Trade Huntley?

In 2022, the Ravens have been as cautious and conservative as ever while trying to steer clear of the injury bug. Yet despite all of their efforts, the bug is back and this time around the victims are Ja’Wuan James and Kyle Fuller.

James’ injury can’t be shocking to anyone. Prior to Sunday’s game at MetLife Stadium, the Atlanta, GA native had not taken a regular season snap since December 8, 2019, a span of 1,007 days, due to a variety of injuries. James re-injured the same Achilles against the Jets that put him down in 2021. Now he’s out for 2022.

Fuller on the other hand, has been a model of durability, missing just one game in his career which just entered its eighth season. He’ll miss his second on Sunday as the Ravens host the Dolphins at The Bank. Fuller is done for the 2022 season after suffering a torn ACL injury while falling to the turf during the fourth quarter.

After the devastating injuries of 2021, perhaps you are wondering about the Ravens strength and conditioning trainers. Players like Tampa’s Chris Godwin can return to the field this past Sunday night after suffering an ACL tear on December 19, 2021, just 265 days ago. Meanwhile J.K. Dobbins (8/29/21) and Marcus Peters (9/9/21) remain sideline. It makes you wonder what is going on inside the Ravens medical tent.

The severity of injuries vary and that’s apparently the case with the aforementioned players. So is it just a string of bad luck for the Ravens or is there something uniquely different, uniquely worse about the way the Ravens prepare their players for the season?

To try and change their string of bad luck as it relates to injuries, this past offseason the Ravens hired Adrian Dixon, who last year, according to the Baltimore Sun, won Assistant Athletic Trainer of the Year honors from the Professional Football Athletic Trainers Society. Dixon has an impeccable reputation and his specialty is in rehab programs. Maybe it’s time to take a deep breath and trust the process…for now.

Sloppy Play

The first half of the Ravens game against the Jets was sloppy on both sides of the ball. To their credit the Ravens seemed to adjust after intermission and they looked a bit sharper. But the Ravens weren’t alone in the sloppiness department. A look around the league provides evidence that Game 1 of the NFL season in some ways, has become the replacement for Game 3 of the preseason.

You may recall that in the past, teams gave their starters a series or two during the first preseason game; a quarter, maybe two in the second; and then in the third preseason game, starters would go the first half and then put a bow on the fake games while watching in street clothes from the sidelines for preseason game 4. This season, as part of an effort to keep players healthy, many starters didn’t take a single snap during the three preseason games.

Sloppy play is expected. And we’ll probably see a bit more of that.

Running Game

The Ravens rely heavily on the running game. Play physical football; control the clock; get a lead; take the air out of the football and make opponents one-dimensional. It was a strategy that worked brilliantly in 2019 when the Ravens finished the regular season (14-2). But offensive coordinator Greg Roman’s rushing attack has been extremely sluggish throughout the preseason and that spilled into Game 1 of the regular season.

The timing isn’t there. The coordinated movement in the offensive line is off. Nick Boyle, a vital cog in the attack, is apparently still trying to get back to form following that brutal knee injury in New England back in 2020. And, perhaps the required rapport between Lamar Jackson and the new running backs isn’t quite what it needs to be just yet at the mesh point. But until all of that comes together via repetition, the Ravens offense will need to find other ways to produce points.

[TALE OF THE TAPE: What happened to the Ravens run game v. Jets?]

Pass Rush

Where would the Ravens pass rush come from? That was a big unanswered question heading into the 2022 season. Last season, Wink Martindale was criticized for being too predictable and that ripped at the fabric of the team’s pass rush potential. But now there’s a new defensive sheriff in town. And let’s not dismiss the Ravens’ accomplishments during this past Sunday’s game v. the Jets, just because it was Gang Green. New York has invested quite a bit in their offensive front.

Jets OL yesterday:

LT George Fant: $11.1M
LG Laken Tomlinson: $17.3M
C Connor McGovern: $10.3M
RG Alijah Vera-Tucker: $5.1M + 1/14 pick in 2021
RT Max “just another guy” Mitchell: $0.9 M

That’s who the Ravens DL pushed around without Travis Jones.

