2020 Rookie Talk.

[DreamKid]

All things Ravens' Rookies.

2020 Baltimore Ravens Draft

Round	Selection	Player	Position	College	Notes
1	28	Patrick Queen	LB	LSU
2	55	J. K. Dobbins	RB	Ohio State	from Atlanta
3	71	Justin Madubuike	DT	Texas A&M	from New England
	92	Devin Duvernay	WR	Texas
	98	Malik Harrison	LB	Ohio State	from New England
	106	Tyre Phillips	OT	Mississippi State
4	143	Ben Bredeson	OG	Michigan
5	170	Broderick Washington	DT	Texas Tech	from Minnesota
6	201	James Proche	WR	SMU	from Minnesota
7	219	Geno Stone	S	Iowa	from Miami via Minnesota

 

2020 Baltimore Ravens Undrafted Free Agents

Player	Position	College	Notes
Tyler Huntley	QB	Utah
Bronson Rechsteiner	FB	Kennesaw State
Ty'son Williams	RB	BYU
Jaylon Moore	WR	UT Martin
Michael Dereus	WR	Georgetown
Jacob Breeland	TE	Oregon
Eli Wolf	TE	Georgia
Evan Adams	OL	Syracuse
Daishawn Dixon	OL	San Diego State
Trystan Colon-Castillo	C	Missouri
Sean Pollard	C	Clemson
Aaron Crawford	DT	North Carolina
John Daka	DE	James Madison
Chauncey Rivers	DE	Mississippi State
Marcus Willoughby	DE	Elon
Kristian Welch	ILB	Iowa
Jeff Hector	CB	Redlands
Josh Nurse	CB	Utah
Khalil Dorsey	CB	Northern Arizona
Nigel Warrior	S	Tennessee
Nick Vogel	K	UAB
Dom Maggio	P	Wake Forest

[baltimoreRebel]

I can't lie. I'm super intrigued by Queen and Harrison as an ILB tandem. It'll take some time. I think Queen comes in as a 3 down guy. Harrison will be sprinkled in. I'd be more than happy if Harrison came and dominated camp and pre season, who knows though. 

Duvernay excited me too. Interested to see if he can make an early impact. 

Dobbins should be an immediate contributer. I think he's splitting carries with Ingram by week 4. The tape doesn't lie, he's a straight up dog. 

[coordinator0]

The undrafted free agent class intrigues me. There's hardly any room for one of them to make the final roster, let alone multiple, but there's always a surprise or two. Huntley should be the practice squad QB. Rechsteiner is interesting. I can't claim to have seen any Kennesaw State footage but he appears to be a running fullback that has at least decent athleticism. I think Colon-Castillo received the biggest guarantee of the bunch so the team is obviously pretty interested in him. Pollard has experience playing every offensive line spot coming out of Clemson. I think he's similar to Skura as an offensive lineman. Daka had 16.5 sacks last year and Rivers was a draftable talent that fell because of character concerns. Welch should step right into the competition for what we assume to be the fourth and final spot at ILB. Hector played at D3 Redlands but intercepted 8 passes and had 178 yards returned off of them.

Just a lot of interesting talent. The practice squad should be setup pretty well, and with the new rule allowing two guys to be brought up every week that's more important than ever.

[Danand]

Breeland is the most obvious one to contend for a roster spot imo. Has to battle out Scarff I think. Eli Wolf from Georgia didn’t impress me from the few plays I saw of him. It is always interesting to see if someone jumps up out of nowhere, but it will be a tough one as always. 

While we didn’t add an edge player, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Harrison figure in a lot in our designed pass rush packages

[diamondbull424]

Not that we’re likely to have much competition for his services on our practice squad, but it certainly would surprise me if Huntley beat out Trace McSorely for a roster spot. On tape they’ve got similar speed... which was validated by Huntley’s proday. But the biggest things that make me more of a believer are a) he’s much quicker and has Lamar reminiscent moves in space b) was a more efficient passer (though with volume down that’s to be expected), and c) he’s got better arm talent and d) better size as he measured in at roughly 6’2”... he just needs to put on another 10-15 lbs, but he reminds me of Tyrod Taylor coming out.

The thing McSorely brings to the table are the sturdier frame for durability. It might not be until next season that he beats him out, particularly with a shortened offseason for rookies, but I definitely like him a bit more than McSorely coming out... and I had McSorely in every one of mocks last season IIRC. So it’s not that I hate him, just feel his tools limit his upside.

Though the other route might be that Huntley replaces Robert Griffin on the roster. RG3 is the most talented backup we have, but he also costs the most. A year from now and a few more preseason games to determine what they have in Huntley and McSorely both and they might opt for cap reallocation elsewhere. I think I this offense we will continue to carry three QBs, but which three will get interesting considering Huntley’s talent and obvious familiarity with Lamar. 

[RavensfanRD]

I'm excited about the Madibuke pick and interested in Duvenay. But who I'm actually amp'd up for is Proche. He got that dog in 'em and we gon' see bout it!

[ThatJaxxenGuy]

4 hours ago, RavensfanRD said:

I'm excited about the Madibuke pick and interested in Duvenay. But who I'm actually amp'd up for is Proche. He got that dog in 'em and we gon' see bout it!

Yeah I like Proche as an intriguing guy to watch. I think he has a good chance battling for the punt return spot.

