The Baltimore Ravens officially kick off their 2019 training camp on July 17 when the rookies show up. The veterans report on July 24 and training camp will be fully underway. But with training camp comes a few concerns.
As Baltimore prepares for the regular season, they’ll be looking to put polish on everything they’re doing. However, they’ll be paying special attention to a few key areas as the biggest concerns they need to fix before the season starts.
Here are the areas of concern Baltimore has heading into the Ravens’ 2019 training camp:
Lamar Jackson’s consistency:
Jackson has spent quite a bit of this offseason working on his mechanics and getting together with his wide receivers in order to improve. While Jackson showed steady improvements at OTAs and mandatory minicamp, he was still far too inconsistent as a passer.
We saw some flashes last season from Jackson where he’d be pinpoint accurate with a throw. We’ve seen him throw the ball deep, hit a receiver over the middle in stride, or look off a defender and make them pay. But we’ve also seen him one-hop a pass to a wide-open Willie Snead and throw balls so high they went into the stands.
If the Ravens are going to do very much this season, it’s going to come on Jackson’s arm. Though Jackson is a unique player capable of picking up large chunks of yards on the ground, defenses are going to start catering to that far more, looking to make Jackson beat them. If he can’t become more consistent on his throws, that defensive strategy will prove wise.
However, if Jackson can become steadier and improve his mechanics to throw passes consistently, he’ll strike fear in defenses. His rushing ability will force defenders to keep an eye on him in the backfield, which should give the receivers a little more separation. Jackson being able to nail those passes will result in points on the board. But it all starts at training camp.
Linebacker depth:
With the departure of linebacker C.J. Mosley in free agency, the Ravens suddenly had a question mark in the center of their defense for the first time in quite a while. Mosley’s role will be filled by Patrick Onwuasor, who is expected to step up nicely in 2019 and become a true leader for the defense. But it naturally takes away some of Baltimore’s depth at linebacker.
Kenny Young and Chris Board are set to compete at training camp for the starting job next to Onwuasor. But that’s about where the depth ends for the Ravens. We’ll see hybrid defensive back Anthony Levine Sr. bounce down to inside linebacker as well but they’re still dangerously thin for such a key position.
One injury could create a massive hole in the center of Baltimore’s defense. The Ravens are clearly concerned about their depth too, working out former Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Vincent Rey before training camp. The coaching staff will be on the lookout for unknown players stepping up. And if no one does, don’t be shocked to see Baltimore head to free agency to find someone to bolster the unit.
Wide receiver’s hands:
This has been the bane of the Ravens’ offense for quite some time. This offseason marks the second-consecutive season Baltimore has completely blown up their wide receiver corps in an effort to improve and it all really starts with their hands.
The Ravens had a total of 32 drops last season — far too many (5.8% of Baltimore’s total throws) for a team that doesn’t pass terribly often. Gone are the two most responsible: John Brown and Michael Crabtree. But the Ravens did this last offseason as well, cutting Mike Wallace, Jeremy Maclin and Breshad Perriman.
This season, Baltimore is going with a younger unit as a whole. While that hopefully allows the Ravens to train bad habits from the group, it also doesn’t provide a lot of proven production either. Of the 13 wide receivers on the roster right now, only five have ever caught a regular-season pass before. In addition, Snead wasn’t exempt from bad drops last season.
First-round pick Marquise Brown comes to Baltimore as a hit or miss prospect. He had one of the highest catch rates when targeted among the wide receivers in the 2019 NFL draft, catching 70.2% of his passes, according to SB Nation’s Bill Connelly. However, he also had seven drops last season, leading the group, according to PFF.
The Ravens will need to see more sure-handed receivers this season if they wish to do well offensively. It’s especially important in the continued development of Jackson at quarterback as well. We’ll see just how well the group is faring when training camp kicks off later in July.
