{"id":867615,"date":"2026-04-16T09:46:02","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T09:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/867615\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T09:46:02","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T09:46:02","slug":"ravens-somehow-perfectly-fine-having-11-draft-picks-we-may-end-up-with-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/867615\/","title":{"rendered":"Ravens Somehow Perfectly Fine Having 11 Draft Picks: ‘We May End Up With 14’"},"content":{"rendered":"

While Steelers pundits opine Pittsburgh\u2019s excessive draft pick count<\/a>, the Ravens welcome their own abundance. In fact, GM Eric DeCosta even suggested that they could add more over the course of the draft. Baltimore enters next week\u2019s event with 11 draft picks<\/a>, just one fewer than the Steelers.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s not uncommon for the Ravens, nor is it uncommon for them to draft a bunch of players. Just last year, for example, the Ravens drafted 11 players. Meanwhile, beat writers for the Steelers are agonizing over how they could fit even eight rookies on this exalted, clearly Super Bowl-caliber roster. A roster that has almost an entirely new coaching staff, mind you, which will have different preferences.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like having 11 picks right now. I think that\u2019s a starting point. And we may end up with 14\u201d, DeCosta said about the Ravens\u2019 draft pick total, via the team\u2019s website<\/a>, \u201cor we may end up with six. It just depends on the board and how the players come off the board and what we think of the best opportunities for us to improve as a team. So, it gives us a lot of currency to start the draft process, but I think where we finish remains to be seen\u201d.<\/p>\n

Now, the Ravens rarely draft fewer than eight players in any given class, and usually it\u2019s more. In 2018, for example, they drafted 12 players, and that class turned out pretty well. Among those still in the league are Lamar Jackson, Mark Andrews, Orlando Brown Jr., and DeShon Elliott.<\/p>\n

The latter, of course, is going into his third season with the Steelers. Elliott was the ninth player the Ravens drafted that year, in the sixth round, but, clearly, the Steelers can only accommodate seven or eight draft picks at most because, you know, they\u2019re just so good and all that.<\/p>\n

Of the Ravens\u2019 11 draft picks last year, only one didn\u2019t make the team or land on IR. And that one is still in the league, seventh-round OL Grant Dellinger. Three of the Steelers\u2019 12 draft picks are in the seventh round, but they can identify talent there. Unfortunately, sometimes that talent is injury-prone, like Cory Trice Jr., but late picks are for dice rolls. But if the Ravens, known for their drafting, can so frequently accommodate a large number of draft picks on the roster almost every year, why can\u2019t the Steelers? They usually select in a similar spot in the draft, and both are reluctant to trade up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it just depends on the player and who that is and how highly we have him rated\u201d, DeCosta said of the Ravens\u2019 philosophy about trading up in the draft. \u201cIf we have a bunch of guys kind of rated the same way, and we like one of those guys, the chances of us going up and giving up a ton to get that guy, probably wouldn\u2019t be something that we do. But if we have a guy that\u2019s kind of at a different level on the board who we think really comes in right away and can impact our team, certainly we\u2019d be aggressive in that situation and potentially move up to get that guy\u201d.<\/p>\n

This year, the Ravens have no extra draft picks in the first four rounds. They do have four picks in the fifth round, however, and a pair of second-round picks. Thanks to backing out of the Maxx Crosby trade<\/a>, they also still have their first-round pick. A pick they may well use to draft a player the Steelers want<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Steelers pundits opine Pittsburgh\u2019s excessive draft pick count, the Ravens welcome their own abundance. In fact, GM…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":777291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2055],"tags":[4955,117,168,7,6,520,57,2360,426],"class_list":{"0":"post-867615","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-2026-nfl-draft","9":"tag-baltimore-ravens","10":"tag-eric-decosta","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-pittsburgh","14":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","15":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","16":"tag-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116413750956211478","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867615","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=867615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}