The Ravens were one of those teams at this time a year ago, and everybody saw what happened.
Advertisement
Suggs’ comments were his first since days before the Ravens’ regular-season opening loss to the Denver Broncos last September.
Don’t misunderstand. There are all sorts of exciting possibilities.
When Suggs was laid up almost all of last season after tearing his Achilles in Week 1, he wasn’t Sizzle – the loud, smack-talking, quarterback-crushing linebacker. The front office has juiced up the passing game with star-quality free agents Mike Wallace and Benjamin Watson. Flacco likely won’t see much playing time for this contest, which means we’ll get a lot of Ryan Mallett and Josh Johnson, quarterbacks who have been in the league for a while but just couldn’t get that break. That part of him wasn’t extinguished by a second career Achilles injury, not even at age 33. The franchise’s all-time leader in sacks (106.5) and forced fumbles (29) will start training camp on the physically unable to perform list as he continues to rehabilitate his surgically-repaired torn Achilles tendon, and works his way back into football shape.
“People say you can’t do it again”, Suggs said, acknowledging that he has heard the speculation.
“It’s a fair question”, said Suggs on Wednesday, when asked what can realistically be expected from him in 2016. It’s just as easy to look at all the quality depth at the skill positions and foresee a new day dawning for an offensive attack that will be reconfigured and ramped.
The Ravens don’t want to rush back Suggs, and coach John Harbaugh said last month that Suggs has a shot to participate in training camp.
Once he’s ready to roll, the six-time Pro Bowl linebacker is optimistic of being a key contributor to a perennial playoff contender that stumbled to a 5-11 finish last season.
Though Flacco might have more targets to throw to this year, he’ll have to get to know some of them while sharing reps in camp with backup QB Ryan Mallett.
“Never did it cross my mind that I wasn’t going to come back”, Suggs said. “I think you have a pretty good idea what the answers to them are, but you’ve just got to see for yourself. I’m not going to tell anybody”.
Advertisement
The Steelers will hold their annual conditioning test on Thursday after the players check into their dorms at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe and I doubt wide receiver Antonio Brown will fail his test.
