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The last NFL Draft that former Baltimore Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome was in charge of before turning over the keys to the front office to his long-time friend and mentee, Eric DeCosta, was in 2018.
It’s too early to tell if it yielded any future first-ballot Hall of Famers as his very first did when he selected left tackle Jonathan Ogden and inside linebacker Ray Lewis in the first round.
However, the early year returns on the crop thus far are very encouraging as it featured three multi-time Pro Bowlers and nine total players that have made 25 or more starts in their respective careers over the past five years.
In a re-draft article from Bleacher Report’s Gary Davenport, three members of Newsome’s final 12-man draft class went in the first round with three-time Pro Bowl tight end Mark Andrews and four-time Pro Bowl offensive tackle Orlando Brown Jr. joining Jackson in the top 32 picks.
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One of the biggest black spots on Newsome’s otherwise dazzling Hall of Fame career as an executive is that he never drafted a wide receiver that made a Pro Bowl or established themselves as an upper-echelon talent. In this exercise, he finally hits a home run at the one position that he seemingly could never figure out.
With Jackson going second overall to the New York Giants, Brown Jr. sixth overall to the Indianapolis Colts, and the Ravens letting Andrews fall to 19th overall to the Dallas Cowboys, they stayed put at No. 16 overall. This time around instead of trading back, they didn’t let former Maryland wideout D.J. Moore, who eventually went No. 24 overall to the Carolina Panthers, slip through their fingers again.
“This was also the draft class in which the Ravens drafted tight ends Mark Andrews and Hayden Hurst, and Andrews was absolutely a consideration here,” Davenport wrote. “But it’s just too tempting to envision a world in which the Ravens have a proven commodity at wideout.”
Even though the Panthers added him to the trade package they sent to the Chicago Bears in exchange for the first overall pick in this year’s draft, Moore has been a model of productive consistency since entering the league despite having an uninspiring carousel at quarterback.
Prior to recording a “relatively modest” 63 catches for 888 yards and a career-high seven receiving touchdowns in 2022, he eclipsed 1,100 receiving yards in each of the previous three seasons according to Pro Football Reference.
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This wasn’t the first time that the Ravens passed on a former Terps wideout that went on to have impressive and immediate success in the league.
They were one of the other 31 other teams that let eventual three-time Pro Bowler Stefon Diggs fall on the lap of the Minnesota Vikings in the fifth round of the 2015 NFL Draft.
Instead of trading back a second time and settling for Hurst at No. 25 overall, Newsome could’ve taken Moore at No. 22 overall and still traded back into the bottom of the first round to get Jackson.
Also in this re-draft, current Ravens inside linebacker Roquan Smith who was originally selected eighth overall by the Bears prior to being acquired via trade midway through last season went one spot higher at seventh overall to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
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