ELF: 2024 Munich Ravens – A Roster Breakdown

By Michael Voitek

Last year, the newly formed Munich Ravens just nearly missed out on a European League of Football playoff birth with a record of 7-5. This year they have reloaded and look to make another playoff push. Let’s check out their roster.

The Ravens have 65 players with four American imports and six European imports.

Offense

Quarterback

At quarterback, the Ravens have re-signed fiery Chad Jeffries. Jeffries proved a lot of people wrong (namely me) last year by putting up 3,500 yards and 30 touchdowns, good enough for second in both categories. He will look to carry that hot hand into 2024.

Running Back

The Ravens have also re-signed the second leading rusher in the league last year in Tomiwa Oyewo. Oyewo is an amazing runner with great burst to the outside. He’ll have another stellar season this year.

Wide Receiver

Wide receiver is where the Ravens start to hurt a little. They lost the best receiver in the league last year in Markell Castle to the Frankfurt Galaxy, a huge loss for any team. To combat Castle’s departure, the Ravens re-signed Marvin Rutsch and signed American import Jon Cole. Cole is a versatile player who played in the GFL 2 last.

In a move to get back at the Galaxy for stealing their best player, the Ravens have signed Lorenz Regler. Regler is a phenomenal big target near the end zone and rounds a solid trio of recievers for this Ravens team.

Offensive Line

 

The offensive line is the part of this team I am most excited for after the announcement of Joe Thomas as their offensive line coach. He’ll have first team all-star from last year Leander Wiegand to work with and a whole bunch of other German big boys.

Defense

The Ravens were a bottom four defense in the league last year, but have made some key signings to help them out.

Defensive line

Johanes Zirnigbl is coming back after posting 5.5 sacks in 2023 for this defensive line. Their major signing was Evans Yeboah from the Hamburg Sea Devils. Yeboah had 8 sacks and 40 tackles last year and is a disruptor on this line.

Linebacker

The linebacking corps is significantly improved from last year. Wael Nasri should be a force for this team and he is joined by E-import Ty Vaimaona. Vaimaona played D-I ball at Southern Utah and can be a real difference for this team.

Der beste Tackler der Geschichte der @ELF_Official kommt zu den Munich Ravens! Servus, Wael Nasri: https://t.co/3I6gqvRXkz#munichravens pic.twitter.com/nkJ0QQA0r3

— Munich Ravens (@MunichRavens) January 23, 2024

Watch out for homegrown player Kevin Titz to make an impact as well.

Defensive back

Their defensive backfield may be one of the best in the league. The Ravens signed Kevin Nitzlnader who had a great year with the Raiders Tirol last year.

They also added two American imports in re-signing Darius Saint Robinson, who spent the 2023 season on injured reserve, and signing Joshua Flowers. Flowers played at Winston Salem State University and even had a brief stint with the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars. Saint Robinson will look to bounce back from a significant injury last year and help this tremendous defensive backfield.

If these signings weren’t enough, the Ravens also nabbed Karim Ben El Ghali from the Frankfurt Galaxy. Ben El Ghali was a first team All-Star in 2022 and had an OK year last year. If he can regain his 2022 form, there might not be a quarterback who can throw for over 150 yards on this Ravens secondary.

Wrapping up

I like this Ravens team a lot this year. They re-signed the players they needed to re-sign and got much better on the defensive end of the ball. It will be interesting to see how they will make up for the loss of production from Markell Castle, but they have the talent to do it. I see this team squeezing into the playoffs and possibly making a deep run.

Offseason grade: B+