The Baltimore Ravens have constructed their 53 man roster for the regular season. There are still some tweaks that will be made to it, however here are three big things:
1. Everything kind of fell into place the way it should have:
The Baltimore Ravens didn’t do too many surprising things with the 53 man roster. There were only a couple of surprises that came from it. Kenneth Dixon had a great performance in the final preseason game and landed on injured reserve. His injury makes it a little under shocking but it ranks as at least a mild surprise. Greg Senat taking the final offensive line spot was surprising as well. It makes you have to think that James Hurst could be in line to start at left guard, giving Baltimore reason to keep an extra offensive tackle. There are some questions about this at the very least.
Other than that, there was nothing at all surprising. We knew for a while that Baltimore would keep three quarterbacks. Jaleel Scott earned the final spot at wide receiver with a great preseason. The closer we got to the cut down day, the more obvious it became that Scott wasn’t going anywhere. The Ravens kept three tight ends was as predictable as predictable could be.
The Ravens kept Otaro Alaka as the fourth inside linebacker. Alaka’s stock started to rise against the Green Bay Packers and it never went back down. The Ravens kept their impressive streak of undrafted free agents to make the team with Alaka and offensive lineman, Patrick Mekari.
Cutting Willie Henry was something that wasn’t very predictable. That being said the five defensive linemen the Ravens kept were obvious locks the whole way through. Outside linebacker panned out the way just about everyone penciled in. Shane Ray was the odd man out. The secondary wasn’t a place for shocking moves either. The Ravens cut Maurice Canady and kept Justin Bethel, who has special teams value. The Ravens kept a safety group consisting of the players you knew would be there. Once the Ravens decided to keep three quarterbacks and an extra offensive lineman, everything fell into place.