Ronnie Stanley was one of the best tackles in the game entering week eight of the 2020 season. The Baltimore Ravens had just signed him to a new long-term extension that made him the highest-paid offensive lineman in the league and he was trending toward yet another All-Pro season.
Then he suffered a severe ankle injury in a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers and he hasn’t been the same since. Or at least, he hadn’t been. The former sixth-overall pick believes he is finally back to where he needs to be to pick up where he left off three years ago, having missed 32 games since then.
“A majority of my time the past couple of years has been spent on rehab”, he told the team’s website, estimating that his workload had been centered about 80 percent on rehab work and only about 20 percent on actually training for football.
“Being able to really put most of my time on training and building and getting stronger, getting more endurance, and just becoming an overall better athlete has been a big difference for me”.
That’s a big difference for the Ravens as a whole, as well, as they haven’t quite been the same team since then, either. At the very least, there have been a few more chinks in the armor. For the remainder of that 2020 season, they were able to move Orlando Brown Jr. over to left tackle, but they’ve had to make do without him for all but 12 games over the past two years, logging 11 starts in 2022, though not to his satisfaction.
Of the 2022 season, he said of his production that it was just fine. “I think no one was really upset about that, but for the standard I have for myself, I do want to be better. I really feel after this offseason, my confidence level – that I will get back and further than that level”.
On that note, he told the team’s website that he feels as good now as he has since the 2019 season, or the preseason of the year in which he was injured. Since he was last at the top of his profession. And still at 29 years old, he’s got plenty of opportunity to right the ship.
Getting back the old Ronnie Stanley would be a huge boon for quarterback Lamar Jackson, for running backs J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards, for offensive coordinator Todd Monken, and really, the team as a whole.
While he’s been around that whole time, of course, having him fully healthy, fully energized, fully engaged may well do wonders both on and off the field. I’m sure his teammates who have been around him for years are very happy for him right now as he finally approaches what could be the best chapter of his career.
