Injuries thin running back ranks
Richardson, Taliaferro on PUP; Dixon hurts knee
There was much discussion coming out of minicamp in June that the Ravens were going into training camp — and possibly into the 2016 season — with a running back-by-committee.
That still might be the case, but the committee is now a lot more exclusive.
The group of six potential running backs has been cut in half, with Trent Richardson (knee) and Lorenzo Taliaferro (foot) on the physically-unable-toperform list and rookie Kenneth Dixon coming out of the team’s first practice Thursday with a minor knee injury.
“Kenneth Dixon is going to be OK. He’s just got a slight thing with the knee,” coach John Harbaugh said. “He should be fine, maybe even tomorrow, we’ll see. Lorenzo Taliaferro, weput him on the PUP. We’ll see how he continues to progress with the foot. Not that there’s a big issue with it. It’s just not quite there yet.”
That leaves Justin Forsett, Buck Allen and Terrance West (Towson University, Northwestern High) healthy.
“All of us are trying to compete,” Allen said Thursday. “Everybody wants to be the starter. You’re going to try to beat out whoever is on top and whoever the man is behind you; you’re going to try to stay in front of him. That’s my motive and that’s how I’m taking it.”
Though a depth chart won’t be made public until before the first preseason game, Forsett is getting the majority of the repetitions with the first team, while Allen is working with both the first and second teams. West is backing them up.
Forsett, who gained 641 yards on 151 carries and scored two touchdowns before getting hurt last season, joked with a reporter Wednesday when asked about the running back-by-committee approach.
“What’s that?” Forsett asked. “What is running back by committee? I don’t really know what that is.”
Forsett knew exactly what he was being asked, even if he chooses to see himself as the featured back.
“I grew up on old-school running backs. I love watching them play — Emmitt Smith and Barry Sanders, all those guys,” Forsett said. “Of course, if you are a running back — everybody wants to be on the field all the time. I want to put myself in a position where they can’t take me off the field. That is my mentality. At the end of the day, everybody has their role, and I’ll let Coach decide that.” Campanaro knows he’ll have to win roster spot: There wasn’t much fanfare surrounding Michael Campanaro’s return to the practice field Thursday. Except for some friends and his parents who live in Howard County, few paid attention to the fact that this was Campanaro’s first action in nearly 10 months. Players work out during the first day of camp. Running backs Trent Richardson and Lorenzo Taliaferro are on the PUP list and Kenneth Dixon left with a minor knee injury. Ronnie Stanley, the Ravens’ first-round draft pick, performed in a chicken suit in Wednesday night’s team talent show.
The third-year wide receiver, who hadn’t been on the field since suffering a season-ending back injury in a Week 4 overtime win over the Pittsburgh Steelers last season, acknowledged that he has a considerable feeling of urgency, since he also missed part of his rookie year after getting hurt.
Two weeks after turning his first catch in the NFL into a touchdown in a 48-17 romp over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Campanaro suffered a Week 8 hamstring injury in 2014. Campanaro didn’t return until the final week of the regular season.
Campanaro, 5 feet 9, will get to showcase his skills during training camp, with veteran receiver Steve Smith Sr. starting on the PUP list after suffering a torn Achilles last season and second-year wideout Breshad Perriman out for at least a few more weeks after arthroscopic knee surgery in the spring.
Campanaro is well aware that the team drafted former Navy quarterback Keenan Reynolds with plans to turn him into a slot receiver and return specialist. One of the last roster spots could come down to Reynolds or the former River Hill star.
“My rookie year there was competition making the team and last year I was competing with DeAndre Carter, who’s a good player; that’s just the NFL,” Campanaro said. Stanley shakes his tail feather: Someday, Ronnie Stanley will look back on his first Ravens training camp and smile.
It just might be for singing R. Kelly’s popular 2003 song “Ignition (Remix),” while wearing a chicken suit Wednesday night before the first day of training camp.
Stanley even practiced it during the team’s recent monthlong break before performing it as a form of rookie initiation in front of the team.
“I knew it was a crowd-pleaser,” the first-round draft pick said with a smile. “I knew every word to the song.
“I didn’t actually know about the chicken suit until yesterday during the day,” Stanley said. “Steve Smith happened to do some shopping and get a suit that actually fit. I couldn’t use that excuse. I did what I had to do.”
Stanley was the first of the team’s rookies to perform in the team talent show.
“I knew that since I was going first, I definitely had to set the tone,” Stanley said.
Harbaugh was impressed with both the costume and the performance.
“There seemed to be a number of costumes that have shown up at the Under Armour Performance Center, but they don’t seem to fit really well,” Harbaugh said. “I thought it fit really well, but Ronnie told me that the bottom part should have come down to his ankles, but they went just below his knees. But the claws on the feet were spot-on.”
Harbaugh was clear to point out that “we don’t haze” and that Stanley “did a great job. … It’s nice when your first-round pick, effectively the leader of that rookie class, is able to step up and make a statement like that — ‘I can fit in,’ so to speak.”