy for one one-thousand, two one-thousand, then my guy is gonna scramble. You don’t wanna get called for a hold, so you push off or let the guy go because you don’t always know where you’re guy is gonna be. Those two things together make it very difficult, and that’s why you see quarterbacks getting hit a bunch.” It is also the job, and there’s data to suggest that offensive line play across the league, save for a few teams, isn’t what it once was. Take Week 3, when five starting quarterbacks were unable to play because of injuries. Not all were results of the blocking or lack thereof in front of them, but good line play has become far more the exception than the norm. The reasons are myriad. “This goes from high school all the way up — we don’t teach the techniques and fundamentals I was taught,” Saturday said. “We teach a lot more who to get than how to get.” But getting someone, anyone, is paramount. Yet, it is something Baltimore has often struggled with. Faalele wandering what seems to be aimlessly on at least two occasions. Vorhees getting beat inside by Detroit rookie Tyleik Williams, which led to a sack on a first-and-10 from the Lions’ 20-yard line early in the fourth quarter. No one picking up Aidan Hutchinson as he raced in and then circled behind Henry to rip the ball from his arm for a critical turnover later in the same quarter. Examples were abundant Monday night and have been through the first three weeks of the season. “Some stuff we need to clean up assignment-wise or are not doing the correct thing on what we need to do playbook-wise, and then obviously clean up some technique stuff,” Linderbaum said last week, with a noticeable edge among the group in the locker room. He also said the goal, of course, is to keep Jackson as “clean as possible” so he doesn’t have to scramble around. So far, it has been easier said than done. Not that the solution is all that complicated, for him or anyone else on the offensive line. “Pretty simple,” Linderbaum said. “Just block your guy as long as you can.” Have a news tip? Contact Brian Wacker at bwacker@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/brianwacker1. Ravens offensive lineman Ben Cleveland, left, gets water as teammate Daniel Faalele looks on during a 2024 practice. The two guards have had their ups and downs through the first three games of 2025, with both making mistakes that drew significant criticism from fans online. (Kevin Richardson/Staff) View the full article Quote
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