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2022 General Draft Thoughts

Deebo813

Hall of Famer
plenty of good RT have been taken in the 1st round. One just a few years ago is one of if not the best tackles at any position, by the name Ryan Ramczyk. I believe he was drafted right around 31 or so. We have to consider that we have Ja'Wan James whom we signed in the offseason on a cheap deal due to his achilles injury. He should be a very good right tackle, so I'm not sure we go RT in the first round, but I'm all about best player available.

Welcome to the board, glad I could bring you over from RSR. We have an excellent draft thread and it will be broken out by position after the season. You also want to follow @Edgar youtube channel. He is a member on this board as well and @rossihunter2 also does some nice breakdowns.

We post a bunch of breakdowns in the Film Breakdowns thread also. Look around and familiarize yourself with the board.
Juwan james played like 4 games in 2-3 seasons right?
 

ChainedBird

Practice Squad
I wouldn't mind another go at the Justice Hill experiment, just with a different back and Jerrion Ealy may fit the bill. He's small (5'8, 190lbs), nimble, jittery, fast, regularly breaks ankles in the open field and has sticky hands (no drops on 35 receptions). Also has a good track record in special teams.

If we can nab him where we got Justice (4th round) then not only do we have a potentially scary change of pace RB3 (even if he has just a shade of Lamar's elusiveness, having two of them on the field would be wild) that can perform in special teams, but also an insurance policy for Dobbins/Edwards as we don't know for sure how they'll look post-injury.

Potential downsides are that he's not great at pass pro (he's tiny), but that's offset a bit by Lamar's escapability and that he's yet to experience a heavy workload of snaps, which would be offset by him being a low snap count RB3/special teamer for us.
 
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RaineV1

Ravens Ring of Honor
Nicholas Petit-Frere from Ohio State would be a great late first prospect if he's still on the board. Really athletic tackle with experience at both LT and RT. He can be the day one starter at RT, or possibly LT if Stanley's injury continues to be an issue. He fills a hole no matter how things look next season.
 

ndub

Ravens Ring of Honor
I wouldn't mind another go at the Justice Hill experiment, just with a different back and Jerrion Ealy may fit the bill. He's small (5'8, 190lbs), nimble, jittery, fast, regularly breaks ankles in the open field and has sticky hands (no drops on 35 receptions). Also has a good track record in special teams.

If we can nab him where we got Justice (4th round) then not only do we have a potentially scary change of pace RB3 (even if he has just a shade of Lamar's elusiveness, having two of them on the field would be wild) that can perform in special teams, but also an insurance policy for Dobbins/Edwards as we don't know for sure how they'll look post-injury.

Potential downsides are that he's not great at pass pro (he's tiny), but that's offset a bit by Lamar's escapability and that he's yet to experience a heavy workload of snaps, which would be offset by him being a low snap count RB3/special teamer for us.

Anyone else see us pulling a surprise in the draft at the RB position? I see this as a definite move the Ravens would make at the right time/right price/right draft slot. I don't think they go running in next year with their two backs coming off of major injuries that may sap some of their effectiveness without some form of insurance policy for them.
 

rossihunter2

Staff Member
Moderator
Anyone else see us pulling a surprise in the draft at the RB position? I see this as a definite move the Ravens would make at the right time/right price/right draft slot. I don't think they go running in next year with their two backs coming off of major injuries that may sap some of their effectiveness without some form of insurance policy for them.

i also dont see them blowing major draft capital on another RB this soon...

with money likely being tighter moving forwards, it would seem wasteful not to expand our high-end draft capital on high value positions like OL, DL, CB or WR

now if you've got someone who's just too good value at another position then fine but i doubt we see a RB be that value again - the 2020 class had 5-6 guys who were all super highly rated and it required other teams liking other guys better for someone to fall who was value when we picked at the end of the 2nd round there - even the ravens talked about there being 6 clear guys in that class and luckily Dobbins was only the 5th guy taken

it would need a class like 2020 (and some luck) or a class like 2017 for a RB to be BPA when we pick
 

ChainedBird

Practice Squad
i also dont see them blowing major draft capital on another RB this soon...

with money likely being tighter moving forwards, it would seem wasteful not to expand our high-end draft capital on high value positions like OL, DL, CB or WR

now if you've got someone who's just too good value at another position then fine but i doubt we see a RB be that value again - the 2020 class had 5-6 guys who were all super highly rated and it required other teams liking other guys better for someone to fall who was value when we picked at the end of the 2nd round there - even the ravens talked about there being 6 clear guys in that class and luckily Dobbins was only the 5th guy taken

it would need a class like 2020 (and some luck) or a class like 2017 for a RB to be BPA when we pick

Yeah, agreed that an early round pick is very unlikely and tbh even if there are interesting RB prospects like Ealy in the later rounds they may instead decide to play the odds with undrafted prospects, which for such a low valued position will be a lot of them. Given that anyone who makes it through the process is likely to be RB3 on such a run friendly team AND have a small possibility of leapfrogging a post-injury RB1/RB2, I reckon there will be a lot of undrafted RBs looking at the opportunities Ty'Son got this year and licking their lips. We could have our pick of them and whittle it down in our own time post-draft without spending any resources.
 

