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John Harbaugh’s looking for a few good men

John Harbaugh has a different way of looking at the 75 plus players currently at his disposal. There has been a virtual merry go round during the 3 minicamps the team has held so far with players getting a look at positions you may never have thought you would see.

I’m telling you, this isn’t going to be the same Ravens team you’ve seen in the past. This one is going to be full of surprises. Here’s just a glimpse of what you can expect to see…..

Imagine Haloti Ngata exploding through the line and getting up a full head of steam. No, I’m not talking about Ngata going after the quarterback, I’m talking about Ngata carrying the football on short yardage situations. How many linebackers do you think would be quaking in their shoes? Or a safety or defensive back? Forget about it! As long as he could hold onto the ball Ngata is going to get yardage. According to Harbaugh; “We’re excited about putting some defensive guys on offense and some offensive guys on defense occasionally,” he said. “We’ll try to use their talents. Plus, it’s fun.”

How about a new look at tight end? Can you envision QB Xavier Lee lining up at that spot? Well it might just come to be. Harbaugh listened to the coaches at Florida State and recently gave Lee at look see at tight end. “Well, we gave him the quarterback jersey, but put him at tight end. I’m not sure what that means, but I guess we’ve started to get guys nicked up a little bit. It’s pretty ironic. [laughs] But you know what? I think he was into it a little bit. He was running routes and catching the ball. He would have a chance, athletically, to play tight end. They were right at Florida State. He could be a heck of a tight end. We’ve got to talk about it, but he looked pretty good today.” You can check out the interview this came from here.

Imagine Ed Reed lining up on the outside at wide receiver. That would certainly have the defense guessing. I’d love to see Reed get a couple of shots on the outside. He may be the best open field runner on the team, so why not utilize his skills?

Way back in the day lots of players saw action on both offense and defense, but that was before NFL head coaches outsmarted themselves and made every player a specialist. There have been a few that broke the rule, such as William “Refrigerator” Perry back in the 80’s, or Deion Sanders in the 90’s, but there are very few of them today. In the present only a few come to mind; Patriots LB Mike Vrabel , former Redskin Champ Bailey, and Warren Sapp. Sure, you hear lots of offensive linemen being declared “eligable”, but rarely if ever do they touch the ball. The Ravens may take things back to the way they once were and use the multiple talents their players have. That would make for a whole lot of fun!

Offensive line

The Ravens are still a long way from determining what the makeup of their starting O-line is going to be. They’ve had Marshall Yanda at right tackle, right guard, and center. Jason Brown has split duties between left guard and center. Ben Grubbs has played at both left and right guard. Jared Gaither has spent time at left tackle, and right tackle. Chris Chester has alternated between right guard and center ( though I’m not sure he’s suited for either). And on it goes.

What better way to find the best combination then by allowing each of them to showcase themselves at different positions on the line? I think the trick is to make a decision as soon as possible in order to get all of them comfortable, and giving them a chance to concentrate on playing one position. And if nothing else, it will provide the team with many options should they have to make an emergency substitution at some point of the season. But let’s hope that doesn’t happen. We saw enough of it last year.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 18th, 2008 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Ravens pre season evaluation, Raven player evaluation, Mike Brown. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.