Edited May 4, 2020 by ThatJaxxenGuy

[Danand]

The athletic has an article about what Dobbins can provide for our offense. Work decided to kick my *** today, so won't be able to read it today, but someone with a subscription might be able to provide some insight to the articles points and analysis

[CoverZero]

7 hours ago, Danand said:

The athletic has an article about what Dobbins can provide for our offense. Work decided to kick my *** today, so won't be able to read it today, but someone with a subscription might be able to provide some insight to the articles points and analysis

Basically JK provides a terrific outside run threat with a great jump cut. He won't be running up the middle much with his smaller stature but will provide a great compliment to Ingram's bruising I'll knock you down and out of my way style. 

JK was also able to capitalise on Fields (limited) running abilty threat which is obviously something he will be able to benefit and exploit more given he'll have Lamar drawing a lot more attention from defenders. 

We'll need to develop his receiving skills more if Roman wants to engineer ways to create opportunities for him in open space. JKs speed and agility are his best assets so giving him as many chances working against defenders one on one in space should be a great weapon for our offense.

Lamar will also benefit from JKs addition. With JK giving defenders a lot to worry about on the edges that will only create more lanes for Lamar to run through on the inside. 

Also notes that JK needs to work on his pass protection so he can be trusted on the field in any given situation. 

The article obviously went in to greater details with tape and examples and lots of X and Os talk but that's the gist of it.

[Danand]

I can't see why we would want Jackson to run more to the inside. He is more susceptible to receive hits there than on the outside.

We went through one of Dobbins plays against Clemson, where the defensive end commited to the threat of Hurts running to the outside which left Dobbins with a hole up the middle where he used his speed to squeeze through the hole close to the butt of his lineman and then using his jump cut and burst to get into the open field. I think this is what we should hope for as he has a greater chance of taking such a run to the house than Ingram and Gus.

[Danand]

A danish analyst with some connections to the analytics department with the Ravens said they had some expectations for our late round picks without going into further details.

I believe we only had 2 real late round picks in Washington, Proche and Stone, but I wonder what exactly they offer in the analytics department as neither of them are extraordinary athletes

[sp6488]

52 minutes ago, Danand said:

A danish analyst with some connections to the analytics department with the Ravens said they had some expectations for our late round picks without going into further details.

I believe we only had 2 real late round picks in Washington, Proche and Stone, but I wonder what exactly they offer in the analytics department as neither of them are extraordinary athletes

One thought. A guy like Stone, while he's not an extraordinary athlete may have little wasted motion in his breaks. In baseball there's a relatively new set of metrics with statcast data that assesses how many wasted steps an outfielder takes, how quickly he ultimately starts moving in the correct direction, and route efficiency. Could be that a guy like Stone, while lacking in raw athleticism, effectively breaks toward the ball in coverage faster than other guys in the class by a significant margin.

That's not to say that's what is happening, just an example of how analytics COULD play into the evaluation there despite lacking extraordinary athleticism.

[Danand]

12 minutes ago, sp6488 said:

One thought. A guy like Stone, while he's not an extraordinary athlete may have little wasted motion in his breaks. In baseball there's a relatively new set of metrics with statcast data that assesses how many wasted steps an outfielder takes, how quickly he ultimately starts moving in the correct direction, and route efficiency. Could be that a guy like Stone, while lacking in raw athleticism, effectively breaks toward the ball in coverage faster than other guys in the class by a significant margin.

That's not to say that's what is happening, just an example of how analytics COULD play into the evaluation there despite lacking extraordinary athleticism.

That could very well be a plausible explanation, that would also make a lot of sense. The faster prospect would still not get to a place on the field in time if he took too many false steps, while a player reading the play faster thus taking less false steps could get in position to make the play quicker than the better athlete.

[SalvadorsDeli]

1 hour ago, Danand said:

A danish analyst with some connections to the analytics department with the Ravens said they had some expectations for our late round picks without going into further details.

I believe we only had 2 real late round picks in Washington, Proche and Stone, but I wonder what exactly they offer in the analytics department as neither of them are extraordinary athletes

We know they liked Proche enough to trade back into the draft for him and we know they're excited about his hands, but that feels pretty surface level-y in terms of an 'analytics' take on him. Maybe something specifically related to their expectations for him as a punt returner, or even something they modeled where they see the contested catches/relative lack of separation as a an asset when evaluating him because they project an ability to better scheme him open once he's not the #1 weapon targeted by defenses (this last one seems like a stretch, if anything receivers who made their livings on contested catches in college are particularly worrisome when projecting how they'll produce in the pros). 

Edited May 5, 2020 by BaltimoreTerp

[sp6488]

23 minutes ago, BaltimoreTerp said:

We know they liked Proche enough to trade back into the draft for him and we know they're excited about his hands, but that feels pretty surface level-y in terms of an 'analytics' take on him. Maybe something specifically related to their expectations for him as a punt returner, or even something they modeled where they see the contested catches/relative lack of separation as a an asset when evaluating him because they project an ability to better scheme him open once he's not the #1 weapon targeted by defenses (this last one seems like a stretch, if anything receivers who made their livings on contested catches in college are particularly worrisome when projecting how they'll produce in the pros). 

No idea what it is , but if I had to guess for Proche it would be something about the EV for him as a punt returner and ability to (1) get consistent positive yards by catching with good position to move upfield and (2) minimizing downside with negative returns/potential muffs. 

I know the FO was recruiting more analytics positions over the last 12 months, so it's possible that these weren't analyses being performed in as great of detail until recently.