Childs Walker: 5 things we learned from the Ravens’ draft

The Ravens made themselves bigger and nastier with their first two draft picks of the Jesse Minter era. From there, they addressed some needs but left a few holes to be filled by other means. Here are five things we learned from their 2026 draft.

With their first pick, the Ravens again told us a repeat of 2025 is unacceptable

A sturdy guard over the most ferocious pass rusher in the class? That was the decision the Ravens made Thursday night when they drafted Vega Ioane No. 14 overall.

Reuben Bain Jr., a powerhouse edge who plays like his hair is aflame, fell, fell, fell right to their spot. Even after they signed Trey Hendrickson, they could have used another upgrade to a pass rush that underwhelmed last season.

But what was the Ravens’ greatest flaw, the one that threatened them to their very core? An interior offensive line that was simply not up to the task of protecting franchise quarterback Lamar Jackson. In their quest to re-embrace fundamentals under new coach Jesse Minter, they had to start from the inside out.

“The guy that we got is the epitome of what we want to be like,” Minter said.

You could argue, in their zeal to patch a gaping hole, the Ravens overlooked the forest for the trees. They drafted an unimpeachable prospect, clean of technique and mean of spirit. But in doing so they might have bypassed a more precious treasure — a young pass rusher who could alter big games in ways a guard never could.

Other shiny objects were also available to them at No. 14: Kenyon Sadiq, the tight end who moves like a sprinter; Makai Lemon, by some measures the most productive receiver in college football last year.

Then there’s the salary cap dilemma posed by a first-round guard. Because all offensive linemen are lumped in the same pool for the purpose of calculating fifth-year option costs, you end up paying a tackle price to maximize the value of a guard or center’s rookie contract. This dynamic just cost the Ravens a year of Pro Bowl center Tyler Linderbaum, whose option they did not pick up.

But, when you have a top-five quarterback who’s about to turn 30, a Hall of Fame running back who will turn 33 the same week and a premium pass rusher who’ll be 32 in December, it’s time to stop screwing around.

Ioane is a not-screwing-around pick if there ever was one. Everyone knows what he is and how he’ll help.

General manager Eric DeCosta said as much in explaining the pick. Yes, there were other enticing players on the board after the first round broke in the Ravens’ favor. Yes, paying Ioane in 2029 might be difficult.

But, given the chance to take an offensive lineman who will start immediately and who could make a Pro Bowl sooner rather than later, DeCosta saw those counterarguments as beside the point. The Ravens have rarely gone wrong over the years when they’ve drafted good, low-risk players in the first round. With Ioane, they kept it simple, stupid, and crossed off another flaw from a team that fell desperately short of expectations last season.

After two years of Daniel Faalele and one of Andrew Vorhees, it’s difficult to overstate the relief Ravens fans will feel watching a guard who did not allow a sack or commit a holding penalty over his last two years at Penn State. Ioane’s film reveals a 6-foot-4, 320-pound technician who puts run defenders on the ground with drive blocks while delivering nary a janky rep as a pass protector.

“I firmly believe that [Ioane] is going to be a really, really good player with us for the next five years and hopefully longer than that,” DeCosta said when asked about some of the reasons not to draft a guard so high. “There are obviously challenges with the way that that [the] offensive line [and] the fifth-year option is all kind of encompassed with tackles, guards and centers, but I’m not going to worry about that today. That’s something for me to worry about three years from now.”

Fans who wanted this draft to be about the trenches have to be thrilled

Though they passed on Bain, the Ravens did not wait long to beef up an edge group that badly underachieved in 2025. Second-round pick Zion Young doesn’t bring the quick twitch of a prototypical NFL pass rusher, but at 6 feet 5 and a cut 267 pounds, he sets as mean an edge as any prospect in the class. Plenty of analysts had him going late in the first round coming off a hugely productive season at Missouri.

Those who complained the Ravens had underinvested in both lines over the past few years had much to celebrate Thursday and Friday.

Minter steered into that theme in describing what he loves about Young: “He plays extremely hard and plays extremely physical. He’s very powerful in the run game, meaning, when he strikes blocks, they go the other way. When people pull on him and he strikes him, it’s a train wreck.”

Or, as Young put it: “I raise hell, especially on the field. You will see pretty soon.”

There will be those who criticize DeCosta for bringing in a rookie class with almost no sizzle, fronted by a pure guard and a pass rusher not known for rushing the passer. Fair enough, but you can’t have it all in the draft. If you’re short on quality maulers, as the Ravens were in 2025, you might have to forgo adding home run playmakers for a year. At least they chose their path with conviction.

And, to be fair, we might be selling Young short by assuming he’s going to be another Tavius Robinson. He was No. 2 in the Southeastern Conference in tackles for loss and No. 3 in pressures last season. He did it playing against future NFL blockers, so we can’t just discard those statistics. At the very least, he could prove a stylistic complement to Trey Hendrickson and Mike Green.

“I thought he made major improvements this year as a pass rusher, something he took a lot of pride in this year, improving in that area,” Minter said. “I do think he has the ability to rush up and down the line. So he has some versatility there, particularly as you get into third down, and you want to put different guys in different spots.”

The new coaching staff’s fingerprints were all over this draft

Ja’Kobi Lane could be the make-or-break pick when we assess this draft in a few years — a reach for those analysts who fixate on his inability to separate from physical defenders, a long-armed, huge-handed hidden gem for fans such as former Ravens star Steve Smith Sr.

