Evan Habeeb-USA TODAY Sports
Critics, fans and other analysts believe that with the injury bug attacking the Baltimore Ravens and their offseason losses, that all is lost in Charm City. Some even believe that the Ravens are going to go 6-10; granted, these predictions are coming from fans of other teams in the AFC North, and I am here to explain to you why Baltimore will pan out just fine this NFL season.
Big changes came down once the Lombardi Trophy was raised in Baltimore. Ray Lewis retired, Ed Reed tricked the Houston Texans into a lucrative deal and left town; six other starters either retired, or managed to find better deals elsewhere and one (Bernard Pollard) was even released. Fans were throwing things in anger and ready to march into M&T Bank Stadium and call for Ozzie Newsome‘s head.
Sure, the Ravens faithful have seen Newsome supplement free-agency losses in the past, but it was hard to believe this man had a plan after such painful losses to a once-dominant Defense. There is a reason Newsome makes the big bucks, though; he and Eric Decosta managed to reload the roster with talented youth for the 2013 season via the draft, a trade and free agency acquisitions.
With all of this talent coming into training camp, John Harbaugh had to be excited. Harbaugh got a faster, younger, manageable, nearly diva-less defense that he doesn’t have to debate with about padded practices. He also only lost one starter on offense in Matt Birk, and his starting QB was signed to a long-term deal that eliminated any contract distractions.
Then, disaster struck. Dennis Pitta was lost for the season due to a dislocated and fractured hip. Bryant Mckinnie came into camp overweight and can’t be trusted to hold the starting position at LT in the fans’ opinion. Harbaugh then finds out that his rookie fullback Kyle Juszczyk is horrible at run blocking. Next, Ed Dickson goes down temporarily with a hamstring injury, pushing the next man up in the TE corps.
To top it all off, starting running back Ray Rice rolls his ankle in practice.
With all of this bad news circling the headlines, everyone around the league assumes that the Ravens are not going to put up much of a fight this offseason. What they all fail to realize is that this is a resilient team. They managed to rebound from each one of the offseason losses, and training camp dilemmas are no different.
So what if Juszczyk can’t block — they re-signed Vonta Leach. Pitta is out for the season and Dickson is down with a hamstring injury? No problem, they signed a veteran in Visanthe Shiancoe. Ray Rice has an ankle injury — Bernard Pierce is fully capable of handling the workload temporarily.
No matter what the situation may be, Baltimore has a contingency plan. Come opening day against the Denver Broncos, you can be rest assured that there will be 22 starters wearing the shield of Baltimore, fully confident that they can walk into a sea of orange and cause an upset.
