• Welcome to PurpleFlock! Sign up here so that you can chat with your fellow Ravens fans.

2026 NFL Draft General Discussion

JoeyFlex5 said:
Exactly, which is why I feel the need to adjust the scale as to where we value a starting OL in the draft, it’s just a harsh reality that we aren’t typically gonna land one of those guys without trading up or “overdrafting”
Click to expand...
And to be fair, this ain't no Draft Day movie "OL no matter what" in round 1 type of stuff I'm talking about. If the BPA at 14 is far and away another position, go for that other position. But feels like that round 2-3 run is where we really get hurt (sans Rosengarten) and miss out on some guys we really like per my understanding. Even some of the OL they have picked in that range are not the guys they necessarily wanted to get there.
 
JoeyFlex5 said:
Exactly. We go looking for an all pro at a sexy position with mad traits as low as 14, that’s how you end up with a bust, hamiltons don’t happen often, the sure fire studs at a valued position just don’t fall to 14 without some crazy shit happening.

If you want to make the safest play and the biggest net improvement to your team at an awkward spot like 14(after the sure fire blue chips, before the fallers who turn out to be surprise studs) it’s a very sound strategy to take a very quality player at a lower value position that you NEED.

Don’t always gotta swing for the fences, the safe play is sometimes the best play.
Click to expand...
JoeyFlex5 said:
I understand the whole hoping to repeat history thing, I do it all the time in season comparing shit to our Super Bowl year holding out hope( and it’s pathetic I know) but I just can’t realistically expect another Kyle Hamilton scenario, that should have never happened in the first place and I still can’t believe it did, and everyone on these boards thought Hamilton was going top 5 and despite having safeties under contract we all wanted him anyway.
Click to expand...

Do we take safe pick in top 15? Not sure I’d say we do. We usually go after guys who fall that shouldn’t and our hit rates are excellent outside of positional reaches. In fact, what

I've heard you mention how Ioane or a G is a safe pick. I don't disagree to an extent. I think my issue is the following:

1. A lot of our Draft success is from taking sliders in the first round. This is proven by guys like Lamar, Hamilton, Humphrey, CJ Mosley from recent memory
2. We've had good success draft guys from a consensus range where they aren't reaches but aren't super value either. These are Zay Flowers & Tyler Linderbaum from recent memory as well as Patrick Queen. I'd also include Matt Elam here so it's mixed.
3. We have not had good success when drafting guys outside consensus range who are considered mild reaches. Perriman and Hayden Hurst are what I would call examples of these. I'd also classify Odafe Oweh here, and he was a mild success, but the reaches don't work out a lot.

I think I'm not married to a specific position. I just want elite players in the first round. If we are given a choice between Love and Ioane at #14, and cannot trade down, I think I would take Love even though I don't want a RB in the first as positional value. Yes, positional value is there but for me I am not married to a hard line on it. I just think it's all situational. Do you want to draft a LB, RB, S in the first? No, I don't. I don't want to draft a C but I love Linderbaum and was stoked when we drafted him.

I don't see Ioane as a clear-cut above the competition behind him. I feel very confident we can get another guy to play G at 45 or trade up to get them.
 
Simba said:
And to be fair, this ain't no Draft Day movie "OL no matter what" in round 1 type of stuff I'm talking about. If the BPA at 14 is far and away another position, go for that other position. But feels like that round 2-3 run is where we really get hurt (sans Rosengarten) and miss out on some guys we really like per my understanding. Even some of the OL they have picked in that range are not the guys they necessarily wanted to get there.
Click to expand...
I think the issue with Round 2, if I am honest, is related to the success of our first round. In our first round, we've had tremendous success letting guys fall to us as sliders. But if you look at our 2nd and 3rd round picks, the failure there is often due to...

1. Red Flag Sliders (Sergio Kindle, Arthur Brown, Tim Williams)
2. Overvaluing need (e.g., Boykin)
3. Limited traits ceilings in players who hit their ceiling early without surplus value (e.g., Boykin)
4. Scheme misprojections where college role didn't translate to Ravens system (e.g., Kamalei Correa, Malik Harrison)
2. Taking gambles on athleticism translating to football

Our success has been from:
1. Traits over production bets (high RAS, length, explosiveness especially at EDGE; e.g., Justin Madubuike, Orlando Brown Jr who was also a slider)
2. Trusting tape over Combine (Mark Andrews)
3. Premium position focus (EDGE, OL, DL over off-ball LB, RB, WR; e.g., Brandon Williams, Ben Powers)
4. High Football IQ players with toughness and effort

I looked into why we have failed vs. succeeded in Rounds 2-3 and the defining reasons were:

Ravens succeed at drafting OL when they go after player with a clearly elite trait (e.g., length, anchor, hand usage) and failed when going after guys who were just big and strong but limited athleticism.
 
Grim said:
Do we take safe pick in top 15? Not sure I’d say we do. We usually go after guys who fall that shouldn’t and our hit rates are excellent outside of positional reaches. In fact, what

I've heard you mention how Ioane or a G is a safe pick. I don't disagree to an extent. I think my issue is the following:

1. A lot of our Draft success is from taking sliders in the first round. This is proven by guys like Lamar, Hamilton, Humphrey, CJ Mosley from recent memory
2. We've had good success draft guys from a consensus range where they aren't reaches but aren't super value either. These are Zay Flowers & Tyler Linderbaum from recent memory as well as Patrick Queen. I'd also include Matt Elam here so it's mixed.
3. We have not had good success when drafting guys outside consensus range who are considered mild reaches. Perriman and Hayden Hurst are what I would call examples of these. I'd also classify Odafe Oweh here, and he was a mild success, but the reaches don't work out a lot.

