Ravens rookie Vega Ioane is learning the ropes at center. Good luck holding on.

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To preserve Lamar Jackson’s physical and mental well-being, the first thing Vega Ioane will have to do Sunday is see everything.

That is life as an NFL center. You hear the third-and-long play call, you break the huddle, and then, as former Ravens center Matt Skura explained, you “get your antennas up.”

You start with the defensive front. Where’s the middle linebacker? Does the alignment look normal? Or is there something funky going on that never showed up in your hours of film study?

Then you look at the safeties. Are they in a two-high structure? Does it look like they could be rotating to one-high?

Then you start to tinker. Maybe the defense is threatening a blitz from the quarterback’s blind side. You adjust the offensive line’s protection accordingly, sliding to the threat of pressure and leaving the tackle and guard on the other side of the line one-on-one.

All the while, you are talking, talking, talking while the play clock tick-tick-ticks. Better to be overprepared than overwhelmed. Then, finally, you snap the ball, and you hope your best-laid plans do not go to waste in two to three seconds’ time.

“Any kind of doubt or question about who is blocking who,” Skura said in an interview, “that’s when disaster strikes.”

Ioane, the team’s first-round pick and first-string right guard, will start at center Sunday against the Tennessee Titans because disaster of another kind has already struck. The Ravens’ offensive line has, almost overnight, become a “This is Spinal Tap” tribute act, with its top three centers lost to significant injuries over the past six weeks.

Danny Pinter, the preseason favorite to replace Pro Bowl center Tyler Linderbaum, went down with a season-ending knee injury in late August. Jovaughn Gwyn hurt his fibula early in the fourth quarter Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys. Ethan Pocic, the team’s most experienced option, suffered a knee injury minutes later and will likely head to injured reserve with Gwyn, the team’s starter since Week 1.

All of this has left Ioane in the middle of a crash course on one of the sport’s most demanding positions. Before his eight-play cameo late in Sunday’s win in Rio de Janeiro, Ioane had last played center in 2024, when he appeared in two games as a junior for Penn State, totaling 17 snaps. Now, relocated just a few feet to the left of his usual perch, Ioane must hold on as he learns the ropes. Or else a much-criticized Ravens interior line could slip even further, dragging one of the NFL’s best offenses with it.

“You ready for this?” coach Jesse Minter recalled thinking Sunday as he watched Ioane prepare for his snaps at center, where he’d practiced only sparingly during training camp. “But he went in there and did a great job, and that just speaks to the credit of ‘Led’ [offensive line coach Dwayne Ledford] getting those guys ready in the O-line room and the chemistry and the leadership that they have, to come out there and be able to adjust like they did. He did an incredible job, and glad that we have him.”

The NFL’s injury gods have not smiled on the Ravens’ center position. The scheduling gods, meanwhile, have at least offered a make-good. Ioane’s first career start will come in Baltimore, where a home crowd will simplify the presnap operations. With the Ravens heading to Atlanta next weekend, Ioane will have at least another week to learn the center’s responsibilities in a silent count.

The rookie has enough on his plate already. Start with snapping the ball. Ioane delivered three of his six shotgun snaps Sunday knee-high — two to Jackson and one to running back Derrick Henry, who was lined up for a “Wildcat” run at the Cowboys’ 2. All were handled cleanly. Inclement weather conditions, expected to arrive Sunday afternoon in Baltimore, will be less accommodating.

Skura, who played guard early in his Duke career, said moving to center can be disorienting for linemen. They not only have to make calls at the line of scrimmage but also feel comfortable in their new stance — one hand on the ball, balanced enough to fire it off the ground, strong enough to withstand almost immediate postsnap pressure.

“There are guys who can just take to it, and it feels natural, and there’s really not too much of a learning curve,” said Skura, the Ravens’ “Legend of the Game” on Sunday. “There’s just kind of those little reminders, just like when you’re playing golf. There’s those little cues that you need to have that allow you to make sure your snaps are consistent.”

He added: “Just keep on repping it, because the more that it feels second nature, the better.”

Ioane said Wednesday that he expected this week to include “nonstop hours” of work on the “little things.” Centers, he explained, have to digest what the defense is showing before every snap. Pinter, Gwyn and Pocic made some of the job’s less obvious responsibilities seem easy, he said. Ioane was quick to point out that they are, in fact, not easy.

Ravens coaches and players will have to share that burden until Ioane can shoulder it alone. Offensive coordinator Declan Doyle acknowledged Thursday that Jackson would assume even more presnap responsibilities. But Doyle stressed the need for “clear lines of communication,” from Ioane to the linemen next to him to Jackson to the coaches. Adjusting protections on a planned play call is hard enough; handling them quickly after a quarterback audible requires an even higher level of mastery.

“We all are responsible to cover for where the shortcomings are,” Doyle said. “Whether that is Lamar, whether that is myself and being able to ask him to do things that he can handle, or the rest of the players elevating their play, we all have a hand in picking each other up and trying to make sure that what we put out there on Sunday is something that is our brand that we are proud of.”

General manager Eric DeCosta, who has faced steady criticism for his construction of the interior offensive line, said before the team’s season opener in early September that the Ravens’ front was “headed in the right direction.” He hoped the line would “build and build and build” as it approached a potential postseason run.

Now, with no starting-level centers available in free agency and maybe only a handful for sale by the NFL’s Nov. 10 trade deadline, the Ravens’ line could look decidedly different over the next three months. Minter said Ioane, who was drafted as a potential cornerstone guard, could remain at center in 2026 as the team searches for its best starting five.

The Ravens’ remade interior was a work in progress before Rio. Left guard John Simpson had dealt with a groin injury that again limited him in practice this week. Gwyn, a first-time starter, had ranked among the NFL’s worst pass protectors. Ioane had struggled uncharacteristically in pass protection. The Ravens’ inside running game was one of the NFL’s weakest.

Now right tackle Roger Rosengarten, the team’s best lineman in September, will have a new partner. Andrew Vorhees, a disappointment at left guard last year, is expected to replace Ioane at right guard, though Emery Jones Jr., a third-round pick in 2025, could push him for snaps. Ioane, meanwhile, will become the fourth center to snap Jackson the ball since training camp opened in late July.

“Our chemistry has to be good,” Jackson said Wednesday. “That is where practice comes in.

Added Doyle: “We have guys in the building that we feel good about being able to problem-solve and handle and make sure that we have the best five out there. That will kind of continue with whoever comes in or out, any of that stuff. They are always being evaluated.”

And molded. Skura, who watched Ioane in person during a visit to training camp this summer, called him a “marble slab out there.” But, even if the Ravens’ grand designs for him haven’t changed, their short-term plans have.

Centers are “kind of the tip of the spear” on offense, Skura said. The NFL’s best at the position dictate their offense’s presnap communication and help determine its postsnap physicality. Ioane will have to get there; the Ravens hope it happens sooner than later. For now, all he can do is learn the basics.

And there is a lot to learn.

“You’re seeing the field in a totally different way,” Skura said. “Even though you’re just removed by a few feet, you go from just seeing, really, the whole right side of the defense to now you’re able to see the whole entire defense in front of you. And it’s just going to take a lot of reps.”