Good news for #RavensFlock

— Ken McKusick (@FilmstudyRavens) September 12, 2022

The Ravens got a terrific push from the IDL, specifically Justin Madubuike, Michael Pierce, Broderick Washington and Calais Campbell. They pressured Joe Flacco 30 times. Let that sink in. And they did it with a variety of stunts up front that were missing from last season schematic approach to disrupting the quarterback.

If you had any doubt about the transition at defensive coordinator from Wink to Mike Macdonald, then Sunday’s game should at least provide a temporary reprieve. Macdonald has the look of being a very good DC. So far…

Pressures by #Ravens DL:
Houston – 6
Oweh – 5
Madubuike – 5
Pierce – 4
Washington – 2
Campbell – 2

Queen – 4#RavensFlock

— Cole Jackson (@ColeJacksonFB) September 12, 2022

The Play Clock

Against the Jets, the Ravens were slow out of the huddle and regularly bumped up against “0” on the play clock. The offense will have to clean that up as they prepare for the Miami Dolphins. You may recall that the last season, the Dolphins perplexed Lamar with an array of looks and blitz packages designed to confuse and abuse a then, challenged offensive line. There’s no reason to expect any less from Miami this Sunday and a more efficient approach to the line of scrimmage is a must for the Ravens in order for Lamar to make the necessary pre-snap adjustments.

Yesterday when asked by The Athletic’s Jeff Zrebiec about the painfully slow break from the huddle, John Harbaugh shared the following:

“Well, we were doing more of our ‘gameplan’ play call. So, we were running more of our ‘call them out’ plays, more of our plays that are good against everything. There weren’t too many specific ‘defensive-beater’ plays that were in there. There were some dual calls that can be one play or the other; we’re looking for man or zone or looking for a certain front or going a direction; those get a little more lengthy. And sometimes the ‘gameplan’ calls get a little more lengthy because they’re ‘formationed up’ – we’ve got motions and formations, and they has to be communicated – so, I think that contributes to it. We didn’t have as many as the one-word, fast calls as we have in some games, because we just didn’t know what we were going to get. We had to kind of be ready, because you can put the wrong thing up, and all of a sudden, you can really look bad. And we didn’t want to have negative plays in the game; we didn’t want to get hit seven yards in the backfield on a sweep because it was just the wrong type of a play. So, I would attribute it to that. But I also would say that we need to operate quicker from … The whole thing can be quicker, and we have to look at the play calls a little bit.”

In other words, they need to get to the line quicker.

Huntley Trade Bait?

Dak Prescott injured his throwing hand against the Tampa Bucs on Sunday night and he’ll miss the next 6-8 weeks after surgery to repair the injury. ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky suggested a potential solution to save Dallas’ season:

“Trade for Tyler Huntley. If I was the Dallas Cowboys, that would be the phone call I would make. It would not be to San Francisco for Jimmy Garoppolo, I would call Baltimore and trade for Tyler Huntley.

“If they don’t make a move, their season is over. But their upcoming schedule is not awful, this is not a division that is absolutely loaded nor a conference that is incredibly high-end. Tyler Huntley is a player who has proven to be a pretty good talent… The [Cowboys’] offensive line could not protect, he’s mobile enough to cover that up… If they [trade for Huntley,] they have a chance to save the season.”

If it was only that easy Dan…

But let’s assume that Jerry Jones does ring GM Eric DeCosta and enquires about Huntley. If you are EDC, what would it take to make such a trade happen?

Huntley will be a Restricted Free Agent following the 2022 season and as an undrafted player, the Ravens will have to offer him a second-round tender in order to receive any compensation for the former first-team All-Pac-12 QB. Should a team offer more for Huntley than the second-round tender (currently $3.384M), the Ravens would get the acquiring team’s second round pick. So with that in mind, a “2” would likely be EDC’s asking price.

Would you pull that trigger?

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