The Ravens season fell apart in 2025 for a multitude of reasons but the collapse came quickly after Nnamdi Madubuike was lost for the year with a career-threatening neck injury.
All of the underlying roster rot and decay that was allowed to settle into the defensive line and the OLB/EDGE position groups was exposed for the entire league to see – and feast upon – with no pass rush and no push and no bite in their front seven once the former All Pro defensive tackle went down.
It was sudden and it was dramatic
And while the Ravens report to training camp in the coming days as a largely healthy unit on offense – almost remarkably so beyond whatever was going on with offensive lineman Ronnie Stanley that had him not participating in some spring practices and reserve center Corey Bullock as well. But on defense there are three situations that will be watched and assessed very closely by the team’s new training and recovery expert, with key contributors coming off surgery that could certainly linger through the summer.
Madubuike
Even now the team is being very guarded with what it says about this serious situation and deferring to the player himself. Madubuike recently declined to speak about the procedure and his recovery, But it goes without saying that neck surgery in April for someone who toils in the trenches in the NFL will carry major questions with it well into he season however well he might be feeling in August.
There is going to be an ongoing wait and see approach and penciling Madubuike in for any number of snaps right now seems foolish. He is, next to Lamar Jackson, the most important and most influential player on this roster in terms of what he can do to boost other areas of the roster and his import to the overall defense.
General manager Eric DeCosta invested more into pass rush than ever before in part because of how nebulous this situation is, and extreme care must be taken with the head, neck and spine region.
Nate Wiggins
He is the most talented corner on the roster and the only young starting-caliber corner on the roster, but he has some major deficiencies in terms of his frame and that’s always going to increase injury risk. Wiggins had a procedure this offseason to clean up what the Ravens termed a lingering issue with him.
Not a lot of details there. Not sure a lot more are coming. But the older top corners – Chidobe Awuizie and Marlon Humphrey – have some significant injury histories too and this is a young man’s game and they need Wiggins to have a breakthrough season in terms of getting his hands on the football more and being less handsy in coverage.
Getting him off the field in some obvious run-heavy packages and finding ways to protect would seem to make a lot of sense to me, especially given his offseason surgery. Wiggins has said he’s been at 70-percent capacity because of the issue and if he is more unbridled now that should of great benefit to the Ravens.
Can he take regular reps from the first real practice?
Teddye Buchanan
We tend to take ACL recoveries for granted these days, but we shouldn’t. And this one was torn late in the linebacker’s rookie season, and he continues to earn accolades for attacking he rehab. He showed his worth in his first season and seems to me to be the person best suited as understudy to Roquan Smith in terms of wearing the green dot.
He was one of the few feel-good stories during a fairly miserable 2025 campaign, especially for the defense. Getting him in the mix with this starting 11 is important and even as ahead of schedule as he is, you would think they wouldn’t want to risk much this summer.
He’s become an important football player for them with some real upside at a position in which they are hardly overflowing with options.
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