I think I'm not married to a specific position. I just want elite players in the first round. If we are given a choice between Love and Ioane at #14, and cannot trade down, I think I would take Love even though I don't want a RB in the first as positional value. Yes, positional value is there but for me I am not married to a hard line on it. I just think it's all situational. Do you want to draft a LB, RB, S in the first? No, I don't. I don't want to draft a C but I love Linderbaum and was stoked when we drafted him.

I don't see Ioane as a clear-cut above the competition behind him. I feel very confident we can get another guy to play G at 45 or trade up to get them.
Click to expand...
I might be the only one with you but id also take love over him at 14!
 
Grim said:
I think the issue with Round 2, if I am honest, is related to the success of our first round. In our first round, we've had tremendous success letting guys fall to us as sliders. But if you look at our 2nd and 3rd round picks, the failure there is often due to...

1. Red Flag Sliders (Sergio Kindle, Arthur Brown, Tim Williams)
2. Overvaluing need (e.g., Boykin)
3. Limited traits ceilings in players who hit their ceiling early without surplus value (e.g., Boykin)
4. Scheme misprojections where college role didn't translate to Ravens system (e.g., Kamalei Correa, Malik Harrison)
2. Taking gambles on athleticism translating to football

Our success has been from:
1. Traits over production bets (high RAS, length, explosiveness especially at EDGE; e.g., Justin Madubuike, Orlando Brown Jr who was also a slider)
2. Trusting tape over Combine (Mark Andrews)
3. Premium position focus (EDGE, OL, DL over off-ball LB, RB, WR; e.g., Brandon Williams, Ben Powers)
4. High Football IQ players with toughness and effort

I looked into why we have failed vs. succeeded in Rounds 2-3 and the defining reasons were:

Ravens succeed at drafting OL when they go after player with a clearly elite trait (e.g., length, anchor, hand usage) and failed when going after guys who were just big and strong but limited athleticism.
Click to expand...
I also don't think it helps that we drafted guys made for Roman's scheme while he was here, and then we never really tried to find guys that better fit what Monken was running.

I'll be candid - I don't think our evaluation of OL prospects is the only problem, but I do think we've been behind the runs far too frequently and haven't been aggressive enough to make an impactful choice there.
 
Seems like we gonna be doing a lot of under center stuff this season. Is there like specific olinemen we should be looking for?
 
Jacquouille said:
We drafted an all pro corner at 16.

The Rams got Verse at 19. The Seahawks got Murphy at 16. Bowers went 13.
Gonzalez fell to 17.

I could go on. This argument is just not valid.
Click to expand...

Other names that fit the bill:
Walter Nolen at 16
JSN at 20
Hamilton at 14 (obviously)
Jaelan Phillips at 18
CeeDee Lamb at 17
Justin Jefferson at 22
Brian Burns at 16
Dexter Lawrence at 17
Jeffery Simmons at 19
Tremaine Edmunds at 16
Derwin James at 17
Jonathan Allen at 17

all guys who in many cases were thought of in upper echelon terms in their classes who fell for whatever reasons

in this year of all years we've got a bunch of "questions" around top tier talents that might make 1 or 2 of them fall a bit (just like Terrell Suggs and Haloti Ngata falling):
Reuben Bain - arm length
Jermod McCoy - injury
Mansoor Delane - depending on how his speed testing numbers come out
Caleb Downs - positional value
Jeremiyah Love - positional value
Sonny Styles - positional value
Arvell Reese - what position does he play?
Jordyn Tyson - injuries

that's 8 of the top 9 prospects on my board with some form of question that might cause a mini fall

depending on who you are you also might have some of these guys in your upper echelon talent:
David Bailey - some character concerns and 3 down questions
Akheem Mesidor - old and injuries
Francis Mauigoa - arm length
Makai Lemon - size and athletic testing

some of these questions will be answered at the combine this week, others won't
 
Simba said:
I also don't think it helps that we drafted guys made for Roman's scheme while he was here, and then we never really tried to find guys that better fit what Monken was running.

I'll be candid - I don't think our evaluation of OL prospects is the only problem, but I do think we've been behind the runs far too frequently and haven't been aggressive enough to make an impactful choice there.
Click to expand...

for me it's less so asking to reach and moreso needing to better identify the ranges we want to be in and being more willing to maybe package together a couple of day 3 picks to move up in the 3rd round to make sure you don't miss out on the run which as you've said has happened before

this is the one year where i'd be ok trading up in the 1st round - we never get access to these sorts of talents and if it seems like we might miss out, i'd be ok with giving up some draft capital to maybe get up ahead of Dallas (or into that sort of range) to make sure we actually get a guy we covet - not saying that's what we should do, but if we were ever going to do it (not for a QB), this would be the year to do it
 
Deebo813 said:
Seems like we gonna be doing a lot of under center stuff this season. Is there like specific olinemen we should be looking for?
Click to expand...

OL scouting doesnt change a ton with under-centre vs shotgun vs pistol etc.

gap/power vs zone, point of attack vs L2 and in-space is more the kind of schematic stylistic differences you might see
 
rossihunter2 said:
OL scouting doesnt change a ton with under-centre vs shotgun vs pistol etc.

gap/power vs zone, point of attack vs L2 and in-space is more the kind of schematic stylistic differences you might see
Click to expand...
You need a beefier C with a more stout anchor when you play under center often or you risk your qb getting tripped up/stepped on from the initial push
 
RaineV1 said:
He worries me a little since he feels like a player that should be better and more consistent than what he actually was during college. But I could see Minter turning him into a really good 3 tech on the line.
Click to expand...
Doesn't look like more than day 2 pick. Good run defender.
 
It’s that time of year where my autofill goes to profootballnetwork.com instead of purpleflock.com when I type P in my browser

Draft season is officially upon us
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top