rossihunter2

Staff Member
Moderator
Yeah, agreed that an early round pick is very unlikely and tbh even if there are interesting RB prospects like Ealy in the later rounds they may instead decide to play the odds with undrafted prospects, which for such a low valued position will be a lot of them. Given that anyone who makes it through the process is likely to be RB3 on such a run friendly team AND have a small possibility of leapfrogging a post-injury RB1/RB2, I reckon there will be a lot of undrafted RBs looking at the opportunities Ty'Son got this year and licking their lips. We could have our pick of them and whittle it down in our own time post-draft without spending any resources.

and it's my personal bias as well - i dont personally like drafting LBs, RBs, TEs high in the draft for a few reasons - 1) they have lower game-changing impact than higher value positions 2) they're the positions where you're more likely to find decent contributions or even high-level play later in the draft 3) i find them way less interesting to scout than the other positions so am less interested in those prospects
 

ChainedBird

Practice Squad
Nicholas Petit-Frere from Ohio State would be a great late first prospect if he's still on the board. Really athletic tackle with experience at both LT and RT. He can be the day one starter at RT, or possibly LT if Stanley's injury continues to be an issue. He fills a hole no matter how things look next season.

I hope we spend our 1st on defense this year, but if we do end up picking up an offensive player here then this does seems to be the sort've guy we'd go for, a solid prospect! Provides really nice insurance against either Stanley or James not returning at a good level and provides an eventual heir at RT for the following season.
 

Davesta

Ravens Ring of Honor
Close your eyes and envision Odafe Oweh and Kayvon Thibodeaux coming off the edges.

If only... lol
 

Willbacker

Ravens Ring of Honor
and it's my personal bias as well - i dont personally like drafting LBs, RBs, TEs high in the draft for a few reasons - 1) they have lower game-changing impact than higher value positions 2) they're the positions where you're more likely to find decent contributions or even high-level play later in the draft 3) i find them way less interesting to scout than the other positions so am less interested in those prospects

This is interesting those are my most fun positions to watch. LB's?? They make the tackles. Sack the QB. Captains of the D!!!! My least favorite is oline and corners but every concept is what makes a team jell
 

rossihunter2

Staff Member
Moderator
This is interesting those are my most fun positions to watch. LB's?? They make the tackles. Sack the QB. Captains of the D!!!! My least favorite is oline and corners but every concept is what makes a team jell

i like OL and corners - i get to watch guys in 1v1 battles - probably the 2 positions that get put in the toughest positions on the field and have some similarities in that they have to play backwards

a bit like pass rushers and WRs having some similarities in their traits especially when you look at their use of hands and attacking leverage
 

RaineV1

Ravens Ring of Honor
Still hesitant to draft offensive line and rb? 2 or 3 ol, 1 rb, 2 cb, 2 dl, 1 lb, 1 olb
We're getting two running backs back from injury next year. Unless he's the second coming of Barry Sanders any rookie will be RB3 on our depth chart.

O-line though is a very obvious need.
 

ChainedBird

Practice Squad
We're getting two running backs back from injury next year. Unless he's the second coming of Barry Sanders any rookie will be RB3 on our depth chart.

O-line though is a very obvious need.

I'm not convinced it is, our IOL is solid (as long as we keep Bozeman) and we have Stanley, James and maybe Vilaneuva next year at tackle. The interesting part at both OL and RB will be whether they come back as good as they were. I can see some insurance gets, but we don't need to jump the gun and start rebuilding either room.
 

rossihunter2

Staff Member
Moderator
I'm not convinced it is, our IOL is solid (as long as we keep Bozeman) and we have Stanley, James and maybe Vilaneuva next year at tackle. The interesting part at both OL and RB will be whether they come back as good as they were. I can see some insurance gets, but we don't need to jump the gun and start rebuilding either room.

we have no idea that either stanley or james will be ok (as we saw this year with stanley) and we can see that villanueva is not the kind of guy you should be satisfied with - he's fine but not what you'd like
 

ChainedBird

Practice Squad
we have no idea that either stanley or james will be ok (as we saw this year with stanley) and we can see that villanueva is not the kind of guy you should be satisfied with - he's fine but not what you'd like

I wouldn't be upset if they went for an early round tackle, but I reckon it's more likely they go for a later round traitsy raw guy who they can train up for a year behind James, but can also act as that insurance in case there isn't anything there. Ideally want to be saving the early round picks for defense this year imo
 

rossihunter2

Staff Member
Moderator
I wouldn't be upset if they went for an early round tackle, but I reckon it's more likely they go for a later round traitsy raw guy who they can train up for a year behind James, but can also act as that insurance in case there isn't anything there. Ideally want to be saving the early round picks for defense this year imo

i think there's no more valuable position than OT and if an OT is the best guy then great

worst case then you've got the future of the position in place and even if he's not ready straight away we've got a viable option at LT that isnt villanueva
best case then you've got Stanley back at LT and you have guys at RT who allow the young guy time to learn if he needs it and if he doesnt then he instantly makes the team better and helps fix the weakest part of the offence
 
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