Baltimore Ravens full 2018 NFL mock draft
By John Buhler
The Baltimore Ravens will have eight selections in the upcoming 2018 NFL Draft to get better as a football team. Here is the Ravens’ latest NFL mock draft.
This feels like a make or break year for the Baltimore Ravens. We are a half decade removed from the Ravens’ last Super Bowl in 2012. Quarterback Joe Flacco was paid handsomely and that ultimately hurt the Ravens’ ability to yield a championship caliber roster. Though the Ravens haven’t been horrible since, they haven’t been a staple in the AFC playoffs as regularly as they should be as a model organization in the AFC.
Baltimore missed out on the AFC playoffs last year thanks to a head-scratching, last-second loss to the division rival Baltimore Ravens. You know the play, the one where Andy Dalton found Tyler Boyd for a touchdown on a fourth and long. It was not a good look for the Ravens and frankly, they are running out of time in this current era of Baltimore ball.
General manager Ozzie Newsome will be stepping down after this season. So he’s got one more draft to leave his mark on the team before Eric DeCosta takes over full time. Fortunately, there are a lot of opportunities for Baltimore to win in this upcoming draft. Baltimore has eight picks and three inside of the top-100.
Their primary needs are at wide receiver, guard and offensive tackle. Secondary needs include defensive line, quarterback and running back. Tertiary needs are center, cornerback, safety and out on the edge. Obviously, the Ravens won’t have enough picks to address all 10 needs this draft, but that’s what free agency is for. Here is the latest 2018 NFL mock draft for the Ravens.
First Round
It’s a risky proposition to draft a wide receiver in the first round, as this position group has great bust potential historically. However, the Ravens have to get better in the receiving corps yesterday. One guy that should be available for them at No. 16 would be SMU Mustangs wide receiver Courtland Sutton.
Sutton is 6-foot-3, 218 pounds. He ran a 4.54 40-yard dash and had a vertical jump of 35.5 inches at the 2018 NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. Though not a blazer on the outside, Sutton had a very successful collegiate career playing for the Mustangs in The American in Dallas for head coach Chad Morris.
Sutton might have played sparingly as a freshman in 2014, but he became the Mustangs’ go-to receiver as a sophomore on. He leaves school with 195 career receptions for 3,220 yards and 31 touchdowns. In the last two years, Sutton had over 1,000 receiving yards and 10 touchdown grabs.
We’re not looking at a true superstar receiver here, but Sutton did show in college that he can be a big-time playmaker with so-so quarterbacks slinging him the ball. If he and Flacco can get on the same page early, we might see one of the better passing offenses in Baltimore in some time. Sutton won’t be around much longer than where the Ravens are picking at No. 16 anyway, as he is a top-three receiver in this NFL Draft.