ESPN’s Ben Solak Says Ravens Have Roster Construction Problem
The prevailing opinion among pundits before the season was that the Ravens either had the best roster in the NFL or, at worst, were second only to the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.
So how did a team with so much talent, one that many predicted would finally get over the Super Bowl hump, end up with an 8-9 record and not make the playoffs?
ESPN’s Ben Solak said that while the Ravens have some of the best players in the league, they had some depth concerns.
Solak contended that the Ravens’ roster-building philosophy of drafting, developing, and extending their own players while making economical free-agent additions can be flawed.
“You have your cornerstones – Lamar Jackson, Kyle Hamilton, Tyler Linderbaum, Ronnie Stanley – you build around these guys. Everything else around them has been draft and develop,” Solak said on FanDuel TV’s “Up & Adams Show.” “Save for Derrick Henry, the last big free-agent contract they signed was in like 2016. They do not spend big money on outside guys. That’s fine. That’s very professional and a long-term way of building. I understand that.
“But you can’t draft this good. You cannot only keep your guys. When all you do is draft, develop and extend your own dudes, at some point you’re going to catch two or three bad years even if you’re a good GM, and you just don’t have enough talent. The Ravens have such good blue-chip players. They have the stars, they absolutely do. [The problem is] when you get to the second and third tier of players.”
Solak cited offensive guard as a position in which the Ravens would have been better off by signing free agents, though he strangely contradicts himself by saying Baltimore should have re-signed its own pending free agents.
“We’re talking about Kevin Zeitler signing for one year, $9 million with the Tennessee Titans,” Solak said. “And remember, they had Patrick Mekari in the building, Ben Powers in the building, John Simpson. They’ve had dudes there who have gone on to sign second-tier to third-tier level contracts – Simpson with the Jets and Powers with the Broncos – and they say, ‘We can draft and develop.’
“Man, even if you can, if you get 85 percent of the guy that just left the building, that accumulates over all these positions. You have a linebacker 2 problem, you have an edge rusher problem, you have a guard problem, and there are too many holes in your roster, so that once Lamar hurts his leg, like the season is lost. You have to be more serious about that second and third tier of the roster.”
