Baltimore Ravens: Linebacker Zach Orr to retire due to injury
By Ben Palmer
Baltimore Ravens second-team All Pro linebacker Zach Orr is retiring from the NFL due to a serious neck injury. Orr is just 24-years-old and has been with the Ravens for three seasons.
Baltimore Ravens linebacker Zach Orr has surprisingly announced his retirement from the NFL today. The 24-year-old is retiring due to a “serious injury”, as reported by NFL.com’s Ian Rappaport.
#Ravens star LB Zach Orr is retiring because of a serious injury, sources say. Heart-breaking. Team couldn’t talk him out of it.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 20, 2017
The report is surprising and incredibly sad, considering the young linebacker was just starting to come into his own with the Baltimore Ravens and looked to be a future star of a linebacker corps with a long history of success.
Orr was with the Ravens for three seasons after going undrafted out of the University of North Texas. He made second-team All Pro following the 2016 season.
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Orr started 15 games for the Ravens in 2016, and ended the season with a team-leading 132 tackles, as well as three interceptions, and a forced fumble.
According to NFL.com’s Mike Garafolo, Orr had been playing with a cracked bone in his shoulder late in the season. However, Orr was placed on injured reserve in week 17 with what was called a neck injury, though it seems likely that the cracked bone in his shoulder was really the problem.
This creates a major problem for the Baltimore Ravens, as their linebacking corps was already in need of some upgrades considering the age of both Terrell Suggs and Elvis Dumervil.
Now, the Ravens have lost a player in Orr who seemed to be one of the linebackers of the future for the team. This will almost certainly cause the team to draft a linebacker in the first round of the NFL Draft this season.
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As we wrote earlier this year, there are a few good linebackers available in the upcoming draft, hopefully the Ravens will target at least one of them in an effort to fill the gaping hole that Orr’s absence will create.