Rookie safety Brynden Trawick was perhaps the biggest surprise to make the Ravens' 53-man roster. The rookie free agent out of Troy was kept for his special teams potential.
But Thursday night, Trawick made a costly special teams gaffe in his first NFL game.
Trawick ran into his own player, Jacoby Jones, when Jones was calling for a fair catch. Both players were injured, and Jones didn't return to the game due to a right knee sprain.
"Just lost sight of the returner, pretty much," Trawick said. "I was just trying to block my man and lost sight of where Jacoby was. It's unfortunate that I ran into him. I've just got to have more awareness there."
Awareness is something all rookies can have problems with, especially ones playing their first game in a rowdy opposing stadium like Sports Authority Field at Mile High on kickoff night.
Head Coach John Harbaugh showed understanding of the error after the game. He said he'll talk to Trawick about having better awareness.
"That's an experience play probably. [He's an] inexperienced guy, new situation for him," Harbaugh said.
"We played a lot of young guys out there tonight. There's going to be a learning process with those guys. You just keep coaching, keep fighting. They're good guys, they work hard and they want to do well. That's what we're going to do."
Trawick explained the difficulty of that specific play. It was a short punt, so Jones moved forward to catch the ball. Trawick had his eyes on the man he was trying to block and didn't see Jones.
"You've got to look at the returner and look at the ball and look at your man and decide if it's good to block him or not," Trawick said. "[You have to decide] where to do your job or just let him go. It just happened."
Trawick showed mental fortitude after the game. He spoke calmly about his mistake.
"It's a long season," he said. "So I've just got to play the next play and keep playing."
