This is a seriously good team.

[JimZipCode]

I don’t think people realize how much losing Yanda hurts this team

I don't think it's that so much as, people think that we can improve at C and LG. And also that Zeus Deuce is still young and improving. If we improve at three positions and regress at one – that ought to net out pretty decently, even if the regressing spot is a "heart and soul" -type player.

I dunno: you might be right, and it'll collapse like a house of cards without Yanda. Certainly I'd feel better if we had a full offseason of Joe D working with these guys. But DeCosta is throwing draft picks at the position group. That's gotta help a little.

[HKusp]

This years schedule is ranked as #1 easiest schedule in the league. Playing the sucky NFC east makes for 3 wins at least in that division. This team SHOULD be favored to win the division again, right now with little to no health issues in the mix.

[Shrubbs]

I don't think it's that so much as, people think that we can improve at C and LG. And also that Zeus Deuce is still young and improving. If we improve at three positions and regress at one – that out to net out pretty decently, even if the regressing spot is a "heart and soul" -type player.

I dunno: you might be right, and it'll collapse like a house of cards without Yanda. Certainly I'd feel better if we had a full offseason of Joe D working with these guys. But DeCosta is throwing draft picks at the position group. That's gotta help a little.

Yeah, I love our tackles, but the iOL really does scare me. We don’t have a single established starter with no question marks there, in my opinion. I hope somebody steps up!

[Gjennings85]

Yeah, I love our tackles, but the iOL really does scare me. We don’t have a single established starter with no question marks there, in my opinion. I hope somebody steps up!

Shrubbs you missed my joke the other day bud. I tried to make you fall for it.

[Shrubbs]

Shrubbs you missed my joke the other day bud. I tried to make you fall for it.

Oh dang, I must’ve missed it. I’m sure it was a good one

[Gjennings85]

Oh dang, I must’ve missed it. I’m sure it was a good one

We play you guys this year. Mark it down buddy. You see the schedule?

[BcRaven]

I don’t think people realize how much losing Yanda hurts this team

I think they do. Yanda had one more year on his contract, and I believe it was for $7 mil. His retirement has left a BIG hole. Fans on this board have been debating who will take over @ RG (many feel it's Powers), but note the Ravens have tried to bolster the O-line with two draft choices, signing Fluker, and EDC may not be finished yet. It was enough to have us talking about who the 2020 Center and LG would be, but now that void has widened considerably... Bc

[edromeo]

Even a non-expert like myself sees this as maybe the best Ravens team ever. As good as we were last year, we'll be better in 2020. I'd hate to have to prepare for Baltimore.

We had a few weaknesses last year on defense that we have fixed through free agency, and even if our rookies don't all pan out (and they won't), we'll still stop the run. So you'll pass against us? With our secondary? Good luck with that.

Our offense probably won't be as good. So many of our guys had career years, no substantial injuries, Yanda's gone. But so what? We'll have more opportunities to score after forcing more three-and-outs.

Of course, we still have the best kicker ever, and an improved return game.

Really looking forward to the season, empty stadiums or not.

Great topic. And I agree on the whole that the team will be better this year then they were last year because I expect this team to get further in the playoffs and I wouldn't be surprised at all if this team won a SB. Yes, I said it.

I agree with you also that the offense won't be as good. The season Lamar had was rare. He was the unanimous MVP. He set the record for NFL rushing. AND he led the league in TD passes. I have one of the highest opinions of Lamar on this message board but Lamar was phenomenal last year and it will be wrong to expect him to have unanimous MVP performances every year.

I think the biggest jump with this team will happen on defense.

Last year the defense was good. But it struggled to generate interior pressure and struggled holding down opponent YPC. Campbell and Wolfe represent huge upgrade in pass rush ability from the interior DL and they bring that interior push without a significant drop off in interior run defense.

Run defense, YPC, was also an area that needed to be addressed. We witnessed the bump the run defense received with a marginal upgrade to the ILB corps. DeCosta addressed the interior OL with 2 quality prospects that should provide an even bigger boost to the perimeter run defense and run defense at large. LBs seem to translate very well in the NFL.

DeCosta also added even more interior pass rush w/ a versatile and athletic iDL in Madubuike.

I think the infusion of talent along the defense is going to make the biggest difference.
I expect the offense to slide back a few notches but to still be in the top 10 neighborhood.
I also expect the staff has learned through their playoff mistakes and I also expect a John Harbaugh led team to bounce back on special teams.

This team should be thinking winning the division, getting a bye, winning the conference and winning the SB.

[Shrubbs]

We play you guys this year. Mark it down buddy. You see the schedule?

