Join the huddle. Sign up here for Ravens updates in your inbox.

Imagine you’re Eric DeCosta. It’s Thursday night in Owings Mills. The Ravens are on the clock at No. 14 overall. You look at your list of the best players available. A week ago, you’d called this a “sweet spot” in the NFL draft. Maybe you were being honest; maybe you were smoke-screening. But now the options aren’t nearly as sweet.

The phone rings. It’s another general manager, calling with a trade offer. Just because you consider your pick and the top prospect on your board to be misaligned in value doesn’t mean other teams will, too.

The GM has an offer for the Ravens: Move back in the first round, swapping draft slots, and get a few Day 3 picks in return. You decline. The GM makes a surprising counteroffer: What about trading away the No. 14 pick for a package that includes the GM’s first-round pick in next year’s draft?

Imagine you’re Eric DeCosta. What do you do? The Ravens need to find starters in the draft this year. Rarely do they find themselves picking in the top half of the first round.

DeCosta must be pragmatic. And careful. He not only has a roster to fortify but also another high-stakes negotiation with quarterback Lamar Jackson to consider. Could the Ravens sacrifice a valuable win-now asset for greater flexibility (and scrutiny) in 2027?

“I like the line of thought, just to be in position to do something if you need to,” former Tennessee Titans general manager Ran Carthon said in an interview. “But you don’t necessarily have to.”

The Ravens wouldn’t need to look far for a potential framework. Last year’s draft featured a win-later move from a Super Bowl contender. The Los Angeles Rams, who entered the 2025 offseason as NFC West champions and favorites to repeat, dealt the No. 26 overall pick and their third-round pick to the rebuilding Falcons.

In return, they got Atlanta’s second-rounder (No. 45 overall) and a seventh-rounder (No. 242), plus the Falcons’ first-round pick in 2026. Experts consider the strength of this year’s draft to be on Day 2, where the Ravens already have two selections.

“To be able to get a future ‘one’ is a big deal, to just move back 20 spots,” Rams coach Sean McVay told local reporters after the trade. “Obviously, the next couple of days will be exciting, but we feel really good about the way that tonight unfolded for us.”

Over the next year, the deal only got better. The Falcons finished 8-9, entitling the Rams to the No. 13 overall pick, a significant upgrade on their draft slot from the year before.

That has given general manager Les Snead optionality. With a rejuvenated Matthew Stafford back under center in Los Angeles and a disappointing quarterback class dimming this draft, the Rams are no longer expected to look for the 38-year-old Stafford’s replacement in the first round Thursday. But the extra draft capital meant they could afford to send their original first-rounder to Kansas City as part of a trade package for Chiefs star cornerback Trent McDuffie without losing the top pick in their war chest.

The Ravens, like the Rams, are looking for a playoff breakthrough. And the Ravens, like the Rams, are publicly committed to a shared future with their star quarterback. Owner Steve Bisciotti said at a January news conference that he wants Jackson “to be my quarterback.” First-year coach Jesse Minter said after his hiring that he’s intent on building a team around Jackson “that allows him to reach that ultimate goal of bringing a Super Bowl back to Baltimore.” DeCosta said he’s “certainly hopeful that we’ll get an extension done.”

But after an offseason contract restructure, Jackson has significant leverage in negotiations. He has a no-trade clause and a no-tag clause. He’s under contract through 2027, when his salary cap hit is set to spike from $34.4 million to an untenable $84.3 million. And he could afford to wait awhile; rising-star quarterbacks Drake Maye, Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels will be eligible to sign extensions as soon as next March. Each successive megadeal could reset the market at the position.

DeCosta’s last contract talks with Jackson dragged on for over two years, ending just hours before the start of the 2023 draft. The second round of their negotiations remains ongoing; DeCosta said in March that he and Jackson “kind of ran out of time” before they could agree to an extension ahead of the new league year.

“I think it’s important to both parties, but we remain to see what’s going to take place in the future,” he said.

Another top pick could change the paradigm. With the star-level talent on the Ravens’ roster and the arrival of a well-regarded coaching staff, they are unlikely to bottom out in 2026. But another team’s first-rounder could turn into anything — maybe a bottom-of-the-round pick, maybe a top-10 pick. There is always added risk trading that far into the future.

With enough draft ammunition, DeCosta could conceivably escalate negotiations with Jackson to the point of brinkmanship: Sign an extension by next spring, or else we’ll draft your eventual replacement. (Another, less forceful suggestion: Sign an extension, and we can draft the “X” wide receiver prospect of your dreams.)

“I think you work like hell to get this deal done with Lamar, because that is a proven product, a two-time MVP,” said Carthon, now an analyst for SiriusXM NFL Radio and a co-host of CBS Sports’ “With the First Pick” podcast. Also applying pressure: Jackson’s staggering cap hit in 2027, which could account for more than a quarter of the team’s total space.

But Carthon acknowledged the contingency plans that having a second first-round pick would afford DeCosta: “If you want to spend it on a quarterback, you can. And if not, now you have another piece on the board that you can move out of that spot and acquire even more [picks] and have even more of a chance to replenish your roster.”

Typically, teams get a discount in deals for future draft capital. The further away the pick is, the less value it holds in NFL front offices. But it’s unclear whether the Ravens could even add another 2027 lottery ticket, much less whether they should.

Daniel Jeremiah, an NFL Network draft analyst and former Ravens scout, said earlier this month that he did “not get the sense that anybody wants to part with 2027 picks.” ESPN analyst Mel Kiper Jr. said last week that teams will be “very reluctant” to part with first-round picks next year “because, on paper, it looks like one of the better drafts we’ve had in a while.”

Texas’ Arch Manning, Oregon’s Dante Moore, South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers, Texas Tech’s Brendan Sorsby and Ole Miss’ Trinidad Chambliss, among others, all project as potential first-round quarterbacks. High-end wide receiver prospects like Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith and edge rusher prospects like South Carolina’s Dylan Stewart could join them on Day 1.

But prospect trajectories can change dramatically in a year. So can roster needs.

“We said last year that this year’s draft class was supposed to be one of the deepest ever, and it’s not,” Carthon said. “And for those teams that punted in 2025 to 2026, you now have to potentially punt again in 2026 for 2027. And again, I know they’re going to be some talented guys in there, but we don’t know that they’re going to have the impact that Lamar will have.”

Thursday night will be a clandestine juggling act for Ravens officials, as it always is. They will consider the present and the future, their offense and their defense, their strengths and their weaknesses. The front office’s decision to draft Jackson with the final pick of the first round in 2018 came two months after Bisciotti told reporters, when asked whether it was time to start considering life after Joe Flacco: “We’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

At his predraft news conference last Wednesday, DeCosta said the Ravens expect to draft “a really good player” at No. 14 overall. But he added: “You never know what’s going to happen at 14, too.” They could move up. They could move back.

Or maybe they could move into a whole new draft entirely.

“Let’s just say you have your feet in the now,” Carthon said, “but you have your eyes towards the future.”