Ravens News 7/17: Best of the Best

Ranking Ravens’ biggest training camp storylines as veterans prepare to report

Jeff Zrebiec, The Athletic

How will Zach Orr adapt to a new job and new personnel?

Baltimore’s defensive coaches and players performed at an elite level last season. The Ravens had one of the top defenses in the league, and that group wasn’t the reason they came up short in the AFC championship loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. The defections began just days after that defeat. Defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald became the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks. Key assistants Anthony Weaver and Dennard Wilson left for promotions elsewhere.

Orr, a 32-year-old whose playing career ended prematurely because of a neck condition and who formerly was the team’s inside linebackers coach, was a relatively surprising choice to succeed Macdonald. He’s a natural leader with a ton of energy and charisma. He has the support of the locker room and is close with standouts Roquan Smith and Kyle Hamilton. He also understands the organization’s high defensive standard. Still, this is a major step up for a young coach who has never called plays.

Orr’s challenge will be compounded by the losses of linebackers Jadeveon Clowney and Patrick Queen, and defensive backs Ronald Darby and Geno Stone. Orr and his staff have to make sure young players like outside linebackers Odafe Oweh and David Ojabo, inside linebacker Trenton Simpson and cornerback Nate Wiggins are ready to contribute immediately. Major scheme and philosophy changes aren’t expected, but Orr will add wrinkles and have his own play-calling ways.

Macdonald took his lumps early. The Ravens face the Chiefs, Dallas Cowboys, Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals within the first five weeks of the season, so Orr won’t have much of a grace period.

5 Questions: Does Lamar Jackson Reach His Peak in Year 2 With Todd Monken?

Clifton Brown, BaltimoreRavens.com

Will Jackson take greater command of the offense?

There’s only one significant milestone left for Jackson to achieve – winning a Super Bowl.

Capturing a Lombardi Trophy may require the 27-year-old Jackson to have his best season, even better than his two MVP seasons.

Entering Year 2 with Monken and Year 7 in the NFL, Jackson’s evolution goes beyond just his throwing and running. Coaches will be watching Jackson’s pre-snap decision making during training camp, monitoring how often he makes successful audibles and varies his cadence to keep pass rushers off balance.

It’s part of the process for all great quarterbacks. The better Jackson becomes at orchestrating the offense and controlling what will happen before the snap, the better he will become at controlling the game after the snap.

“How can we push that even further and give him more responsibilities within the offense and doing more things that he likes to do and listening to him and things that he likes and building around that,” Quarterbacks Coach Tee Martin said at mandatory minicamp. “We’re off to a good start, and [I’m] looking forward to training camp to really get to the identity that we want to have before the first game.”

Jackson had enormous success in his first year directing Monken’s system and led Baltimore to the best record in the NFL. Given more freedom to change plays and route concepts at the line of scrimmage, Jackson set career highs in completion percentage (67.2) and passing yards (3,678).

Every opponent focuses on stopping Jackson, and he has spent his entire career facing a myriad of strategies designed to stop him. He’ll be challenged again by creative blitzes and coverages, but a year under his belt in Monken’s system puts Jackson far ahead of where he was last summer.

Execs, coaches, scouts rank NFL’s top 10 off-ball linebackers for 2024

Jeremy Fowler, ESPN

2. Roquan Smith, Baltimore Ravens

Highest ranking: 1 | Lowest ranking: 2

Age: 27 | Last year’s ranking: 2

The emotional leader for one of the league’s best defenses, Smith produced a career-high eight pass deflections to go with 158 tackles.

His 39% run stop win rate tied for 10th among linebackers.

“Tremendous blitzer, very physical, plays with excellent power and leverage,” a veteran AFC coach said. “Better run player than pass player in my opinion. But he covers a ton of ground in a hurry, great burst. Couldn’t be in a better spot than Baltimore.”

Smith is coming off his second consecutive first-team All-Pro season.

PFF50: The 50 best players in the NFL ahead of the 2024 season

Sam Monson, PFF

31. RB DERRICK HENRY, BALTIMORE RAVENS

Derrick Henry’s production has declined over the past two seasons, but he has not declined. Instead, what we witnessed was the effect the worst offensive line in football can have on even an elite running back. Last season, Henry still averaged 3.3 yards per carry after contact and broke 57 tackles, earning a 90.1 PFF grade, but Tennessee’s blocking averaged only 0.9 yards before contact, ranking 30th in the league. Prepare for Henry’s production to bounce back significantly in Baltimore.

33. LB ROQUAN SMITH, BALTIMORE RAVENS

Since arriving in Baltimore, Roquan Smith has been as good as any linebacker in football, and he built on that performance in 2023. He tallied seven pass breakups in the regular season, showing the coverage skills that made him such an enticing prospect at draft time back in 2018. Smith has also been one of the more efficient tacklers in the game, but he will have to do it in 2024 with a new defensive coach and partner beside him after Mike Macdonald left for Seattle and Patrick Queen departed in free agency.

2024 NFL ‘Triplets,’ rankings, Part II: Packers, Texans make huge leaps; Chiefs reclaim the top spot

Jared Dubin, CBS Sports

Tier 1: Best of the Best

2. Baltimore Ravens (Avg: 3.4, High: 1, Low: 11)

Last year: 8th

QB: Lamar Jackson RB: Derrick Henry TE: Mark Andrews

The reigning MVP got himself a new backfield partner. Henry is old for a running back (30), has carried the ball 1,529 times over the last five years, and hit a career-low of 4.2 yards per carry in 2023. But he’s also a physical marvel, and like Barkley, has not played behind a good line or with a quarterback as good as Lamar. He’s still the type of guy who needs only a sliver of space to devastate a defense. And Andrews is one of the best pass-catching tight ends in the league, and likely still Jackson’s top target, even with the emergence of Zay Flowers.