Baltimore Ravens Draft: Could Surprise Names Be On the Board at 28?

Baltimore Ravens and the 2020 NFL Draft: Should you expect the unexpected?

Every year, one of the certainties of the NFL offseason is that mock drafts quickly turn into “mocked drafts,” as we all look back and see just how many picks we got wrong. Coming into last year’s draft, the majority of pundits had the Baltimore Ravens either bolstering the offensive line, or going with N’Keal Harry or D.K. Metcalf as their first-round receiver.

In a year with so many additional uncertainties due to the pre-draft limitations caused by COVID-19, it has become increasingly difficult to predict what will happen. And if one NFL general manager’s words have any truth to them, we could be in for a lot of surprises next Thursday.

NFL Network’s Ian Rapaport Tweeted on Friday that one unnamed GM told him, “The media is wronger about mock drafts this year than you guys have ever been.” Granted, it’s certainly commonplace for NFL front offices and player agents alike to create as much “smoke” and confusion as they can this time of year, so the comments should be taken with a grain of salt.

Even if the remarks were made purely as a sort of gamesmanship, they could end up holding truth.

The reality is that different general managers and front offices value different things, and have difference degrees of tolerance for risk. That’s not to say Chase Young is suddenly going in the third round, or that Joe Burrow will be the fourth quarterback off the board. But the reality is that many players we’ve seen as Top 10-15 players could end up sliding past 20, or even into the early second round, and players many have pegged as Day two picks could have their name called on Thursday night, perhaps even towards the middle part of the evening.

For a team like the Ravens, who sit with the 28th spot in the first round, this could end up resulting in some surprising players falling into their laps. Who could these players be?