Steve Smith Has 4 Broken Bones In His Back, Which Means The Ravens WR Corps Is In Complete Shambles

Banks10/05/2015 6:25 PM

Here we go again. Much like the cornerbacks last year (or the Terps’ QB’s in 2012) the football gods are sniping an entire position group one by one. What’s unfortunate is that just like last year, it’s happening to the position group that most needed to stay healthy this year. Quick rundown on the status of arguably the Ravens top 3 receivers:

Steve Smith: 4 broken bones in his back, is already ruled out for week 5 and is “week-to-week” (whatever the fuck that means anymore).

Michael Campanaro: Back spasms and a herniated disc. Placed on IR, which ends his season just as he was showing a ton of promise. God knows who even returns kicks at this point (probably Lardarius Webb, who is already as fragile as they come)

Breshad Perriman: Had arthroscopic knee surgery last week to repair his PCL, nobody knows how long he’s out but him seeing the field at all in 2015 seems like a longshot.

Some might point the finger at Ozzie Newsome for not planning accordingly, and it would be wrong to completely absolve him of blame. It sure looks like (so far at least) he whiffed on another first round receiver. But you have to keep in mind that he’s working with about $20M in dead cap money from Rice, Ngata, and Jacoby Jones contracts. Yeah those contracts were his doing, but you don’t expect your RB to punch his wife out in an elevator. Rice’s dead money forced his hand with Ngata and Jones just to make it under the cap this year. His hands were essentially tied when it came to adding depth via free agency.

None of those things changes the fact that Joe basically has nobody to throw to for the time being. Kamar Aiken made a couple of big grabs Thursday night, but has proven to be wildly inconsistent so far. Marlon Brown has a severe case of the drops, and can’t even get open. I’ve had my hopes about 6’6″ Darren Waller and still do, but he’s more of a long-term project who isn’t ready to contribute full-time. Steve Smith has caught more balls this year than all 3 of these guys combined. That’s how important to this offense he is, which makes his status that much more important moving forward. Aiken is the only guy who has a sliver of ability to beat a guy in single coverage and make a play after the catch. The Ravens might be okay next week considering the Browns can’t stop the run, but after that, who knows?

If you want to try to feel optimistic about something, be optimistic about Chris Givens, who Ozzie traded a 7th round pick to the Rams for on Saturday. His upside is his 4.4 speed that has the potential to be a vertical threat in this offense so desperate for one. He actually has a tiny bit of experience returning kicks too, so we might see him back there. The downside is that he’s basically been invisible in St. Louis since 2013. He showed a lot of potential his rookie year by catching 42 balls for 698 yards, but got passed over by guys like Tavon Austin and Kenny Britt and was close to not even making their roster out of camp this year. So yeah, things are definitely looking up!!!

Don’t get your hopes up about making another trade either. A lot of folks are clamoring for Alshon Jeffery, but I just don’t see Ozzie giving away what’s likely a high asking price of one of his precious picks. Plus he’s an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year, so he’d either be a rental, or there’d have to be a hefty extension in place for Ozzie to pull the trigger. And we’ve seen so many times over the years that Ozzie just doesn’t do long-term deals with WR’s. Maybe they’ll reach out to a veteran free agent like Reggie Wayne or Wes Welker, but I feel like those wheels would’ve already been in motion if there was any interest in them. So what you see is what you’ll probably get.

I’ll offer up just one pipe dream, just because it’s good to dream sometimes.