Ranking the Deepest Position Groups on Baltimore Ravens Roster

The Ravens are notorious for not announcing their final roster until the league mandates it.

They love to play coy and pretend they are gaining some advantage by operating that way. As much as they used to hate Bill Belichick, they have shared Browns roots with him in the football operations to this day, a helluva lot in common with him in some odds ways.

Anyway, they won’t be in a hurry to clarify their roster cuts and roster while it is in flux. But we also know they don’t have a lot of mystery about what’s coming in terms of their 53-man roster, and this wasn’t a summer full of intrigue and the most eagerly anticipated aspects of this Week 1 roster will be based on what general manager Eric DeCosta is able to bring from the outside.

It’s seemed pretty clear which position groups were best positioned to succeed since the draft, and the Ravens have made a decided shift in how they allocate resources which obviously is reflected in the depth chart. They let a host of key pieces walk on offense – Tyler Linderbaum, Isaiah Likely, Charlie Kolar, Keaton Mitchell – and added a $30M/year pass rusher in Trey Hendrickson and almost every other key free agent piece was on that side of the ball (Calais Campbell, Chidobe Awuzie, etc) so it is what it is.

The defense needs to lead the way from the get-go, and the three deepest position groups seem pretty obvious to me:

1. Secondary

There is a reason smart people around the NFL think the Ravens should eat more money to move Marlon Humphrey, the 10th-highest paid corner in the NFL this season. They have so many other options and ascending players and a roster that is loaded with older guys in the final year of their deal who probably don’t have a future here.

Would make sense to address some of that now.

Nate Wigging needs to be a No. 1 corner and with a new scheme and what should be a far superior pass rush, that seems reasonable. They had five safeties throughout the summer who can play in the league right now. Young depth pieces like corners TJ Tampa and  Keyon Martin seem ready to do more than has ever been asked of them before.

Kyle Hamilton has Defensive MVP potential. This needs to be the foundation of the team.

2. Defensive Line

They sunk a long of assets into the defensive front. It has to work. Hendrickson has to stay healthy and Nnamdi Madubuike can hopefully return from neck surgery. Keeping Travis Jones was big deal, they have multiple run stuffers in John Jenkins and Broderick Washington, I believe seventh-rounder Rayshaun Benny is going to be a quality football player.

The used their second pick on an EDGE defender in Zion Young and Tavius Robinson has nice upside and this summer there were a series of potential revelations with this front as well with EDGE Ethan Burke and Kaimon Rucker flashing great stuff in the summer and the facility buzzing about what Trenton Simpson (I suspect he is out in space) and Mike Green can do.

Again, the defense needs to lead the way here. The entire organization made a concerted effort to be much better at the line of scrimmage. It has to be.’

3. Quarterback

This is a Lamar Jackson thing. Period.

You have Jackson, and you have a guy on the roster behind him who has won some games, you have an elite QB roster. That’s how it works. Jackson is healthy, he has taken to this offense by all accounts and the Ravens are silly enough to let him enter a walk year on his contract, given the $85M cap hit in 2027 and the no-trade and no-tag clause.

He’s auditioning for the rest of the league potentially, again.

I don’t love Snoop Huntley as the No. 2 given this is an entirely new offense for him, too. But Joe Fagnano has been the biggest shocker of the summer and he might have No. 2 QB potential at the best end of the roster (I’m guessing he is on the practice squad), which is huge potentially long-term.

Maybe this should be higher on the list, but it is a new offense with a coordinator who has never called a play before, so it’s third on the list for me.  

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