Ravens pass on needs to stick with BPA

Tim Williams is an explosive edge rusher, but three edge defenders this year and five in the last two years just seems like a bit of overkill.

Individually, it is impossible not to love the Ravens draft. All seven of their picks look like they can be starters or very solid contributors in some sort of way, but as a collective draft, it does not look like the Ravens really got all that much better in the ways they needed to.

Really, it is just a battle of whether a team should value drafting the best available player every single time or if they should make adjustments on some sort of team needs.

First round draft pick Marlon Humphrey is a talented cornerback, and the Ravens did need a cornerback, but they did not need a first round cornerback.

Tyus Bowers, Chris Wormley, and Tim Williams are all talented edge defenders and can rush the passer, but the Ravens did not need three edge defenders from this draft.

The best selections when factoring in need may have been the three picks the team had on the third day of the draft. Nico Siragusa is a very, very good guard and may actually contend for a starting job while Jermaine Eluemunor can provide some much-needed depth on the offensive line. Chuck Clark was a special teams pick, not really a pick at safety and should be a big contributor right away.

But the Ravens are still leaving the draft without providing any weapons for Joe Flacco, who lacked weapons to make for anything close to a dangerous offense last season, and are still without a clear starting or backup inside linebacker to work with CJ Moseley. Unless the Ravens do indeed go out and sign Nick Mangold, the offensive line will also have to bank on a fourth-round draft pick from San Diego State being good enough right away to fight for a starting job.

Obviously, with any draft the only real way to properly grade anything with after employing the wait-and-see approach. Certainly, that is what must happen with this class because individually, each team is great, but all together with what the team really needed, it just does not seem like the Ravens took the best approach this year.

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Corey Johns

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You could say Corey was born to become a sports journalist. His father won a national championship coaching college soccer. His mother is a baseball fanatic who hasn't missed seeing an Orioles game since 1983 (literally, sometimes it's annoying). His great uncle was a big-time boxing promoter and his maternal grandfather was once a department head at the Baltimore Sun. Basically, sports and journalism run through his blood. He played just about every little league sports there was when he was a kid and was a multi-sport athlete in high school; even playing in the first-ever high school sanction Rugby game in the country. Eventually he retired from sports as an undefeated Maryland state Rugby champion as a high school senior. Perhaps lack of athletic talent has more to do with the retirement, but he will tell you that it more had to do with a great desire to jump right into media. Upon his graduation from University of Maryland, Baltimore County as a triple communications major, Corey started the So Much Sports network and has continued to grow his websites and continues to work to make them premier sports media outlets.

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