Baltimore Ravens: Deshon Elliott was a major draft steal
By Cory Hughes
Looking at the slam dunk class Ozzie Newsome had in his final draft, could he have delivered another defensive gem in Longhorn Safety, Deshon Elliott?
What’s the best way to describe The Ravens coming away with a player like Deshon Elliott in round six? This was like a highway robbery. That’s the kind of steal Ozzie Newsome came away with on day three of the 2018 draft. Now a week later, I am still trying to wrap my head around and figure out how a player of Elliott’s caliber was still available in the late hundreds of this draft.
I still can’t explain it. The Longhorn safety finished his junior year with 63 total tackles, 8.5 of them went for a loss and he also got 1.5 sacks. Elliott, viewed by many as a box safety grabbed six interceptions in 2017, two of them coming from balls being thrown by now third overall selection, Sam Darnold. Also adding nine pass deflections to his resume.
Along with having an impressive year statistically, Elliott finished the year as an All American and a Thorpe Award finalist. If you watched some of Texas’ games this past college football season, Elliot would have jumped off your TV Screen.
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The two things that his games and tapes will tell you, is one: He can hit hard. Very hard. And two: He doesn’t miss many tackles, if any at all. I would even go out on a limb and say he might’ve been the best tackling DB in this year’s draft class. And, yet he slipped all the way to round six.
Looking at his size and his style of play, Elliott possesses the potential to be an enforcer on an NFL defense. The Ravens have had superstars like this before on their defense (Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Terrell Suggs). Maybe Ozzie Newsome gave us one more as a parting gift in his final draft.
Where exactly will Elliot fit?
The Ravens currently have one of the better safety tandems in the league, in Eric Weddle and Tony Jefferson. But, as we all know father time doesn’t lose. And while Weddle may have a few more good years left in his tank. He’s not going to play forever, now going on 34 years of age. Lamar Jackson wasn’t the only future they drafted, per say. Lamar Jackson could certainly be the future of the offense, and Deshon Elliott could be the future of Ravens defense.
This offseason The Ravens cut ties with longtime Raven DB Lardarius Webb. Going into the draft they didn’t have a third safety to plug into their defense. Elliott was surely the answer and exclamation point the team was looking for. Now, new defensive coordinator Don “Wink” Martindale, will have a young safety to plug into his defense. In case the team plans to run any type of 3 safety sets this upcoming season.
They now have their guy. Nicknamed the Joker due to his fascination with the villain played by the late Heath Ledger in the Dark Knight; Elliott will be putting smiles on the faces of Baltimore fans for years to come.
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Early mock drafts and scouting reports would have indicated that Elliott would have been taken in the second or third rounds. You could say; The Ravens got the better player at the safety position in round six than the Steelers did in round one. Years from now, football fans are going to be asking themselves how their teams general managers let Elliot slip thru the cracks.