Feb 3, 2013; New Orleans, LA, USA; Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice (27) runs behind the block of full back Vonta Leach (44) on San Francisco 49ers safety Donte Whitner (31) in Super Bowl XLVII at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. Mandatory Credit: Chuck Cook-USA TODAY Sports

With The Draft upcoming, i thought it would be appropriot 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.

1. Players who signed a second contract with the team were given priority over those who did not.
2. Non Starters were not included. There are way to many good picks for me to include players who don’t start, at least occasionally.
3. Players on the Superbowl squad were given the edge over players who were not.
4. 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.

Ray Rice was selected in the second round of the 2008 NFL draft. All he has done since then is produce more scrimmage yards than almost any other player in the league and produce two 2000+ scrimmage yard seasons. All that despite only being a third RB in his rookie season.

Rice being the 4th best pick in the last ten years just further proves that the Ravens are the best NFL team when it comes to draft success.

Rice took a full year to take over as a starter, but once he did, he immediately showed he was ready to be one of the leagues elite backs. Rice notched 1339 rushing yards to go along with his 702 receiving yards. He also scored 8 TDs.This gave Rice his first 2000+ yard season(2339).

2010 saw Rice continue to produce at a high level, though he did take a bit of a step back, he still was top 3 in the league in scrimmage yards with 1776 rushing and receiving yards combined.

After 2010, the Ravens released Willis McGahee, which opened the door for Rice to be a full time work horse in 2011. He reponded by setting career highs in every category. Rushing Yards- 1364. Receiving Yards- 704. Rushing TDs- 12. Receiving TDs- 3. This obviously gave him his second 2000+ yard season and many expected Rice to take over as the leagues top RB with Adrien Peterson injured at the end of 2011(of course we all saw how that worked out).

In 2012, Rice had his lowest totals as a starter, but much of that was thanks to a confused identity on the offense as a whole. despit that, he still had 1621 total scrimmage yards and 10 TDs, his second consecutive year with double digit TDs.

Rice is a top 5 NFL back, and a top 5 pick over the last decade for the Ravens.

Feb 3, 2013; New Orleans, LA, USA; Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice (27) against the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

As many of you know, the EA Sports video game Madden NFL holds a fan vote to determine which players will grace its cover each year(at least for the last few years anyway). This year, they had decided to do one legendary figure and one current player from each team. The Ravens were represented by Ray Lewis and Ray Rice.

Lewis and Rice both easily won their opening rounds and then narrowly escaped their second round, but they hit a brick wall against Barry Sanders and Robert Griffen III respectively. Both players lost by about 30% of the vote. That means that the Ravens wont have a player on the Madden cover.

I am not particularly broken up over this. Ray Lewis graced the cover once, so the Ravens do have representation in the game, but As far as which player wins out each year, I dont really pay much attention to it. It would be pretty awesome to have Ray Lewis on the cover again, but with Rice, I am not so sure I want to tempt the Madden curse and the super bowl hangover curse at the same time. It just doesn’t sound like the recipe for success.

With both Ravens off the table, I think I will be voting for Barry Sanders to make it.

Jan 20, 2013; Foxboro, MA, USA; Baltimore Ravens running back Bernard Pierce (30) celebrates in the fourth quarter against the New England Patriots in the AFC championship game at Gillette Stadium. The Ravens defeated the Patriots 28-13. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports

If you missed Brian Baldinger on WNST Baltimore earlier today. You need to go listen to it. It was fascinating.

Baldinger is one of the better connected NFL analysts out there, He has a ton of connections in coaching circles, including Baltimores newest coach Juan Castillo. Castillo is widely considered to be the best in the league at developing offensive line talent and turning lineman into stars. According to Brian Baldinger, Castillo believes Kelechi Osemele is the future of the left tackle position in Baltimore. Left Tackle.

Now If Castillo believes that Osemele is that type of player, then I am inclined to believe him. KO was a 3 year LT at Iowa St. Castillo has probably forgotten more about offensive line play than I could ever hope to know. I never player OL, I never Coached OL and I barely scratched the surface of scouting OL, so I am far from an expert like Castillo is. KO already looks like a slam dunk pick by Ozzie Newsome and the Ravens front office, but if he develops into a good Left Tackle, which means he would be able to play every single offensive line position, It would make him an even better pick.

I thought that the Kelechi Osemel thoughts were interesting, but his thoughts on Bernard Pierce were about 1000 times as interesting.

Here is what Baldy had to say about Bernard Peirce.

I Mean, I Think Bernard Pierce might be the best player on the team right now. Were gonna see this guy just flourish. Ray Rice is gonna have a long career in Baltimore because of Bernard Pierce. And so, I mean, that guy has got 1000 yards all over him and, uh, may be the starter next year.

Whoa. Say What?

Baldinger talked about the Ravens having the best RB stable in the league, He backed that up by theorizing that Pierce is, not only better than Ray Rice, but the best player on the team. Better than Ngata, Suggs, Flacco, Rice, Yanda, Torrey Smith etc.. Wowzers. I talked about Pierce being the better runner compared to Rice many times, but I always was firm in my belief of Rice being a better all around player and back. Let me remind you one more time that Baldinger has spoken about all this stuff with the Ravens new Run Game coordinator Juan Castillo. This is a pretty big bombshell, but it makes a ton of sense. Pierce is a true running back whereas Rice is more of a flex player. You can line Rice up at TE, RB, FB, WR, pretty much anywhere and he will make plays. It is possible that the Ravens could be looking at using Rice lined up in the slot more to compensate for the loss of Boldin. That would give the Ravens more opportunities to get both Rice and Pierce on the field for as many plays as possible. Getting the best players the most snaps has Jim Caldwell written all over it. It seems obvious, but Caldwell has always been a guy that got his best playmakers on the field as often as possible regardless of the position they played.

So is it possible that the 2013 opening day roster has KO at left tackle and Bernard Pierce as the top tailback? let me know what you think Ravens fans.