ravens eyeing boise st corner kyle wilson...
Ravens seek to make the most of 5 picks in draft
?The Baltimore Ravens have already used the 2010 NFL draft to address their biggest need, so general manager Ozzie Newsome isn?t worried about having only five picks to improve a team coming off two straight playoff appearances.
The Ravens? primary focus during the offseason was to bolster a wide receiving corps that produced only 12 touchdowns during a 9-7 season and none in two playoff games. After signing free agent Donte? Stallworth(notes), Newsome dealt his third- and fourth-round picks to the Arizona Cardinals for Anquan Boldin(notes) and a fifth-round selection.
That means Baltimore is poised to enter the draft Thursday night with only two picks?Nos. 25 and 57 overall?in the first four rounds. The Ravens don?t have a seventh-rounder, either, having dealt that away in the 2008 trade with Tampa Bay that landed defensive end Marques Douglas.
?What we did to get Anquan Boldin and what I did two years ago to get Marques Douglas on this football team was worth it,? Newsome said. ?I?m better off with Anquan Boldin than to be sitting here with six picks, you know? Because you?d probably see some sweat on my brow.?
That Ravens have never had fewer than six picks in any draft, and it?s quite possible this year won?t be any different. Two years ago, Newsome dealt the eighth overall selection to Jacksonville for four picks, then worked another trade to land quarterback Joe Flacco at No. 18.
A year ago, Baltimore was slotted at 26, but Newsome moved up three notches to take offensive tackle Michael Oher(notes), who immediately became a starter. Later in the draft, Newsome traded down to collect more picks.
The Ravens could target Terrence Cody of Alabama with the 25th pick. Defensive tackle Dwan Edwards(notes) signed with Buffalo as a free agent and end Trevor Pryce will be 35 in August.
?I think Cody?s just a guy you can?t move,? said Eric DeCosta, the Ravens director of player personnel. ?He?s a 350-pound guy, very strong at the point of attack, a deceptive athlete (with) very good feet in a short area.?
Or, since cornerbacks Fabian Washington(notes) and Lardarius Webb are both coming off season-ending knee injuries, Newsome could select pass-cover specialist Devin McCourty of Rutgers.
Then again, tight end Jermaine Gresham of Oklahoma would give coach John Harbaugh an ideal bookend opposite 30-year-old Todd Heap.
Or Newsome may go entirely in another direction, staying true to his ?best player available? credo that in the past garnered Oher, linebacker Ray Lewis(notes) at No. 26, safety Ed Reed(notes) at 24 and Heap with the final pick in the first round of the 2001 draft.
?Since I?ve been here, the one thing I?ve learned is when you?re picking in the 20s, the draft really does not unfold for you until you get past 15 picks,? Newsome said. ?The first 15 picks, we?re just sitting there and we?re taking a guess as to who?s going to pick who and who?s going where. But after those first 15 picks, then the draft starts to crystallize itself for us and we can start to go into targeting players that we think will have the opportunity to make it.?
That?s when Newsome pounces. And even though the Ravens don?t have many 2010 draft picks to barter, that doesn?t mean he won?t be on the phone in the middle of the opening round.
?We had six picks last year and we traded up and got Michael,? Newsome said. ?There are a lot of ways you can build your football team, and if we feel like someone starts to come down the board and he can impact our football team, impact it in a way that we can afford to do some other things on our roster, then yeah, we will move up and get that guy.
?You just never know. You just have to be prepared to go either way.?
By the time the draft begins, the Ravens will have spent hundreds of hours preparing their list of potential picks. And after all that, the quality of their initial selection might just might come down to a twist of fate.
?We weren?t planning on drafting Ed Reed (in 2002),? DeCosta said. ?We were going to draft somebody else, and he got picked. And it was a player that we had ranked higher than Ed, quite honestly. Ed was our 24th player, I think. We drafted 24th that year, and we got the best player in the draft. So, there is an element of luck to this thing. Sometimes you need to get lucky.?
