Ravens Announce 53-Man Roster

After a day of “he’s in, he’s out”, a great but disappointing Navy game and the first day of a long weekend, the moment we have all been waiting for all of preseason happened: The roster was finalized.  The Ravens announced their Week 1 roster at 5 p.m. today, and the full roster is here.  Rest assured, Sam Koch did in fact make it, along with bubble players like Ray Lewis, Joe Flacco and Ed Reed.

During the day, I reported on Twitter that players like David Hale, Dannell Ellerbee and Steve Hasuchka made the team, while Graham Gano, Yamon Figurs, Justin Harper and Jayson Foster all missed the cut.  Other notables left out of the final roster included:

• Davon Drew, TE (5th round pick)
• Cedric Peerman, RB (6th round pick)
• Ernie Wheelwright, WR
• Eron Riley, WR (more on those two a bit later on)
• Evan Oglesby, CB
• Jason Cook, FB
• Robbie Felix, C
• Tony Fein, LB (remember this?)

Now I’ll touch on each of these players and what their cutting means to the team

• Davon Drew: Edgar Jones made the team, so the tight ends on the roster are Todd Heap, L.J. Smith and Jones.  I assume Drew will be kept on the practice squad, and called up if needed.
• Cedric Peerman: Running backs Matt Lawrence and Jalen Parmele both made the roster, and all three of these guys are downhill runners.  Neither will make a significant impact, and Peerman wouldn’t have either.
• Ernie Wheelwright & Eron Riley: Wheelwright, Riley, Figurs, Harper and Foster were all cut today.  That’s a lot of depth, all cut in one day.  The thought now would have to be that the Ravens have agreed to terms with Super Bowl hero David Tyree, who was cut by the Giants this morning.  As of now, the four receivers are Derrick Mason, Mark Clayton, Demetrius Williams and Kelley Washington.  No team can succeed with only four receivers, so expect Tyree, recently cut Ashley Lelie or another veteran to be added by the team.
• Evan Oglesby: Oglesby was always a guy I liked.  I hold him in higher favor than Frank Walker, and held Derrick Martin, based off his performance this preseason, in higher favor than both.  Martin was traded this afternoon to the Packers for an offensive lineman named Tony Moll, who started five games last season for the Cheeseheads.  Now on the roster cornerback-wise are Fabian Washington, Domonique Foxworth, Chris Carr, Lardarius Webb and Frank Walker, along with Samari Rolle out for five more weeks.  With Rolle coming back, and Dawan Landry back from his injury, the team needed to dump DB’s, so Oglesby and Martin are gone.
• Jason Cook: Cook’s cutting means that Le’Ron McClain will be doing very little running, as he will be in the fullback role exclusively.  
• Robbie Felix: Felix getting cut basically means that David Hale will be Matt Birk’s backup, with Chris Chester possibly fitting in there as well.  If the team knew before-hand that they would be acquiring Moll, this cut makes a lot of sense.
• Tony Fein: Yes, Fein was arrested, but I don’t think that was the reason he was cut.  At least not the main one.  He didn’t seem fast enough, and although the feel-good Iraqi veteran story would have been great, he just couldn’t make the grade.

Keep in mind that any players who were cut that have not been in the NFL for more than two seasons are eligible for the practice squad and will likely be seen later this season.

Frankly, I was a bit shocked when I heard that Justin Harper was cut, not so much when I heard that Yamon Figurs and Graham Gano were let go.  The positions where the roster looks deepest are linebacker, cornerback and defensive line.  That may not be encouraging, offensively, as all of those positions are on the other side of the ball, but on offense, the backfield, the quarterbacks and the offensive line are as deep as they’ve been in a while.  Should be fun to watch how well this unit progresses and just how good some of these decisions that Harbaugh and Co. made work out.

Rumor-wise, the most likely pickup is David Tyree, but Ashley Lelie, recently cut by the Chiefs, has the same agent as Derrick Mason, which could be an interesting hook.  Yamon Figurs may be headed to the Chiefs, as they don’t have a legitimate kick returner.

Enjoy your weekend.

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