Three Ravens offensive starters are still missing from practice Thursday as the team prepares for the New Orleans Saints in Week 2.<\/p>\n
Wide receiver Zay Flowers (hamstring), left tackle Ronnie Stanley (toe), and left guard John Simpson (groin) did not practice.<\/p>\n
Outside linebacker Trey Hendrickson (hand) and cornerback T.J. Tampa (knee) were also sidelined again.<\/p>\n
The Ravens are already shorthanded at wide receiver with rookie Ja’Kobi Lane (wrist) going on injured reserve. Head Coach Jesse Minter said Flowers is day to day.<\/p>\n
The Ravens scored 31 points in the first half of their season opener against the Indianapolis Colts but just 10 points in the second half after Flowers and Lane exited the game. Now, Offensive Coordinator Declan Doyle has more time to prepare for the possibility of not having two of his top receivers.<\/p>\n
Doyle said he has stressed throughout the summer and preseason games that there should be no drop-off when backups need to step into prominent roles. However, he acknowledged that game plans do change based on availability.<\/p>\n
“I think that is what being a good play-caller [or] a good play-designer is, is being able to adjust. Because throughout the year, most of the time not everybody is ready to go,” Doyle said.<\/p>\n
“So you have to able to work around the players, work around the availability, you’ve got to be flexible. In this league, it just is what it is; you can have a big week and then you can get humbled real fast if you don’t stay grounded.”<\/p>\n
If Flowers does not play, the Ravens would lean more on Rashod Bateman, Devontez Walker, LaJohntay Wester, Chris Moore and rookie Elijah Sarratt.<\/p>\n
If the Ravens are down a couple starting offensive linemen, they would turn to Carson Vinson at left tackle and Andrew Vorhees at left guard.<\/p>\n
It’s an early-season challenge for the Ravens, who are coming off a big Week 1 and looking to carry the momentum into their home opener.<\/p>\n
Saints’ Top Receiver Also Dealing With Hamstring Issue<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Saints have some concerns of their own as top wideout Chris Olave, who posted a league-leading 182 receiving yards in Week 1, was added to the injury report with a hamstring injury that limited his participation.<\/p>\n
Pass rusher Chase Young (calf) was also added to the injury report as limited and fellow veteran EDGE Cameron Jordan has been limited both days so far by a hamstring issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three Ravens offensive starters are still missing from practice Thursday as the team prepares for the New Orleans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":852224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[257,2593,17263,349,11178,99,35299],"class_list":["post-852223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-general","tag-homepage-latest-headlines","tag-inline-news","tag-nfl","tag-ryan-mink","tag-sports","tag-zay-flowers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/852224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}