The Ravens are taking an extensive look at the incoming draft class at this week’s NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis and are in position to make their greatest number of choices in recent memory with 11 draft picks.
Baltimore is scheduled to make seven draft selections — one in each round — and will have the 32nd, 62nd, and 94th overall picks through the first three rounds. However, the Ravens are expected to be awarded four compensatory picks — the maximum number — based on last year’s offseason in which they lost a plethora of unrestricted free agents including guard Ben Grubbs, linebacker Jarret Johnson, defensive end Cory Redding, safeties Haruki Nakamura and Tom Zbikowski, and defensive tackle Brandon McKinney.
Compensatory picks for the 32 teams will be officially announced next month, which will determine the order of picks in the remaining rounds. These selections cannot be traded and are slotted beginning at the end of the third round and running through the seventh round.
Though these picks cannot be dealt, they do provide extra collateral for teams to be more aggressive in dealing their regular selections to move up the draft board for a coveted player. The Ravens’ draft history suggests a distinct aggressiveness to move out of their slotted picks, a likely occurrence this year considering they are picking so late in each round as the Super Bowl champions and have such a high overall number of selections.
Baltimore has drafted eight players in each of the last two drafts and general manager Ozzie Newsome has traded out of the first round in two of the last three years.
If the Ravens were to make all 11 selections in April’s draft, it would be the most of the John Harbaugh era, topping the 10 draft choices made in 2008. The only time in franchise history in which the Ravens drafted 11 players occurred in 2003 and the most they’ve ever selected in a single draft was 12 in 1997.
