Ravens Top 10 Draft Picks Of the Last 10 Years: #8 Jarrett Johnson
November 24, 2011; Baltimore, MD, USA; Baltimore Ravens linebacker Jarrett Johnson (95) tries to tackle San Francisco 49ers running back Frank Gore (21) on Thanksgiving
With The Draft upcoming, i thought it would be appropriate to take a look at some of the shining accomplishment and most glaring faults in terms of draft picks.
Now That I Have Recapped the Ravens 10 worst draft picks, lets get to the good stuff, Here are the Ravens 10 best draft picks of the past 10 years. Like with the worst picks, I have a few parameters here.
- Players who signed a second contract with the team were given priority over those who did not.
- Non Starters were not included. There are way to many good picks for me to include players who don’t start, at least occasionally.
- Players on the Superbowl squad were given the edge over players who were not.
- Proven commodities are worth more than potential success.
Those arent shackling restraints, but because the Ravens draft so well, this was actually a bit of a challenge. There are probably a lot of player that should have made this list but didn’t, just because there wasn’t enough room on the list to include everyone.
Jarrett Johnson is the only Player on this list who is not a current Raven.
Johnson was a draftmate of Terrell Suggs, who(spoiler alert) will be appearing on this list later. While Suggs was a top 10 pick, Johnson was snagged in the 4th round, 109th overall. Johnson immediately became a rotation player for the Ravens. He playing in 15 and 16 games in first two seasons respectively, netting 3 starts. entering his 3rd season Johnson was tabbed as the teams new starter at OLB. He never gave up the role. Johnson didnt miss a start for the rest of his Ravens career racking up well over 100 consecutive starts.
Johnson finished his Ravens career with over 400 tackles and 21.5 sacks. His stats don’t show how well he played in the run game. Johnson established himself as one of the premier run defenders at the OLB position. He excelled at doing the dirty work of the defense, setting the edge, forcing plays to extend outside further than the runner wants, putting pressure on to force backs to cut back, Johnson was a master in the run game. Johnson left the Ravens last offseason and signed a deal with the San Diego Chargers worth 19 million(10 guaranteed).
The contract was to rich for the Ravens blood, but Johnson is a Raven for life as far as I am concerned.