The Baltimore Ravens will have a very young offensive line this season, and it sounds like the salary cap is to blame for that.
During a recent press conference, Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta explained that as a result of the salary cap constraints, the team had to build an offensive line out of you and inexperienced players.
“Across the board, we made the decision to start to build up the line with young players,” DeCosta said according to Pro Football Talk. “Unfortunately, with a salary cap league, you just can’t build a team with veterans at every position. If you could, it’d be great. I grew up a Cowboys fan, and the 1993 Dallas Cowboys, one of the great teams of all time, if that team had been able to stay together forever they would’ve won Super Bowls every year. But there is a salary cap and there is free agency. And so you have to pay players, but you also have to understand you’ve got to draft and you’ve got to develop young players as well. And we have started to do that on the offensive line.
“We may have some hiccups along the way, but we’ve started to build from the bottom up and I think a year from now we’ll be in a great place.”
We’ll have to see how that offensive line is able to protect Lamar Jackson this season.