This year\u2019s NFL Draft has the chance to get wild in the trade department. In a class where the high-end talent is hard to come by, teams could get desperate to trade up for the prospects who could be game-changers. With the Baltimore Ravens picking at 14, they could find themselves in the middle of that chaos.<\/p>\n
Baltimore could be aggressive come draft time. They are coming off an extremely disappointing 2025 campaign and are tied for the second-most picks with 11. It\u2019d be an uncharacteristic move, but they have plenty of ammo to move up if they wanted to.<\/p>\n
If they were to trade up, Miami\u2019s Rueben Bain has the attention of the Ravens fanbase. He\u2019s one player who has been a red-hot name throughout the draft process and has been mocked to Baltimore<\/a>. Former Raven Michael Pierce isn\u2019t convinced it\u2019d be a smart move, though.<\/p>\n On an episode of the Black Wing Playbook<\/a>, Pierce mentioned he wouldn\u2019t be too fond of moving up for Bain<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cSo with this whole Rueben Bain stuff. I\u2019m going to turn off my TV if we trade up and draft him,\u201d Pierce said. \u201cWhat on Earth do you do with Mike Green? And what does that tell him? Because if you draft somebody at 14, home\u2019s got to start. Unless you have a player of worth, you have to give up something.\u201d<\/p>\n Michael Pierce gives reasoning against Baltimore Ravens trade-up scenario for Rueben Bain<\/p>\n First and foremost, the only way the Ravens will likely land Bain is if he somehow falls all the way to 14. I\u2019m sure in that case, Pierce would be satisfied with the pick. However, as it stands right now, that\u2019s extremely unrealistic. After a tremendous 2025 showing and Pro Day that backed things up, he seems like a top-10 lock. It\u2019ll almost definitely have to be a trade-up scenario, which Baltimore rarely does.<\/p>\n If you do trade assets to go up and select Bain, you\u2019re putting a lot of eggs into that pass rush basket this offseason. Sure, he\u2019s been getting a ton of hype, and a lot of that\u2019s warranted, but there have been major investments there over the past two seasons: Trey Hendrickson and Mike Green.<\/p>\n In the 2025 NFL Draft, the Ravens selected Green with their second-round pick. In free agency, they signed Hendrickson<\/a> to a four-year, $112 million contract<\/a>. Those are expected to be the two starters off the edge, and while Baltimore was reportedly interested in pairing Hendrickson with Maxx Crosby<\/a>, and is also in desperate need of pass rush help after posting just 30 sacks last season, trading up for another edge rusher may be too rich, given their other needs.<\/p>\n On paper, all signs should be pointing toward the Ravens selecting a wide receiver and an interior offensive lineman with their first two picks. So, while yes, drafting Bain may be the best possible outcome in terms of talent, they\u2019d also probably have to trade pick 45 to go get him. That\u2019d put them at a severe disadvantage if they wanted to draft a starting-caliber wideout and offensive lineman in the first two days of the 2026 NFL Draft.<\/p>\n Ultimately, though, Baltimore will be looking to draft the best player available. It\u2019s how general manager Eric DeCosta and the front office operate. In the same breath, they almost never trade up. If they see an opening for Bain, they might take it, but it\u2019s an unlikely scenario.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This year\u2019s NFL Draft has the chance to get wild in the trade department. In a class where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":855108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2052],"tags":[184,117,2282,7,6,169],"class_list":{"0":"post-855107","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baltimore-ravens","8":"tag-baltimore","9":"tag-baltimore-ravens","10":"tag-baltimoreravens","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-ravens"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116352335578371724","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=855107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}