Did the Ravens Fill All Needs on the Roster?
Following the draft, Jonas Shaffer of “The Banner Ravens Podcast” shared his thoughts on the Ravens’ roster holes and if they’ve been filled:
Left side of offensive line
“Ronnie Stanley is obviously the big piece there to get him back to be Lamar’s blindside protector. Good news to get him for even less than what would have been a crazy free agency market. Obviously, we don’t know how big a drop off or if there will be a drop off from Patrick Mekari to Andrew Vorhees. But I think based on what we saw when Vorhees made some snaps, got some reps, he seems that he could be a solid piece. The reviews from the coaches have been good. The reviews from his teammates have been good. Obviously, it’s going to be another matter when the pads come on and he’s going against Travis Jones and Nnamdi Madubuike and Broderick Washington, it’ll be another trial by fire. But at least there will be other options behind him.”
“I think any time that you bring back as many starters as are bringing back from the NFL’s best offense, it’s hard to be too miffed about what they did or did not do in free agency. Listen, they have solid depth behind them. You like what Tylan Wallace showed in spots last year. He caught almost everything thrown his way. You hope that there is that Year 2 leap from Devontez Walker, you hope that LaJohntay Wester can maybe give you something in the slot. I think they have to feel good about their receiving options. To say nothing of the incredible depth they have at tight end and at fullback. It does seem like more of their moves on that offensive side of the ball this year have been about setting Lamar up and setting this offense up for long-term success.”
“The biggest question that you have now for this [defense] is probably not the outside parts of the field and the downfield parts of the field, it’s that middle because we saw how much of an issue Roquan had at times. We saw Trenton Simpson certainly be lost a bunch of times. We had PFF’s Gordon McGuinness on and basically what the PFF data told him was that a lot of the problems that the Ravens had over the middle was not really Roquan’s fault, and so if you are betting on a bounce back from Roquan you can definitely find a lot of logic there. But still, you need to have another guy that knows where to go in zone drops, knows how to pattern match.”