Ravens on the roster bubble: DeShon Elliott edition
With training camp set to open later this month, there will be a handful of Baltimore Ravens’ players that will be facing an uphill climb and tough competition in order to make the final roster for the 2020 season. It’s hard to rest easy knowing you’re on the roster bubble and in jeopardy of having the dream you’ve worked towards all your life snatched away in the very near future if you don’t make a good enough impression in a little over a months’ time.
The players featured in this six-part series face an even more daunting task than most would in their shoes in any given year because this offseason has been like nothing any of us has experienced in our or even our parent’s lifetimes with the physical restrictions and limitations placed on us all, professional athlete and common folk alike, due to the global pandemic caused by COVID-19.
According to multiple reports in recent weeks, the league and the NFLPA are considering shortening or canceling the entire preseason to give players more time to get into football shape after only being able to attend virtual workouts all offseason and decrease the chances of potentially exposing players, coaches, and other team officials to the virus to play exhibition games. These unfortunate developments have made not only life but making the roster much more difficult for fringe players that need every opportunity they can get to leave enough of a lasting impression on their organizations.
Here is the second Raven on the list of features that needs to have a strong training camp and preseason—if there is one—to keep his hopes and dreams alive, at least with this team:
S DeShon Elliott:
When healthy the sixth-round pick out of Texas in 2018 has flashed difference-making potential in practice, preseason games, and some regular-season action last year as a versatile piece in the backend of the Ravens’ defense. Injuries have kept him from realizing the full extent of that potential and prevented him from carving out a defined role in the secondary as well as being viewed as a virtual lock to make the roster.
A broken forearm in the Ravens’ fourth preseason tilt ended his rookie season before it began but he showed great ball skills and playmaking ability before he went down. Last season he made the roster and appeared in six regular-season games before landing on injured reserve with a season-ending knee injury. He was seeing more and more time on defense before he got injured and was coming off his best regular-season game against the division rival Cincinnati Bengals in Week 6 where he played a career-high 27 snaps and recorded a tackle and athletic pass breakup on a deep ball intended for Tyler Boyd.
The Ravens love deploying their safeties in a myriad of different ways to disguise their coverages and pressures to disrupt the timing of plays called by the opposing offense, blow up plays in the backfield with an unblocked defender or simply force quarterbacks into throwing the ball away or to a lurking underneath defender. If he remains healthy, his coaches will find a way to get him on the field and incorporate him into the game plan. The Ravens have the best and deepest secondary in the league according to most pundits and having a healthy Elliott will bolster their claim, even more, he just has to do his part by spending more time on the field instead of the training room.
The old football cliché “the best ability is availability” couldn’t hold any truer to Elliott’s fate on the 2020 final roster because if he misses anytime during the preseason or training camp once it opens up, it could cost him. The addition of rookie Geno Stone who the team selected in the sixth round out of Iowa and is touted as one of the steals of the draft is another factor that could affect the decision to keep him in the fold. Stone shares many of the same instinctual and playmaking traits in the passing game as Elliott and will be playing on his rookie deal for the next four years not just the next two like the former Longhorn.
