Ravens Top 10 Draft Picks Of the Last 10 Years: #7 Lardarius Webb
Jan 22, 2012; Foxborough, MA, USA; New England Patriots free safety Sergio Brown (31) tackles Baltimore Ravens cornerback Lardarius Webb (21) in the second half during the 2011 AFC Championship game at Gillette Stadium. Mandatory Credit: David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports
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.
Webb Was a complete steal for the Ravens in the 2009 NFL draft. They took him in the 3rd round, 88th overall. Webb was the 11th CB taken, and he is easily the best of the bunch(several taken above him are on their 2nd or 3rd team or out of the league).
I have heard a lot of negativity about Lardarius Webb lately. Im not buying any of it.
I know Webb now has 2 ACL tears, I get it. I also know that Webb is a top 3 NFL corner when he is healthy(assuming he can regain his former form). A franchise cannot predict 2 ACL tears for a player who had no existing injury issues coming out of college, that is just bad luck. What they can predict is that this player is much better than everyone thinks and they can project a position change from FS to CB.
That is exactly what the Ravens did. Webb came into the league as a rookie and became a starter after the Ravens suffered a series of injuries in the secondary. Webb was immediately an impact player as both a corner and a punt returner. Unfortunately Webb suffered his first ACL tear with just a few weeks left of his rookie season. The injury caused him to have a lot of issues the following year and his season basically ended with Ben Roethlisberger throwing a deep pass over his head to seal a Ravens playoff loss. Then came 2010. Webb was back with a vengeance. Webb allowed the lowest QB rating in the league when targeted and forced QBs into just a 28.3% completion rate when throwing to players he was in man coverage on. He allowed zero TDs on the season. 2011 saw Webb replicate his 2010 numbers, again he did not allow a TD in man coverage all season. Webb was quickly becoming one of the best corners in the game and the Ravens subsequintly signed him to a big 6 year 52.7 million dollar extension. Webb had not allowed a Td through 6 games this season, but unfortunately he again to an ACL. His recovery is reportedly going well.
Even if Webb loses some speed, there is always the chance he could slide back to safety, where he played in college, which is a position with less of a premium placed on speed.