The Baltimore Ravens are facing big questions about their offensive line heading into the 2024 NFL season.
The Ravens lost three of last year's starters in the offseason and didn't add any veterans to replace them. Now, they are looking at internal candidates, including two rookies, to fill three of those open spots.
One option they're trying is moving third-year lineman Daniel Faalele to right guard. It's something of an experiment, as the 6-foot-8, 380 lb Faalele, one of the biggest players in the NFL, came into the league as a tackle. Faalele has played intermittently over his first two seasons at right tackle, so he is now learning a new position on the fly.
On "The Athletic Football Show," hosts Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen both poured cold water on the experiment, saying trying Faalele at a new position might leave too much inexperience on an already-reconfigured offensive line.
"Right guard is still a huge question," Mays said. "It's literally a huge question because a huge man is slotted to play that spot right now, and they're working through that right now. Daniel Faalele weighs like 380 lb, and it is always going to be a question of how much he can play at that weight. And so, it's going to be trial-and-error, and the fact that we still have these questions on August 12, even if you have confidence in their ability to figure it out, it's hard not to feel a little bit uneasy about where those things stand."
Klassen agreed, saying Faalele is literally too big to play guard.
"On the Faalele thing, I don't like that at guard," Klassen said. "That feels to the point where he's just so big that you're getting diminishing returns on him. He's literally too big to play guard."
Both Ravens head coach John Harbaugh and offensive line coach Joe D'Alessandris have expressed confidence that Faalele can make the switch. However, both have cautioned that they want to let the process play out and could make an adjustment at a later date.
The early impressions have differed. The Athletic's Jeff Zrebiec has written that it's a huge "leap of faith" by the Ravens to try to move Faalele to guard.
Though Harbaugh told reporters after the Ravens' first preseason game that he thought Faalele played well, Baltimore Banner's Jonas Shaffer disagreed, writing that Faalele "looked slow to react inside." Shaffer noted that Faalele had a false start and allowed a pressure.
The Ravens can't overreact to one game, as it will take time for Faalele to make the adjustment. However, with just over three weeks until the Ravens kick off the season against the Kansas City Chiefs, if the Ravens do pull the plug on the experiment, it will only raise further questions about how to plug the holes on the O-line.
