Ravens are building for September, not May (2024)

The Baltimore Ravens were widely viewed as the best and deepest team by the end of the 2023 regular season. They had the best record in the league, the No. 1 seed and home-field advantage in the AFC playoffs, the No. 1 defense in the league, and soon-to-be two-time league MVP leading the charge in quarterback Lamar Jackson.

Last year’s roster construction process didn’t just start in free agency and wrap up after the conclusion of the NFL Draft. It took the entire offseason and even the first month of the regular season before it was a juggernaut many believed was Super Bowl-bound.

Some of the best values and pleasant surprises came in the form of seasoned veterans who weren’t signed until August or later. Seven-year veteran nickel cornerback Arthur Maulet had a career year splitting reps with All-Pro safety Kyle Hamilton in the slot, 10-year veteran edge defenders Jadeveon Clowney and Kyle Van Noy had career years and combined for 18.5 sacks and nine-year veteran cornerback Ronald Darby provided excellent depth on the outside.

They also hit on first-round wide receiver Zay Flowers, who quickly established himself as their No. 1 pass catcher.

If the 2024 NFL season started in the Spring, the Ravens would have more questions than answers given all the notable losses they sustained in free agency to their offensive line and defensive depth. However, if the entirety of their approach last offseason and many others that proceeded suggests anything, it is the concerns about their roster-building process should be quelled until their 53-man roster is finalized in September and no earlier.

“We’re in the same place as we were last year at this time,” Ravens General Manager Eric DeCosta said Tuesday in a pre-draft press conference. “Go back and look at what some of you wrote last year and see how we ended up. We have a lot of time to make moves. A lot of these players that we lost [are] excellent players. A lot of these guys were acquired in August, right? Some of these guys were acquired in September, so we’re still building, and a big part of that is going to be through the Draft, which is why we’re all here today.

“There are a lot of different opportunities along the way to add players. We’ve traded for players, we’ve drafted players, we’ve signed guys, [like] unrestricted free agents, we’ve signed guys, [like] ‘street’ players, who have made it, [and] we’ve worked guys out.”

In addition to having a revered front office when it comes to evaluating incoming talent from the college level, the Ravens pro scouting department, led by Director of Player Personnel George Kokinis and Assistant Director of Player Personnel Mark Azevedo, is just as widely renowned around the league. A strong argument can be made suggesting they were the most impactful of the two by far to the team’s overall success last year given how Flowers was the only member of the the rookie class to play over 400 snaps on either side of the ball.

DeCosta implied the re-signing of Van Noy might be their final pre-draft player acquisition only to turnaround and sign veteran wide receiver and former All-Pro return specialist, Deonte Harty the next day. So clearly, there will still be plenty of time to add more talent to field another strong championship-caliber roster for the 2024 season.

“I think we’re just really getting started,” DeCosta said. “A big part of that is certainly going to be the Draft, but the destination is September, not May.”

Dallas Cowboys owner and General Manager, Jerry Jones, has been under heavy scrutiny this offseason for his team’s lack of activity and notable additions since the new league opened after proclaiming they would be going “all in” to try to win a Super Bowl in 2024.

When posed with a question about the popular premise and if the Ravens are “going all in” this year, DeCosta responded, “I’d like to think we’re always all in.”

“In this business, if you’re not all in, then you’re all out, as far as I’m concerned,” DeCosta said. “We’re going to be in every single year. I know that’s what [Head Coach] John [Harbaugh] expects, that’s what I expect, that’s what [owner] Steve [Bisciotti] expects, and I think that’s what our fans expect. So, you should expect that, too.”

What some fans and pundits fail to realize about going all in after witnessing the Los Angeles Rams mortgage their future to finally get over the hump in 2021 is, there are more ways than one to go about doing it. In Baltimore, the Ravens try to be the best they can be in their own way by building around their core players so the sum of their parts can elevate the entire team.

“That’s what we’re all about,” Harbaugh said. “That’s what football is. It’s not just a math equation. It’s more than that, and that’s what makes it so exciting and so interesting,” Harbaugh said. “We’re going to have a heck of a team next year – you wait, and you watch. You wait and see what we do.”