The Ravens will move forward without both of their centers. Jovaughn Gwyn and Ethan Pocic suffered long-term injuries in Week 3, per Yahoo Sports, leaving Baltimore to rebuild the middle of its offensive line on the fly.
Gwyn had won the starting job and held it through the season's first three weeks before leaving the Dallas game early with an ankle injury. Pocic, his replacement, didn't make it far. He was carted off with a knee injury, and the team has since slotted Vega Ioane into the spot.
That's the ugly version of a depth problem. Most teams lose a center and hand the job to the backup with a shrug. Baltimore lost the starter and the backup inside the same afternoon, and the replacement is a player the staff never planned to dress for this role.
What makes it sting is that the line was working. In the Week 3 box score, Lamar Jackson went 15-of-20 for 186 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions and a 136.7 passer rating, and he wasn't sacked. Derrick Henry carried 26 times for 89 yards and two scores. Zero sacks and 9.3 yards per attempt is not the profile of a group that needed a rebuild.
Center doesn't show up in a stat line, which is exactly why this is easy to underrate. The position owns the protection call, the snap, and the double-team on the nose. Baltimore's offense runs through Henry between the tackles and Jackson on keepers, and both depend on a center who can identify the Mike and generate movement against a shaded nose. Swap in a guard who has never made those calls and the first symptom won't be sacks. It'll be Henry getting hit a yard behind the line.
My read: the Ravens sign a veteran center within the week rather than ride Ioane indefinitely. A team with Jackson and Henry on the roster doesn't gamble the interior of its line on inexperience when a street free agent can at least make the protection calls. Watch Henry's yards before contact in the next game. That number will tell you how bad this really is.
