If someone had told Ravens fans two years ago that Pro Bowl offensive tackle Orlando Brown Jr. would receive the franchise tag this week, the questions likely would have differed considerably from the current reality.
Did Baltimore trade Ronnie Stanley or lose him in free agency? How is general manager Eric DeCosta finding the cap dollars to run it back for one last optimized Super Bowl run with one of the NFL’s top tackle duos? Are the Ravens going to find a way to pay both of their Pro Bowl tackles?
Of course, the circumstances of the last two years that turned one of the league’s best offensive tackle situations into one of serious concern couldn’t have been foreseen. Stanley suffering a severe left ankle injury just two days after signing a five-year, $98.75 million was rotten luck and served as the catalyst for Brown shifting to left tackle for the remainder of the 2020 season. That transition went well enough to prompt Brown to request his trade to the Kansas City Chiefs last April, which at least allowed the Ravens to select outside linebacker Odafe Oweh with the 31st overall pick in last year’s draft.
But in the 16 months since sustaining that injury against Pittsburgh on Nov. 1, 2020, Stanley, 27, has undergone multiple surgeries while lining up to protect star quarterback Lamar Jackson for just one game. The former All-Pro selection’s absence has been one of the most significant variables hindering an offense that went from historically productive in 2019 to mediocre this past year, but the Ravens remain hopeful that Stanley will look more like his old self this coming fall.
“I feel like I can say Ronnie feels farther ahead now than he did at the same stage last year,” DeCosta told reporters at the scouting combine in Indianapolis last week. “He’s excited, he’s very optimistic, I think he’s working hard. As an organization, we’re very optimistic. As I said before, I’m not going to make the same mistake. We’ll have contingency plans moving forward. But we’re optimistic that Ronnie is making good progress.”
That mistake, of course, was making too strong an assumption that Stanley would be available and effective last season, which brings us to the organization’s present tackle situation. Assuming the Ravens move on from the 33-year-old Alejandro Villanueva and the $6 million he’s owed for 2022, DeCosta must find the appropriate point between the best-case and worst-case scenarios from which to proceed this offseason.
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A glance through purple-colored glasses envisions Stanley at left tackle and former Miami Dolphin Ja’Wuan James at right tackle in 2022, which looks like quite the formidable duo on paper and would have been a few years ago. But James will turn 30 in June and has played in just three games since the end of the 2018 season, making it impossible to know what to expect from the 2014 first-round pick out of Tennessee. Even if Stanley and James return to their pre-injury form, the two have combined to play every game in a season just twice over their respective careers, meaning viable depth at both positions is a must.
Baltimore found that at right tackle with Patrick Mekari in 2021 and rewarded his play with a three-year, $15.45 million contract extension in December, but his valuable versatility may be needed inside if starting center Bradley Bozeman departs as a free agent. And that doesn’t address what the Ravens would do at left tackle if Stanley still isn’t right after another offseason of rehabilitation, which is why offensive tackle remains a position of great need for DeCosta.
While hoping for the best with Stanley, the Ravens would be wise to proceed as though they’re trying to find his eventual replacement this offseason, which is why a veteran stopgap — like Villanueva a year ago — really isn’t the solution. Whether it’s taking an offensive tackle like Charles Cross or Trevor Penning in the first round — and there’s no guarantee any of the top tackles will still be available at 14th overall — or eyeing someone like Daniel Faalele early in the second day of the draft, the ideal pick could step in a right tackle immediately with the ability to move to the blindside if necessary. Acknowledging the potential outcomes ranging from Stanley being as good as new to not being able to play at all, preparing to have a diminished version of the 2016 first-round pick is probably DeCosta’s most appropriate path from short- and long-term perspectives.
In all honesty, there is no appealing 2022 scenario in which Stanley remains either severely limited or unavailable as the Ravens aren’t going to have the next Jonathan Ogden fall into their lap in this draft. Left tackle would remain a position of concern, but adding a talented draft pick to grow into the job would ease some of the long-term pain as the Ravens could then look ahead to escaping Stanley’s deal in a year or two. The same logic applies if Stanley does play and simply isn’t the same caliber of player after multiple surgeries, which would then create value concerns relative to his compensation.
If Stanley is finally healthy this fall and his new understudy simply stays on the right side, the Ravens then have the chance to return to where they found themselves a couple years ago, which is a much better spot in which to win a Super Bowl. And they’d be able to truly appreciate how good they have it this time around, knowing how quickly things can turn in the NFL.
Yes, the Ravens can still hope for the best at tackle, but they must better prepare for the worst and everything in between.
