Whatever you thought of Kenneth Dixon yesterday, it makes sense to downgrade him today. He’s undergoing knee surgery that will sideline him 6-8 weeks.
The Ravens will replace Dixon with Bobby Rainey, according to a report in the Baltimore Sun. But Rainey is pretty much a camp body; he’s not a threat to get on the field much in the regular season.
Dixon, recall, is suspended for the first four weeks of the season anyway, courtesy of a league suspension for violating the rules against performance enhancing drugs. So he won’t necessarily miss any games that he wasn’t going to miss anyway.
But Dixon could have used camp to demonstrate that he’s the team’s best running back. He was on his way to doing that last year before suffering a knee injury late in the first half of their preseason game.
Now they’re down to pretty much Terrance West and Danny Woodhead. Woodhead should catch plenty of passes, serving in a third-down type role. West should be their main runner for the first month of these season, and given this new development, Dixon doesn’t look likely to instantly kick him to the curb when he returns. This could be like last year, where West and Dixon are both getting about 10 touches in most games.
The Ravens also have Lorenzo Taliaferro, but he doesn’t seem to be a big contender at tailback. He’s bulked up in hopes of filling the fullback role vacated when Kyle Juszczyk signed with San Francisco.
—Ian Allan
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