The past two offseasons featured one grueling rehabilitation process after the other for Baltimore Ravens franchise left tackle Ronnie Stanley. The former first-round pick and Pro Bowl blindside protector had to recover from multiple surgeries and setbacks stemming from a gruesome ankle injury he suffered in Week 8 of the 2020 season.
He is elated to finally have been able to go through an off-season and mandatory minicamp alongside his teammates as a participant and not just watching them from the training room or sidelines.
“Being able to build and really build off what I did last season and get better,” Stanley said. “I really feel a big difference from the last couple years.”
He shared that about 80 percent his time the past two years was spent on rehabbing from surgeries and setbacks and just 20 percent on actual football training.
“I’ve been really able to spend most of my time on training, building, and getting stronger,” Stanley said. “I’m just becoming an overall better athlete, it’s a big difference for me.”
The seven-year veteran took expressing his confidence in his ability to return to form a step further by saying “this is as good as I’ve felt since 2019,” which was a breakout season where he earned First-Team All-Pro honors.
“This is as good as I’ve felt since 2019” @megatronnie
He relishes and is grateful that he will open his first training camp with a clean bill of health for the first time since 2020.
“I’m very thankful for the opportunity to be able to come into this season healthy,” Stanley said. “I definitely don’t take it for granted knowing the past couple of years how hard it is just to get back in the game. So, to be able to start a whole new season feeling good is [something] I’m very thankful for.”
First Impressions of Todd Monken & New Offense
Count Stanley among the growing contingent of players that has likes what he us seeing from the first-year offensive coordinator and his new scheme and doesn’t expect a significant difference “from [an] offensive line perspective”.
“The concepts and the schemes, everyone working together and just the mentality behind the offense,” he said. “[We] really focus on the execution. I think Todd Monken has really done a great job of just getting us all together [and] focused on the same thing.”
One of his biggest focuses each offseason in honing his technique when it comes to blocking from footwork to hand placement so that it can be “on point” when the season roles around. Even though he trained on his own and wasn’t in attendance for most of the offseason program prior to minicamp including voluntary football school, he already loves Monken’s aggressive coaching style.
“He’s just a real guy, and I really believe that we have the same beliefs and mentality when it comes to what makes a successful offense,” Stanley said. “He’s all about the details. He’s detail orientated. [He’s] focused on the execution. I really think he’s focused on the right things and getting everyone to think about the things that – how he thinks about it. I think he’s doing everything the right way.”
Late-Round Rookie ‘In the Mix’ to Win Starting Role
Stanley will have a new starting guard next to him on the left side of the Ravens starting offensive line following the departure of Ben Powers to the Denver Broncos in free agency. Determining his replacement will be one of the fiercest battles in training camp and while he doesn’t have a preference on who win the job, Stanley will help whoever it ends up being as much as he can.
“There’s a lot of good guys out there,” he said. “We’ve had guys around that I know that can play, that I’ve played with. So, there’s a lot of names out there that can fit the bill.”
One of the players in the running that is emerging as a potential dark horse candidate is rookie Malaesala Aumavae-Laulu who the Ravens selected in the sixth round at No. 199 overall out of Oregon. He spent some time during minicamp running with the first team offense at left guard next to Stanley and looked impressive according to head coach John Harbaugh.
“He has done a great job, and he’s in the mix right now,” he said. “We wanted to get a look with him in the first-team and see how it looked with him in there. One thing we always try to do – and I think this is a little bit rare – but we want to see what guys look like with the first group. What does it look like? You can speculate all you want. If they start doing a good job with the second group or the third group, and you feel like they are up to it, I want to see how that fits. It looked like it fit well.”
Aumavae-Laulu was viewed as a versatile prospect with tremendous physical tools in terms of prototypical size and athleticism for someone his size at 6-foot-6 and 330 pounds but needed some time to develop. His learning curve apparently isn’t as steep as many were projecting if he’s already is serious consideration for starting job as a rookie.
“[He has a] great attitude,” veteran right guard Kevin Zeitler said. “He’s really open-minded. Nothing is going to bug him. He’s very athletic. So, he has … The whole world is right in front of him – all the potential in the world – and I can’t wait to see what he does with it.”
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Ravens’ Ronnie Stanley Feels ‘As Good’ As He Did in All-Pro Season