The Packers play the Ravens? Are you sure, I don’t remember seeing that on the schedule

[Gjennings85]

The Packers play the Ravens? Are you sure, I don’t remember seeing that on the schedule

Yup you didn’t see it. We play February 7th

[John Reglarperson]

I suppose it's possible but San Fransisco had additional running threats in the backfield in Juszczyk, Deebo, Kittle and didn't break the record because they didn't have the threat of Lamar. We'd probably need to run Lamar more to break it.

Then there's the fact that everything exceptional tends to shrink back towards average a bit.

Lamar broke the NFL record. 1206 yards. Put RGIII + Trace, 71, 1277 by QBs.
Shrink that down to 1000 even. Needs to make up 277. What to do about that fake punt run by Levine, 60 yards? Put it with the QBs. Needs 337. You mention Juszczyk, Deebo, Kittle.
let's look at those numbers. Jusz = Ricard, Deebo = Dubernay, Kittle = TEs? I'm looking at the 9ers stats. The 9ers weren't close to the Ravens in any run categories. Basically, the Ravens ran 100 times more. Gained 1000 more rushing yards and had 0.9 more yards per carry. The additional run threats that the 9ers had did gain more yards than the Ravens additional run threats did. But it was only about 28 carries for 200 yards for the 9ers vs less than 10 yards for the Ravens (not counting the fake punt). If you remove 10 carries and 70 yards for Lamar or the QBs and replace that with 20 carries for 140 yards by FB Richard and WR/RB Dubernay, you have more carries, more yards by the Ravens and fewer carries, fewer yards by Lamar.

I'm not suggesting the Ravens have Lamar run much less.

The Ravens broke the record set by the 1978 Patriots. The 78 Patriots had 3 rushing threats in the backfield. They were on the few teams with a running QB - Steve Grogan, who had 539 yards rushing and a 6.7 yards per carry. The most carries and the most yards were by the Fullback Sam Cunningham with 199 carries and 768 yards, and an assortment of running backs basically made up the rest, with a few WR carries thrown in. Basically, the 3rd running threat was the Fullback. 280 carries between the QB and the FB. With the Ravens this year it was 200 carries between the QB and the FB. Basically, when you have Mark Ingram, Dobbins and Hill, you can put one of those 3 in there as "Running Back" and when you have Patrick Ricard and Gus Edwards, you put one of those 2 in there as "Fullback" and you give the "Running Back" the same number of carries as they had last year and with the "Fullback" you give them maybe 5-10 carries a game on average, and you can take a couple of carries away from Lamar. In the 70s and the 60s, that's how it was done, but the QB as a run threat was rare. 2 run threats, FB + RB. To make it absolutely simple, you're just putting another running back in the backfield. Gus or Ricard at FB, Ingram or Dobbins or Hill at RB, plus Lamar. When you have 3 run threats, it's even more difficult for the defense. In college, today, it's not rare to have 3 or 4 run threats. When Lamar is so extremely potent as a runner, you'll have a potent run threat receiving little attention. And I want to see Ricard run the ball between the tackles, and not just in short yardage situations. 1st and 10 from the 25. I want to see what he can do there. Would Ricard be able to pass protect from the backfield? I would think that he'd be pretty dominant from back there. He is, after all, a Fullback, and a Pro Bowl Fullback, why wouldn't you want to see him run the ball? You have Lamar possibly running one direction, Dobbins possibly running in the other direction, and Ricard possibly running up the middle. If I recall the 9ers success on the ground, it was a fast RB running outside a lot of the time, they had a good number of 4.3 guys running outside. It just seems to me that if you have 3 primary run threats, power up the middle and 2 or 3 speedy threats, that will be very difficult for defenses to stop. With just Lamar and whichever of the very good RBs was out there, that was very difficult to stop, but with 3, that's just a little bit more.

This whole thing about pushing the limits was discussed last year. Part of the thinking was that the Ravens would unveil the new run wrinkles as a surprise in the playoffs. But they didn't do that. Even though I talked about it. So, lets just assume that the Ravens won't unveil new run wrinkles for the playoffs, Greg Roman will be busy interviewing, and the Browns will get in his head, etc, or something like that. So, instead of new run wrinkles unveiled for the playoffs, let's put those new run wrinkles in at the beginning of the season. Let's get a bunch of carries for Patrick Ricard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYgzZ2eVni8 - 1939 Lions v Dodgers. Plenty of run threats here, back before football players were really fast. But nice clear color footage from 1939 NFL

[NjRavensFan]

I don’t think people realize how much losing Yanda hurts this team

We lost Yanda in 2017 and the line was fine. That was before Stanley fully broke out and before Zeus Jr was on the team.