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The Baltimore Ravens and their approach to roster construction and resource allocation have been under a lot of criticism all season despite their 8-4 start to the season. In the wake of their franchise quarterback and former unanimous league MVP, Lamar Jackson, suffering a knee sprain in their Week 13 win over the Denver Broncos, national media pundits have pondered the question of whether the team has “failed” him this year.
While many of his fellow analysts have been outspoken with their disappointment in the weapons or lack thereof that the team and general manager Eric DeCosta have surrounded Jackson with, FOX Sports’ Emmanuel Acho argued the contrary in a recent episode of his sports talk show ‘Speak’.
He took it upon himself to debunk what he believes is the “greatest myth in the NFL”. Not only does he refute the narrative that Jackson “has been given no help” but tried to make a case that they’ve invested more draft capital in an attempt to upgrade the arsenal at his disposal than they did the former franchise quarterback who on them a Superbowl in his fifth season in the league.
He pointed out that since Jackson entered the league as the 32nd overall pick in 2018, the Ravens have drafted seven offensive skill position players, excluding himself, in the first three rounds of the NFL Draft. That total is tied with the San Fransisco 49ers for the most in the league over that five-year span.
“We all know that Jimmy Garaoppolo has been given a plethora of help,” Acho said.
He went on to point out that the seven early-round draft picks spent to give Jackson weapons during the first five years of his career is the same amount the team invested during the first 10 years of the career of his predecessor, Joe Flacco.
“Joe Flacco in 10 years was given the same help as Lamar Jackson in five years,” Acho said.
A couple of flaws in his argument are that not all early-round picks pan out nor are they created or rather taken in the same range of the draft from round to round and the NFL was much different in the early portion of Flacco’s career compared to Jackson from roster construction to offensive philosophy league-wide.
Victims of Their Own Success and Injury Bug
Unlike the 49ers, the Ravens haven’t completely bottomed out once during the time that Jackson has been in the league. They consistently pick in the bottom half of rounds in the NFL draft each year because they win more games a year in and year out whereas San Fransisco finished 4-12 in 2018 and 6-10 in 2020 which allowed them to pick in the top half of rounds in the ensuing drafts where they landed Deebo Samuels in the second round in 2019 and were in range to trade up for Trey Lance to be their next franchise quarterback in 2021.
The worst record that the Ravens have finished with since Jackson was inserted as the full-time starter as a rookie was 8-9 last season and he missed the final four games of the season with an ankle injury. That resulted in the team’s first top-15 pick since 2017 when they selected eventual All-Pro cornerback Marlon Humphrey and they used it on dynamic defensive back Kyle Hamilton who miraculously fell in their laps and whose versatile skill set has been a huge asset in year one.
While they have spent seven picks in the top three rounds on offensive skill position players in the past five years including two first-round wide receivers, the Ravens haven’t gotten the same return on their investment as other teams that have picked skill players in the same range. The draft is essentially a gamble based on an educated guess as a result of scouting and film study.
Even the most experienced and well-respected talent evaluators with a track record of tremendous success like the Ravens have been for the vast majority of the franchise’s history can and sometimes do get it wrong. DeCosta used his first-ever pick as the head of the front office to select Marquise ‘Hollywood’ Brown No. 25 overall in the 2019 NFL Draft and two years later he took Rashod Bateman at No. 27 overall in 2021.
Both players flashed game-breaking potential to start their respective careers but have struggled to stay on the field due to injuries. The team took Brown in the first round despite him coming off a Lisfranc foot injury and while he showed off his blazing speed at times and for stretches, before he got traded to the Arizona Cardinals this past spring, he was still an inconsistent player for the most part during his time in Baltimore.
Bateman has all the attributes, skills, and traits of a true No. 1 wide receiver but injuries delayed his NFL debut as a rookie by five games and ended his second season after just six. The other skill players that the Ravens have taken early during the aforementioned include tight ends Hayden Hurst (first) and Mark Andrews (third) in 2018, wide receiver Miles Boykin (third) in 2019, and running back J.K. Dobbins and wide receiver Devin Duvernay (third) in 2020.
Andrews is the only one among the bunch that has blossomed into an elite player at his position. Hurst is on his third team, Boykin was released and picked up by the Pittsburgh Steelers, Dobbins showed a lot of promise as a rookie but has struggled to stay on the field, and Duvernay has been an elite returner but has yet to become a consistent contributor on offense to no fault of his own to some degree.
The Ravens as a team have been plagued by the injury bug for the past two seasons which has played a huge factor in many of their shortcomings during that time. Due to All-Pro Ronnie Stanley being in and out of the lineup this year and missing all but one game last season, the pass protection for Jackson has been inconsistent at best. The fact that both Dobbins and Gus Edwards missed all of last season with torn ACLs and their inability to stay on the field this year has prevented the offense from dominating on the ground and owning time of possession as they did in 2019 and 2020.
Injuries at key positions on defense as well have led to some blown leads and an inability to consistently get off the field which has put even more pressure on Jackson to make a herculean effort to help the team win as much as have and are accustomed to with him at the helm. Two of the best assets that a quarterback can have is a strong defense and a running game. The Ravens have struggled to field both over the past two seasons.
Paradigm Shift For Offensive Success
The NFL and the trends that translate to success in it have changed drastically from the time era that Flacco entered the league as a first-round pick in 2008 compared to the one Jackson came into five years ago. Back then, team the most successful teams relied heavily on old-school philosophies such as having veteran-laden rosters and emphasizing defense and running the football.
Nowadays with the proliferation in the annual salaries and going rates for the top positions around the league, it is harder to carry as many vested veterans which has forced teams to rely more on younger players on rookie contracts and hope that their stars stay healthy. It’s a formula that paid major dividends for the Los Angeles Rams last season in their run to claiming the second Superbowl title in franchise history but is now falling apart at the seams as they are currently ranked last in their division with a 4-9 record and look like they are in for tough times ahead with little no cap space and limited draft capital.
This shift requires more investment of high draft capital by teams in order to help their quarterbacks succeed than was needed when over a decade ago. The Ravens have done exactly that but whether it’s because of injuries or just picking the wrong players, they just haven’t been able to get the return on their investment as some other teams have at the offensive skill positions.
DeCosta and Co. could also go the route of using their early-round draft capital to acquire a proven veteran playmaker at wide receiver instead of hoping that one with the potential to develop into one falls to them in the draft. It’s a strategy that the Buffalo Bills did by getting Stefon Diggs for Josh Allen, that the Philadelphia Eagles did by getting AJ Brown for Jalen Hurts, and that the Miami Dolphins did by getting Tyreek Hill for Tua Tagovailoa.
All three players are in the MVP conversation this year and are enjoying tremendous success but their teams also recently hit on a young receiver in the draft as well that has perfectly complemented the true No. 1 wideout they acquired via trade. For the Bills it’s Gabriel Davis who has caught six touchdowns this year and is averaging 19 yards a catch, for the Dolphins it’s Jaylen Waddle who has also caught six touchdowns this year and will likely eclipse the 1000-yard receiving mark this upcoming Sunday in Week 14, and for the Eagles, it’s DeVonta Smith who is on pace for a 1000-yard season as well.
While Smith and Waddle were top 10 picks in 2021, Davis was a fourth-rounder in 2020, proving a team can find stars and contributors in any round. Diggs was taken in the fifth round in 2015, Hill in the fifth round in 2016, and Brown in the second round in 2019. It might be time for the Ravens to flip one of their early-round picks for a proven playmaker at the wide receiver position because they likely won’t be able to crack the top 10 in the first round of the draft unless they trade up as long as Jackson is the face of their franchise.
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