Pass rush consistency:
Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti said he didn’t expect outside linebacker Terrell Suggs to leave this offseason. That surprise loss teamed up with Za’Darius Smith leaving to sign with the Green Bay Packers hurts quite a bit. Baltimore was downright mediocre last year in generating a pass rush and losing their two more productive edge defenders is something that can’t be easily replaced.
There’s some hope, however, in Matthew Judon. Judon has 15 sacks over the last two seasons and will get more playing time as the de facto leader of the outside linebackers in 2019. But Judon hasn’t really been consistent throughout his career. Of those 15 sacks, seven of them come in just three games — meaning it took 29 games to get another eight sacks.
Behind Judon is a lot of disappointment and inexperience. Tyus Bowser and Tim Williams haven’t panned out quite yet, leading the Ravens to sign Shane Ray and Pernell McPhee in free agency. But both Ray and McPhee have been lackluster in recent years due to injuries piling up. Rookie third-round pick Jaylon Ferguson broke Suggs’ NCAA sacks record but is unproven in the NFL.
Baltimore will see a lot of high-flying offenses this season and needs their pass rush to be potent. Judon is a good start but there needs to be at least one other player who steps up and can generate a pass rush consistently or the Ravens’ deep secondary is going to essentially face a firing squad all year long.
New offensive scheme:
Gone is Marty Mornhinweg at offensive coordinator and in is Greg Roman. With Roman’s promotion, he’s developed a completely new offensive scheme to take advantage of Jackson’s unique skill set at quarterback. But Roman noted that they’ve “literally redefining everything,” which is a cause for concern all by itself.
The Ravens desperately needed a new offensive scheme and this is ultimately a real positive in the long run. They’ve been predictable and underwhelming for far too many years. But in the short term, Roman’s new scheme is just one more thing the offensive players need to learn. When considering how many new players Baltimore brought in on offense this offseason combined with a second-year quarterback still trying to learn how to throw consistently, it’s a lot to take in.
Jackson told reporters at OTAs that he didn’t know a whole new scheme was being developed. That means he needs to improve his mechanics at the same time he’s learning a completely new language and the specifics of every play. A good offense is a finely-tuned thing where all 11 players know what the other 10 are going to do. One player slipping up anywhere on the field can completely kill a play or cause a turnover. If that doesn’t concern you, it really should.
The hope is that Jackson getting together with his teammates often this offseason has given them the much-needed extra snaps to learn the offense. But training camp is where we’ll really see more of the playbook installed and just how the offense copes with it. If we see a bunch of confusion throughout training camp, Baltimore might enter Week 1 with only a small fraction of the offense actually installed and being utilized, which would once again make them predictable and lackluster.
Health:
Health has been an ongoing concern for the Ravens for years now. Since 2014, Baltimore has placed 93 players on injured reserve, at a rate of nearly 19 per season. Having 19 players on injured reserve in any single season is a lot, but to consistently see more than a third of your 53-man roster be injured for the year is an especially hard pill to swallow.
Training camp shouldn’t be the first time players are really working out but as we saw at minicamp, not every player is going to show up in tip-top shape. That opens players up to injuring themselves or potentially injuring others. But even if every player is at the peak of fitness, overworking them in Baltimore’s wet heat can cause problems too.
Coach John Harbaugh has experimented with how hard and often he works the players at training camp and when he gives them breaks. But it’s a fine line between making sure the players are truly conditioned enough for a grueling regular season and doing too much. Paying attention to those things throughout training camp and being cautious with little injuries could prevent bigger ones from happening.
But some of the injury bug is simply just bad luck. The Ravens have done practically everything to help themselves. They’ve changed the field at the Under Armour Performance Center. They’ve changed strength and conditioning coaches. There have been personnel moves among the training staff. Yet, injuries still happen.
Hopefully, Harbaugh and company ride that razor-thin line well at training camp and Baltimore just gets luckier than they have been in previous years. Because even the most prepared and stacked rosters can get obliterated in a single play.
