Baltimore Ravens putting faith in their 2019 NFL Draft class

The Baltimore Ravens draft for future needs rather than current needs and their 2019 NFL Draft class will be a prime example of this in 2020.

The Baltimore Ravens are one of the best teams in the NFL when it comes to drafting-and-replacing players. The team loses big-name free agents every offseason and the team almost never skips a beat. Of course, there are exceptions, but Baltimore has gotten pretty good about who they do and don’t let leave the team.

If there was ever an offseason to prove this point, it’s this one. A slew of players are set to hit Free Agency, to include Matt Judon, Michael Pierce, Patrick Onwuasor, Jimmy Smith, and Anthony Levine among plenty of others. We also can’t forget that Marshal Yanda could hang it up and retire this offseason.

For a team that just went 14-2, they have a lot of business decisions to make. But, could the Ravens already have replacements for these players? They just might.

You see, Baltimore’s 2019 NFL Draft class was almost exclusively made for future needs. The Ravens knew they had a slew of guys set to hit the open market and recognized that they don’t have all the cap space in the world to bring everybody back. With that in mind, Baltimore went ahead and drafted potential replacements.

Should Yanda retire, Ben Powers is waiting in the wings to start. Powers didn’t see the field much as a rookie but that doesn’t mean he didn’t develop in the meantime. There’s no one here to say that he would replace Yanda, let alone match his play. Powers could still be a full-time, solid starter, however.

In the secondary, Iman Marshall could develop into a similar player to that of Anthony Levine. Levine played a very important hybrid-role for Baltimore’s defense and Marshall could excel in the same position. If all else fails, Marshall can master his craft in coverage and be Jimmy’s Smith’s replacement.

Wide receiver depth wasn’t good to start with, but both Chris Moore and Seth Roberts are likely to be gone from Baltimore. Insert Miles Boykin, who arguably played better than both of them either way as a rookie.

My personal favorite player, Michael Pierce, will likely get paid big-bucks by another team in need of a run-stuffing nose tackle. To replace him is Daylon Mack. Mack has a very similar build and can be effective early on in his career as a gap-eating monster next to Brandon Williams.

Finally, we have Jaylon Ferguson to potentially help replace Matt Judon’s production should the team decide to let him walk (or potentially trade him?). Ferguson wasn’t the most effective player as a rookie, but he could help create a rotation with Tyus Bowser and others to keep the Ravens pass rush at least be respectable.

Put all that together and you can see that Baltimore had a plan to attack this offseason when they selected these guys in last year’s draft.

As you can see, the Baltimore Ravens are always prepared for the worst. The Ravens could lose every single one of their free agents and they would at least have a plan in place. Whether or not it succeeds is another story, but Baltimore is clearly always prepared for worst-case scenarios. It’ll be interesting to see just how everything plays out, but we can put our faith in a great organization that they’ll continue to march to the beat of their own drum.