The Ravens haven’t had much luck drafting tall receivers with big-play potential and mixed track records. Long live Miles Boykin and Jaleel Scott.

It’s understandable that they keep trying. You see Lane snatch a contested ball in the end zone with one of his giant paws, and visions of Jackson touchdown passes dance in your head.

“We just think that he’s a ball of clay with a lot of upside, who has unique catching ability and unique size,” DeCosta said. “I think Lamar’s going to like throwing a ball to him, and I think he has a chance to really make an impact on this team at some point.”

But then there are loud skeptics such as Dane Brugler, a draft analyst for The Athletic who had a fifth-round grade on Lane, criticizing him as an “upright, predictable route runner” with “very little to offer after the catch.” Brugler quoted an NFL scout saying Lane “will need to adopt a pro mindset in a hurry once he gets to the league.”

Why did the Ravens feel confident taking a glass-half-full risk on Lane? In part because their wide receivers coaches, Keary Colbert and Prentice Gill, have ties to USC, where Lane played for three seasons. He added to their positive impressions during his predraft visit to the Ravens’ facility. As a cherry on the sundae, it turned out former Ravens star Todd Heap had mentored him when Lane was in high school.

As DeCosta said this month, most prospects drafted in the third round or lower are incomplete players who mix eye-popping traits with potentially fatal weaknesses. As a general manager weighs those pros and cons, a trusted voice vouching for a prospect might make all the difference.

“I know that, as the person that has to make the ultimate decision, that’s really, really helpful to get their input, to kind of get a sense for how they’re going to fit and what they think they can become,” DeCosta said. “Ja’Kobi was a player that I think our coaches were excited about [and] our scouts really liked.”

None of that means Lane will pan out, but it helps explain why the Ravens “reached” for the rangy wide receiver over the centers and tight ends available in Round 3.

The Ravens weren’t in love with the available centers

If guard was the position where the Ravens most needed to draft an immediate starter, center was next on the list.

They couldn’t justify taking Florida’s Jake Slaughter or Iowa’s Logan Jones over Young. That would have been too great a departure from the valuations on their big board. But they probably hoped Slaughter or Jones would make it to No. 80 overall. Instead, Jones went No. 57 and Slaughter No. 63.

There were plenty of draftable centers — Kansas State’s Sam Hecht and Auburn’s Connor Lew atop the list — on the board when they did pick. They took Lane, hardly a sure thing, instead.

“You can’t just create a center out of the sky and say, ‘Oh, let’s take this guy,’” DeCosta said after the third round. “The board has to fall a certain way.”

That was a pretty clear indication of their middling esteem for the bulk of this center class. Then the Ravens practically shouted it to the sky when they drafted another wide receiver, Indiana’s Elijah Sarratt, in the fourth round.

Now Sarratt, who played high school ball for Saint Frances, is a cool player, a rugged pass catcher who established his clutch bona fides during the Hoosiers’ national championship run.

But, if the Ravens believed a good starting center was available in the fourth round, they would have taken him.

Instead, they took a full pass on the position, leaving it, for now, to lightly tested veterans Danny Pinter and Jovaughn Gwyn and former Maryland star Corey Bullock. No matter who wins that competition, it would be an enormous step down from Linderbaum, who made the last three Pro Bowls.

DeCosta reminded us that the roster won’t be set until September, a not-so-subtle indication a trade or signing could be in the offing.

But we have to wonder if, for all the Ravens will gain from plugging Ioane in at guard, they might lose just as much at center.

It had its virtues, but this Ravens draft zagged again and again

There is no such thing as consensus value in the last three rounds, and that felt doubly true this year. One team’s fifth-round pick was a projected priority free agent for another. Positional needs seemed to go out the window in favor of taking shots on interesting upside plays.

Many analysts, for example, had Penn State running back Kaytron Allen near the top of their best-available boards when the Ravens made two picks in a row in the fifth round. They took a different running back, Clemson’s Adam Randall. Perhaps it was Randall’s 6-foot-3, 232-pound frame, his special teams potential or his background as a pass catcher. The point is, someone in their draft room (owner Steve Bisciotti as it turned out) saw a flicker of something special in him, and that was enough.

Such picks make it difficult to sum up this class tidily.

The Ravens loaded up on targets and protectors for Jackson.

They checked some expected boxes, drafting a pair of solid all-around tight ends, SMU’s Matthew Hibner and Alabama’s Josh Cuevas, to learn behind Mark Andrews. Their track record at the position suggests at least one of those guys will be a real player, even if neither is ready to fill Isaiah Likely’s (or even Charlie Kolar’s) shoes in 2026.

They took the top punter on many boards in Michigan State’s Ryan Eckley, who’ll try to fill Jordan Stout’s spot.

They added a classic value pick in undersize Duke cornerback Chandler Rivers — fast, smart and one of the most prolific defensive playmakers in college football. It’s easy to envision Rivers shining on special teams and gradually forcing his way onto the field as a nickel back.

But they left other needs — a new starting center, an early-round defensive lineman to hedge against the health concerns around Nnamdi Madubuike — to be addressed by other means. When we thought they’d build their offensive line, they drafted two wide receivers. After opening with their eyes on the trenches, they used five of their next six picks on skill positions.

DeCosta was proud that they stuck to their guns in “trying to draft the best player available wherever we can.”

But fans were reminded that no draft is a cure-all, even for a team that picks as logically as any in the league.

Did the team’s revamped brain trust see a theme unifying the 11 players they did add?

“I just think you go all the way down the list and it’s a really physical group,” Minter said.