Monday, April 26, 2010

An Early Guess: Ravens 53 Man Roster!

With the draft behind us, I thought I’d give the Ravens 53 man roster a crack. This is only a prediction and it’s a terribly early one at that. In no particular order, here it goes:

Offense

QB: Joe Flacco, Troy Smith, John Beck

HB/FB: Ray Rice, LeRon McClain, Willis McGahee, Jalen Parmele

TE: Todd Heap, Ed Dickson, Dennis Pitta, Edgar Jones

(*Note: Davon Drew heads back to the practice squad)

WR: Derrick Mason, Anquan Boldin, Marcus Smith, Mark Clayton, Donte Stallworth, David Reed

(*Note: Eron Riley and Justin Harper back to the practice squad)

OL: Jared Gaither, Michael Oher, Marshall Yanda, Ben Grubbs, Matt Birk, Chris Chester, O’Neil Cousins, David Hale

(*Note: Ramone Harewood to the practice squad)

Special Teams

P: Sam Koch

K: Billy Cundiff

Matt Katula

Defense

DL: Haloti Ngata, Terrance Cody, Trevor Pryce, Kelly Gregg, Corey Redding, Arthur Jones, Paul Kruger, Brandon McKinney

(* Kelly Talavou to the practice squad)

LB: Ray Lewis, Terrell Suggs, Sergio Kindle, Jarrett Johnson, Dannell Ellerbe, Jameel McClain, Tavares Gooden, Jason Phillips

(*Note: William VanDeSteeg to the practice squad)

CB: Dominque Foxworth, Fabian Washington, Lardarius Webb, Chris Carr, Frank Walker

S: Ed Reed, Dawan Landry, Tom Zbikowski, Haruki Nakamura

Comments:

Wide Receiver- The Ravens should carry 6 this year due to the injury history of the group as a whole. Stallworth and Boldin have been two of the most oft-injured wr’s in the NFL. Smith is coming off that horrible injury from last year. Mason has struggled with injuries at some points the last few years and so has Clayton. I had a really hard time choosing between Riley, Harper, Williams and Reed. At the end of the day, I gave Reed the benefit of the doubt being a draft pick. Although, I think Williams would probably be the best option of the 4. If it is Williams, than I see Reed on the PS and Riley getting his walking papers, because Harper is a little further along in his development at this point. Personally, I am not 100% sold that Stallworth will make the roster but for arguments sake he is there.

TE- Edgar Jones versatility and special teams play saves his job.

LB- Antwaan Barnes and Brendon Ayanbadejo are two notable absences. Not all these guys are going to remain healthy, sad but true. Barnes could sneak his way onto the roster that way. The same for Ayanbadejo. I just have a hard time keeping an ST ace over all those young LB’s. Ayanbadejo is what he is at this point and he’s not going to be much more. Some of those other guys have the potential to be much more. He also suffered that injury early and the special teams unit did not miss him. His value drastically decreased last offseason.

CB- The Ravens will add a short term stop gap, eventually. AND the dreaded Frank “illegal contact” Walker will most likely be back, as well. I went on and counted Walker in my initial 53 because I KNOW he will be back but I didn’t count the other guy, whoever it is.

Practice Squad: I threw some names out there for the PS but I have to imagine the Ravens will be looking to add some undrafted free agents from the 2010 class to it. So, some of those guys may very well have run out of time.

Overall: Not much roster turnover. Its about what you expect from a team that has been deep in the playoffs two years in a row.

1 comment:

  1. Gerhart never played the race card - the press did. Loathe him for factually-based reasons.

    ReplyDelete