The Baltimore Ravens haven’t shied away from high-profile trades in recent years. Players like Marcus Peters, Calais Campbell, and Yannick Ngakoue all represent notable players the team acquired via trade within the last few seasons.
And for the most part, when the Ravens trade, they have done so successfully.
The Ravens sent a fifth-round pick to the Jacksonville Jaguars for Campbell who remains a cornerstone of the defense even at age 35.
Marcus Peters was acquired for a fifth-round pick and linebacker Kenny Young — a bargain of a deal given his career resurgence in Baltimore. And even dating a little further back, the Ravens have many more hits than misses when it comes to trades.
The Ravens traded up to draft the likes of Lamar Jackson and Joe Flacco, as well as future All-Pros Marshal Yanda and Haloti Ngata. Their trade for wide receiver Anquan Boldin back in 2010 proved to be fruitful in the long run.
The Ravens have made some good trades over the years. But there are also a few that have produced less-than-stellar results. Those are the trades we’re going to focus on in this list.
We will take into account virtually everything related to the trade. And for this list, hindsight is most certainly 20/20.
Let’s take a look at the four most disappointing trades in Baltimore Ravens history.
4. The Baltimore Ravens trade for Lee Evans
As previously mentioned, the Ravens don’t exactly have a lengthy lineage of poor trades, so we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel a little bit here.
Still, it’s hard to look back on the Ravens’ trade for wide receiver Lee Evans as anything other than a bust of a transaction.
Eyeing additional wide receiver help prior to the start of the 2011 season, the Ravens sent a fourth-round pick to the Buffalo Bills in exchange for the veteran Evans.
Evans had spent the last seven years of his career in Buffalo where he was a dependable starter even posting 1,000-yard seasons in 2006 and 2008.
Unfortunately, the then-30-year-old failed to do much of anything in Baltimore. Evans was injured in the preseason and played just nine games for the Ravens, hauling in four catches for 74 yards.
Most Ravens fans will remember him for his crucial drop late in the AFC Championship Game against the New England Patriots that cost the team a Super Bowl berth.
Although the player Buffalo selected with that pick, cornerback Ron Brooks, didn’t turn out to be anything special, the Ravens still wasted a fourth-round pick on a player who had four catches with the team.
And someone who will be most remembered for an untimely drop in a crucial playoff game.
Safe to say this is not a trade Ravens fans look back fondly on.
3. The Baltimore Ravens trade for Scott Mitchell
Remember Scott Mitchell? back in the early days of the Ravens organization, the team was still looking for consistency at the quarterback position.
They hoped that they had acquired just that when they sent a third and fifth-round pick to the Detroit Lions for former starter Scott Mitchell.
But it didn’t take long for them to realize their mistake.
Mitchell began the year as the starter but made just two appearances before being benched for former Arizona Cardinals draft pick Stoney Case. Tony Banks would finish the year as the primary starter capping off an 8-8 finish for the franchise — their best season to date.
No thanks to Mitchell, however, who completed 42 percent of his passes, throwing four interceptions and one touchdown across his two starts.
Mitchell would finish his career with the Cincinnati Bengals making five more starts before calling it a career. He became just another footnote in the early days of the Ravens franchise.
Both of the picks sent to Detroit were later traded, and although neither of those picks turned into anything of note, Mitchell’s tenure in Baltimore has to be considered a failure.
His disappointing stint with the Ravens makes this one of the worst trades in team history.
2. The Baltimore Ravens trade up to draft Kyle Boller
Kyle Boller had all the physical gifts needed to become a future star in the NFL, and no one saw that more than former Ravens head coach Brian Billick.
Billick and the Ravens bet on Boller’s upside when they traded away a future first-round pick to trade up and select the uber-talented quarterback out of California.
Unfortunately, Boller fell well short of expectations in the NFL. While he still went on to have a respectable career, he never quite reached the heights that the Ravens expected him to.
And he has to be considered when discussing the worst draft picks in franchise history. That’s made even worse when you factor in what the team gave up to draft him.
The Ravens traded up from the second round to select Boller, giving up their 2004 first-round pick in the process. That pick was used to draft future All-Pro defensive tackle Vince Wilfork.
Needless to say, Wilfork’s career in New England went a little different than Boller’s did in Baltimore.
Boller lasted five years with the Ravens making 42 career starts before the team moved onto the Joe Flacco era.
Boller’s Ravens career ended around the same time as the coach who traded up to draft him’s did. Billick and his quarterback were tied at the hip, for better or worse.
1. The Baltimore Ravens trade Anquan Boldin to the San Francisco 49ers
The Ravens made one of the better trades in team history when they sent a third and a fourth-round pick to the Arizona Cardinals in exchange for star wide receiver Anquan Boldin and a fifth-round pick.
Finally, after years of searching, the Ravens had found their No. 1 receiver. Boldin was a fan favorite in Baltimore who put together three excellent seasons with the Ravens, helping them win their second Super Bowl.
But just a few weeks after helping lead the team to a Lombardi Trophy, the Ravens sent Boldin packing to San Francisco in exchange for a measly sixth-round pick.
The move was a salary dump after Boldin declined a $2 million pay cut from his $6 million salary. The veteran wideout proved that his best football was still ahead of him becoming a featured part of San Francisco’s offense.
Boldin finished with consecutive 1,000-yards seasons at age 33 and 34 while the Ravens’ offense floundered without their top wideout.
What did the Ravens do with that sixth-round pick? They packaged it in a trade-up for notorious draft bust Arthur Brown who played just 34 games in Baltimore without making a single start.
While the Ravens’ trade to acquire Boldin ranks among the best swaps in team history, their decision to send him packing just a few years later might just be their worst.