Pundit Makes Obvious Ravens MVP Pick
With NFL teams in the dog days of summer, it's the perfect time for predictions such as predicting every team's most valuable player. The catch with that is that some teams have incredibly obvious MVP picks, while others are tougher to gauge. Clearly, the Baltimore Ravens fall into the former category.
Eric Edholm of NFL.com recently predicted each team's MVP for the upcoming season, and instead of going with an unexpected pick, he stuck with the obvious choice of star quarterback Lamar Jackson.
"I'm not going to get cute here and project RB Derrick Henry, WR Zay Flowers or any member of the Ravens' fine defensive or special teams units, commendable as they might be. Jackson plays the game's most important position and was the league's deserved MVP last season, capturing his second such award in a five-year span," Edholm writes. "Aside from the debate over Lamar's reduced production in the playoffs, there's absolutely no reason to even toy with any other option in Baltimore."
There's no debate that Jackson is the key to the Ravens' success, but picking a quarterback as a team's MVP almost feels like cheating. To that point, Edholm picked quarterbacks for 15 of 32 teams, and that's not his fault, but rather the simple nature of the game today.
A better question may be which non-quarterback player will be the Ravens' MVP, a question that has far more viable answers. Edholm mentioned Henry and Flowers, but there's also other options on offense such as tight end Mark Andrews and even center Tyler Linderbaum. On defense, safety Kyle Hamilton, linebacker Roquan Smith and defensive tackle Justin Madubuike have solid cases for the title as well.
No matter who is truly the Ravens' "most valuable player" all of the aforementioned stars and more will have big roles to play this season.
JON ALFANO