Guard Marshal Yanda plays down outside concern about Baltimore Ravens’ offensive line – NFL News
Marshal Yanda, the right guard, is one of the few hopefuls of the Baltimore Ravens offensive line doing fine in spite of certain changes in the squad this season.
A number of key Ravens players have missed the team’s offseason training activities and there is a concern it might affect the offensive line performance, overall having a negative impact on the team’s form.
Marshal thinks otherwise and is optimistic that the remaining group will be fine, and absence of the players is not going to have negative outfall on their overall performance.
He says:
“I feel confident with this group. We’re going in the right direction."
He believes that the recent signing of veteran guard Bobbie Williams off the free agency will add to the group's strength. Bobbie will be competing for the left guard spot.
Yanda adds:
“He adds experience, definitely stability, as far as a guy that’s played a long time. He knows what it’s like out there with live bullets.”
Williams is not the only signee by Ravens this year, they have also added interior lineman, Tony Wragge, selected tackle, Kelechi Osemele, and guard/centre, Gino Gradkowski in second and third rounds, respectively, of the 2012 NFL draft.
Further, linemen, Justin Boren and Jah Reid, are going to come onto the field in second year of their pro career.
With some experience in presence of a couple of veterans and arrival of new energy and pace in form of the rookies, Yanda believes the group has all what it takes to achieve success.
He says:
“We definitely have enough guys where if someone goes down, or if something happens, then we know we’ll have enough depth. It’s early in this thing yet, obviously we haven’t even started training camp yet, so we’ll see what happens."
Meanwhile, Ravens have hired a fulltime coach for the quarterbacks, which is expected to boost the team’s attack line led by QB, Joe Flacco. Coach, Jim Caldwell, has great hopes about Flacco’s performance.
So, it looks the team has thoroughly looked at needs of the players at all positions. However, whether this will help them through to the Super Bowl is a question that the team has been looking to answer since the past four seasons.
They are through to the playoffs and AFC championship during the past four years. They are hopeful of making it to the top this season.
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