Getting faster:
The Kansas City Chiefs made life difficult for opponents last season by turning their roster into a track team. With speed on top of speed, the Chiefs dared teams to match up against them straight up, beating them through scheme when opponents shied away from it. The Ravens must have liked what they saw there because they got faster through the 2020 NFL Draft.
Baltimore was already a pretty fast team. Wide receiver Marquise Brown was lightning last season and he was actually slowed down by injuries and a screw in his foot. Quarterback Lamar Jackson won the NFL’s MVP thanks in large part to a highlight reel that included him juking the life out of several defenders and outrunning the rest. Running back Mark Ingram might be on the wrong side of 30 but he’s still got enough speed to surprise and bust off huge gains. But with the 2020 NFL Draft, Baltimore added to that speed on both sides of the ball.
Queen ran the fourth-fastest 40-yard dash among linebackers at the 2020 NFL Scouting Combine. His 4.5-second 40-yard dash is an improvement on the guy he was drafted to replace, C.J. Mosley, who ran an unofficial 4.6-second time at Alabama’s Pro Day in 2014, according to Chase Goodbread of NFL.com.
Dobbins ran a 4.45-second 40-yard dash coming out of high school, which would have been good enough fifth-best among the running backs at the combine, even if he hadn’t improved at all over the last four years. Wide receiver Devin Duvernay also finished fifth in his position group, running a 4.39-second 40-yard dash time at the combine.
Even guys like Harrison and James Proche, though they might not be known for their speed, have enough of it to be effective weapons and used in a variety of roles for Baltimore. With all of it combined, the Ravens have some more speed on offense to create mismatches while improving their speed inside on defense to better match up in games.