Ravens standout linebacker Zach Orr announced Wednesday his intention to return to the NFL on *Good Morning Football *after he was forced to briefly retire due to a congenital spine condition. With his football career seemingly on the verge of being revived, where will he end up?
Orr will be an unrestricted free agent, and although he still needs to be cleared by an individual team doctor, he immediately becomes a priority for teams hungry for help at linebacker. According to NFL Network's Mike Garafolo, Orr already has a visit scheduled with the Detroit Lions on Thursday, per sources informed of the situation.
Orr had 30 more solo tackles than the next-closest Raven last season and led the team with 132 total. A perfect complement to former first-round pick C.J. Mosley, Orr was in line to become the next great inside linebacker to come through the Ravens' system.
"I really don't know where I'll play] yet," he said Wednesday. "I'm eager to see. I just want to play football. I just want to play ball. I mean perfect situation, perfect scenario, of course Baltimore. I have a great relationship with everybody in that organization, teammates that I've got to know really well that I'll talk to for the rest of my life and then obviously with [C.J. Mosley, we came into the league the same year and I felt like we had a chance to be one of the best tandems in the National Football League, we're working toward that. So perfect scenario, Baltimore obviously would be favorites. But I just want to play football. And at the end of the day, that's what I want to do. I love ball and I'm ready to give whoever or whatever my all out there on the field."
Orr said the Ravens are aware of his current situation.
"They kind of have an idea," he said. "They've seen how I've been talking, how I've been working and just kind of my focus in the offseason. I haven't really been talking or working out like a retired player. So now I'll probably get a lot of messages from a lot of people. A lot of people didn't really know because I kind of just wanted to keep it under wraps and not jump to quick decisions or anything like that."
Orr's decision thrusts a good player in his athletic prime back onto the market at a time when many rosters have already been set. He would have been an obvious candidate for a long-term deal in Baltimore, but at age 25, Orr is now in full control of his near future.
