With a great training camp and a stellar week one showing in preseason, the Ravens linebacker Zachary Orr is marching to the beat of Ravens history. Seemingly every season the Baltimore Ravens develop another undrafted linebacker into a starting talent.
"Well, we started with Zach. Zach’s had a great camp, he’s been all over the place," Don Martindale said about the competition at ‘Will’ linebacker next to C.J. Mosley. "Him and Kamalei both been working at ‘Will’, we’ve been cross-training a lot of guys."
Don finished the question stating, "Right now I’d guess if you’re sitting in the competition, [Zach]’s in the lead."
It’s not surprising to find a Ravens undrafted linebacker grow into starting caliber, many players have come and gone before Zach. Throughout Ravens history many undrafted names come to the forefront as starting linebackers: Bart Scott, Dannell Ellerbe and Jameel McClain. Three good players for the Ravens who provided starting caliber play for Baltimore.
"It would mean a lot," Zachary Orr said about being the next undrafted linebacker to start for Baltimore. "The first thing Coach Wink [Don Martindale] said was ‘know the history.’ We have history in this room at linebacker of undrafted guys and pretty much asked me, ‘what you going to do about it?’. [Don] challenges me every day, ‘What you going to do, are you going to be the next one?’"
While it’s noticeable for the fans to see Orr’s drive for the starting position, Martindale observes the passion daily.
"There’s a saying in our room, ‘When someone says they’re hungry, he’s starving,’" Martindale said.
As Don said, it’s obvious that Zachary Orr is in the driver’s seat for the starting Will position. Observe his play made against Carolina less than a week ago.
Zachary Orr looking good tonight. #Ravens #IDP pic.twitter.com/8k5cFVKXek
— Fantasy Outlaw (@FantasyOutlaw) August 12, 2016
Martindale said he’s instinctive, and the game is in slow motion to him now. He’s grown mentally.
Today in practice the Ravens worked on a drill with the offense on the back 2 yard line. Flacco tried to dump a pass off to RB Terrance West but Orr found him instantly and came up with a safety on the play.
Orr won’t be going down without a fight, but by the looks of things he won’t be going down in the depth chart, rather sitting atop with his name above the rest.