Thursday Ravens links: Players poised for breakout year, Chris Canty having a bounceback year

One fun thing to do each preseason is to guess which players are ready for breakout campaigns.

That's exactly what Tim Horsey at Purple Reign Show has done for this Thursday morning. He put together a list of six Ravens players that are poised to become more well-known players on the team. Without revealing the No. 1 candidate, one of the top six is safety Matt Elam.

Here's why:

"Elam showed some signs of his ability to wreck an offenses game plan like he did at Florida. He even finished the season fourth on the Ravens in total tackles with 77, an encouraging number for a guy who will now get to play more in the box"

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Ravens defensive end Chris Canty didn't see his first season go the way he thought it would in Baltimore.

Joining the then-reigning Super Bowl champs, Canty was ready to bolster a defensive line that needed some help. The team wound up 8-8 and missing the playoffs for the first time in six seasons.

As The Baltimore Sun's Aaron Wilson writes, Canty has been studying film to figure out how to get the Ravens back to being a playoff team.

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Russell Street Report's Logan Quick writes about outside linebacker John Simon's chances of having a bigger role during the 2014 season.