ExtremeRavens Posted April 22 Posted April 22 When the NFL draft descends upon Detroit on Thursday, it will mark the 89th time the league’s franchises have gathered to select newly eligible players. It will also mark both a turning point and an important juncture for the Ravens. “This whole draft landscape has changed,” general manager Eric DeCosta said earlier this month. He was referring to the impact name, image and likeness deals, along with the extra year of eligibility granted by the NCAA in 2020 in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, are having on this year’s class. And, at least in the case of NIL, likely future ones, too. “There are less players in the draft this year,” he said. “There are less probably ‘draftable’ players this year on our board, less juniors, less underclassmen.” Indeed. Because of the perfect storm of the pandemic and newfound financial gains for players who might previously have been inclined to enter the draft early, this year’s class includes just 58 players who still had college eligibility remaining. That’s the fewest since 2011. Only five years ago, there were a record 135 players who entered the draft early. How all of it impacts the Ravens remains to be seen, but with nine picks this year and a projected 11 in 2025, the upcoming drafts will be particularly important for Baltimore for a couple of reasons. For one, they lost more than a dozen players, including many significant contributors, in free agency or other roster moves from last season’s 13-4 team that reached the AFC championship game. They brought back some key contributors and added new players, including four-time Pro Bowl running back Derrick Henry, but replicating the kind of success they had with their free agent signings last offseason is anything but a guarantee. For another, the Ravens’ handful of core stars are only going to get more expensive over the next three years and beyond. For example, quarterback and two-time NFL Most Valuable Player Lamar Jackson ($32.4 million), inside linebacker Roquan Smith ($13.5 million) and defensive tackle Justin Madubuike ($11 million) already account for more than 20% of the team’s salary cap this year after signing lucrative extensions. Meanwhile, veteran cornerback Marlon Humphrey ($22.9 million) has the second-biggest cap hit on the roster behind Jackson, and All-Pro safety Kyle Hamilton and Pro Bowl center Tyler Linderbaum will become eligible for extensions beginning next year. That means a handful of players will chew up an increasingly larger percentage of cap space, thus leaving less money for all the Ravens’ other needs. Enter this year’s draft, which isn’t particularly deep, and next year’s, which should be much more so, especially at running back. That’s a position Baltimore might address with Henry only signed for two years and already 30 years old. “[This is what happens] when you have a quarterback no longer on a rookie deal plus a lot of other really, really good players on your roster who have already been paid or are soon to be paid,” ESPN draft analyst and former NFL scout Field Yates told The Baltimore Sun. “But this is all part of a larger, more complicated web that they have always done an excellent job of managing. The draft is going to end up being a friend in a lot of ways.” Yates added that he also doesn’t sense panic from Baltimore amid its current landscape. DeCosta isn’t worried, either, and is confident about how he’ll be able to replenish all those missing parts. “We’ve always been a team that’s built through the draft primarily,” said DeCosta, who will oversee his sixth draft for Baltimore this year. “We feel that’s the best way to build your team long-term from a cost standpoint — obviously cheaper players, but also young players that you know a lot about who can develop and become good players. “We see this year’s draft and we see next year’s draft as real opportunities for us to begin to build that depth up again.” Baltimore Ravens training camp, Aug. 3Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore SunRavens general manager Eric DeCosta, from left, and coach John Harbaugh talk with owner Steve Bisciotti during training camp. DeCosta jokingly described trading for draft picks in future years as “The Bisciotti Reign of Terror.” (Karl Merton Ferron/Staff) The good news is that this year’s class is deep in some areas, and they align with the holes the Ravens need to fill, particularly on the offensive line, wide receiver and to some extent cornerback. Baltimore has both starting guard spots open after John Simpson and Kevin Zeitler left in free agency. Right tackle Morgan Moses, meanwhile, was traded to the New York Jets. There is also a need at cornerback, with question marks beyond Humphrey and Brandon Stephens, who is set to become a free agent after this season. With three picks among the top 100, including No. 30 in the first round and No. 62 in the second, finding a starting caliber offensive lineman, a cornerback and wide receiver who can contribute immediately will likely be a priority. “Cornerback and offensive tackle are not exactly spots in free agency where a lot of great players hit the open market, so the Ravens might feel their best way to attack those two positions is in the draft,” Yates said. “The offensive tackle class I do think there are possibilities of players that last late into the late portion of the second round, but both of those [positions] are areas where 30 is the only place where I feel confident they could address one of those two issues.” Fellow ESPN draft analyst and Baltimore native and resident Mel Kiper Jr. agrees, which is why he projects Alabama cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstry to the Ravens in the first round and Kansas State guard Cooper Beebe to them with the 62nd overall pick in Round 2. “Cornerback is their biggest need and the offensive line would be right there,” Kiper told The Sun. “Kool-Aid ran 4.47 [seconds in the 40-yard dash] with that Jones [foot] fracture [when] everyone thought he would be a 4.55 guy. He was better than that, even with the injury. He’s been a starter since Day 1. He was better than [teammate] Terrion Arnold most of his career … Kool-Aid at the end of the first round, that’s a heck of a pick there in terms of where they were, where they are now in terms of value. “Cooper Beebe can play left tackle, right tackle, but he’s got shorter arms than I prefer; that’s why I moved him down into the late second. He’s more of a guard I believe in the NFL. … That gives them the versatile piece that they could use as a starter at guard or kick to right tackle.” Given DeCosta’s penchant for viewing draft picks as lottery tickets, there’s also the possibility the Ravens could instead trade back out of the first round to acquire more picks. “There’s a way you could work it where you could move out of the first round and all of a sudden you could get an additional several picks and still get a good corner,” Kiper said. Added Yates: “There is always the possibility for a team wanting to secure the fifth-year option for a quarterback pick at the end of the first round. Any of those teams picking in the last five or six spots are worth watching.” Of course, it depends on the perceived value of those picks in DeCosta’s eyes when it comes to acquiring them, particularly when he’s already said he does not view this as a deep class. “It’s great to have additional picks,” he said. “You certainly have to have players that you covet and that you want to draft. “You could have 15 picks, and sometimes you’re there at the end of the draft and you’re looking at the [board and you have no idea who you want to pick. You just don’t see anybody that you really covet. I always think about it as, ‘What picks do you need to get the players that you want to take?’ You can have some great picks, but if the board doesn’t fall the right way, and you’re looking at a bunch of players that aren’t any better than the players you have on your roster, those picks don’t really help you very much. “I like the idea of having more picks, but I want to have more picks in a specific range in the draft.” Which could mean the Ravens might not end up using nine picks after all if, for example, they decide to move some of their late-round picks in exchange for picks next year. “We’ve done it a couple of times, but that’s always an interesting thing,” DeCosta said. “I think [owner] Steve [Bisciotti] would love us to do that. He’s excited about that. His idea would be — not to give anything away — but he has what he calls ‘The Bisciotti Reign of Terror,’ and that would basically be that you trade a seventh-round pick in any given year for a sixth-round pick next year, and then take that sixth-round pick and trade it for a five, and then trade that five for a four. And so in seven or eight years, you’d have a first-round pick. We’ve always talked about that, but we never get to that point.” Asked how often it has worked, DeCosta laughed and said, “That’s why it’s called ‘The Bisciotti Reign of Terror.’ It’s unique.” A lot like this year’s draft. View the full article Quote
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