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Marshal Yanda is
entering his 13th season with the Baltimore Ravens and the former Iowa football
player doesn’t appear to be slowing down.
At the ripe age of 34, most offensive linemen have maybe one or
two years left, but after
starting all 16 games, making the Pro Bowl and being named a Second Team
All-Pro, former Iowa football player Marshal Yanda isn’t showing
signs of slowing down. And if the Baltimore Ravens want to be successful
running the ball and protecting Lamar Jackson in 2019, they will need their
anchor on the interior offensive line to continue his steady ways.
Last
year, coming off an injury that derailed his entire 2017 season, Yanda was rated the 4th best
guard in all of football according to Pro Football Focus with a rating of 75.2.
This season, Yanda will be gunning for
his 8th Pro Bowl selection and seventh All-pro selection, and he
will be doing it with a second-year dual-threat quarterback behind him and a
freshly signed Mark Ingram.
The
Ravens are talented, but they will need the big men up front to get the run
game going so it gives Jackson some room to work the play action and get him
out of the pocket. For Yanda, this could be his final go around.
With
just two years remaining on his contract, Yanda will be 36 before he starts his
next contract, so there is a good chance we could see the Iowa football player
call it quits and hang it up at that point unless he continues to not age and
instead, dominates competition that is nearly 10 years younger than him.
At this point, nothing would surprise
me with Yanda, a former third-round pick who was a steal for the
Ravens and managed to become the highest-earning active Iowa football
player in the NFL.
My prediction is Yanda starts all 16 games but
does show signs of aging, yet he will remain one of the top-15 guards in the
league.
