Ravens Safety Matt Elam to miss season with torn bicep:

2015 was going to be an important season for Baltimore Ravens safety Matt Elam. After starting 15 games in his rookie campaign, Elam started just 11 a season ago after being benched in favor of Will Hill.

A torn bicep will sideline Elam for the entire 2015 season leaving the third-year safety unable to prove himself worthy of being a first round selection for the team in 2013. It is unlikely Baltimore will pick up the fifth-year option on Elam’s rookie contract, meaning the safety will be returning from injury in a contract year a season from now.

Will Hill and Kendrick Lewis will likely start for the Ravens this season, but after Elam’s injury, the depth behind the pair is very thin with Anthony Levine and Brynden Trawick the only other safeties on the roster.

The cornerback position is a little deeper this season, so that should help the play of the defensive backfield, but Baltimore can’t be very confident in their options if either Lewis or Hill get hurt, or if Hill does something stupid again.

The Ravens will likely have their eyes open for veteran safeties getting cut around the leagues as camps progress.

Detroit Lions defensive tackle Haloti Ngata on Non-Football injury list:

The Detroit Lions were unable to convince free-agent defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh to re-sign with the team in the offseason as the controversial, but dominant Suh took his talents to South Beach and the Miami Dolphins.

While Suh is irreplaceable, the Lions knew they had to try to bring in someone to man the middle as Suh and teammates Nick Fairley and CJ Mosley all left via free agency.

The question of who would fill the giant hole left on the interior of the Lions was answered in a very big way, as Detroit traded fourth and fifth-round draft picks to the Baltimore Ravens for 6-foot-4, 340-pound veteran defensive tackle Haloti Ngata.

While Ngata will be key for the Lions in 2015, missing some of camp with a hamstring won’t be a big deal as long as the hamstring heals. Ngata may be on a new team with some different terminology than he’s used to using in Baltimore, he’s unlikely to be used more creatively than he was with the Ravens, and he’ll be able to pick up whatever concepts the Lions need him to grasp.

Let’s face it, Ngata, like the rest of us, knows what his job is. Go out there and be a horse and push people around. Ngata knows how to do that, and training camp isn’t going to make him better at this point in his career. If the Lions are smart, they’ll let the big man take it very slowly until the games start mattering.

New York Giants finally hear from Jason Pierre-Paul:

It seems just about every decision New York Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul has made since renting a U-haul truck and loading it full of fireworks has been questionable, at best.

After his injury which resulted in the amputation of his right index finger and a fractured right thumb, Pierre-Paul has avoided the Giants at every turn. That is, until Sunday. Jerry Reese told Boomer and Carton of WFAN that he spoke with Pierre-Paul, and that the team wasn’t angry with Pierre-Paul’s lack of communication.

“It didn’t rub me the wrong way,” Reese said. “You have to think about it like this, Craig. When somebody has a catastrophic, traumatic incident like that … It’s life-changing what happened to him, to a young man. It was an accident. When something like that happens, you really don’t want to see anybody. I get it. We’re not pissed off.

“We’re not mad about it. We were just trying to say, ‘Look, we’re here for you. We want you to get well. Any resource we can give you, let us know.’ That’s what we were trying to do.”

Why Pierre-Paul would turn down the Giants help after the team has already said they planned to sign the defensive end to his franchise tender once he’s ready to sign it, is really unclear.

Ronnie Barnes, the Giants vice president of medical services, who was part of the contingent that went to visit Pierre-Paul after his accident only to be unable to see the defensive end, has been in touch with Pierre-Paul as well.

As Reese said, Pierre-Paul is a young man who made a mistake. Hopefully he can find a way to get back on the football field and figure out how to be productive after such a dramatic injury to his hands. A defensive ends hands are very important, and Pierre-Paul will likely need to learn some new techniques, or new ways to use techniques he’s already been successful with.