It has been suggested that the 2010 NFL draft pool is one of the deepest and best in recent history – perhaps even the best ever. That is great news for the Ravens, one of the best drafting teams in the league. However, they will have to use their draft picks wisely because they will have one less draft pick on April 24th.
In the Fall of 2008, reacting to a season ending injury to DE Dwan Edwards, the Ravens acquired DE Marques Douglas from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for a 2009 7th round draft pick and a conditional 2010 draft pick. When the Ravens released Douglas last February, it was assumed that the conditional draft pick would go away, but Ravens 24×7 has learned that the Ravens no longer have their 7th round pick this year. Whatever the conditions attached to the 2010 draft pick were, the conditions were met and the Buccaneers are now in possession of the Ravens’ pick.
So, at present, the Ravens have 6 draft picks – one in each of the first 6 rounds.
Many fans are expecting the Ravens to receive multiple, high Compensatory Draft picks when they are announced in late March. This hope is based on last year’s loss of premium free agents like Bart Scott and Jason Brown. However, under the Compensatory Draft pick rules, when a team signs as many qualifying UFAs as it loses – like the Ravens – the most the team can receive is one 7th round pick. The Ravens will be awarded that one 7th round pick, if the team’s losses are deemed to be sufficiently greater than what they signed. This type of Comp Pick is referred to as a “net value” Comp Pick.
The 4 qualifying UFAs lost by the Ravens were Bart Scott, Jason Brown, Jim Leonhard and Kyle Boller. The 4 qualifying UFAs signed by the Ravens were Domonique Foxworth, Matt Birk, Chris Carr and LJ Smith. The Ravens also lost Marques Douglas, but since he was released by the team, he does not count as a loss for Comp Pick purposes (since they willingly gave him up).
Certainly the Ravens lost more in value than what they signed, but it remains to be seen whether it is enough under the Comp Pick rules (this actual measurement has never been disclosed). One other variable also comes into play – there are only 32 Comp picks awarded and a “net value” Comp Pick will only be awarded if the 32 Comp pick slots have not already been filled.
So, if the Ravens are awarded a Comp Pick, they will be able to replace the 7th rounder sent to Tampa Bay (albeit, at the very bottom of the 7th round as opposed to the 25th pick of the round).
What this means for the Ravens is that they don’t have a lot of draft picks to work with. This lack of ammunition means that they are probably more likely to look to move down in the draft than move up. Over the last few years, we have seen the Ravens use low round draft picks to move up in the 1st round of the draft in order to secure a player that the covet (Ngata, Flacco, Oher). This year that would mean one less draft pick available to be used in a draft that is expected to be very strong from top to bottom. Given how devoted to the draft the team has always been, it would seem that they’d be likely to look for an opportunity to drop down a couple of picks – on the theory that they aren’t really losing out on talent – while picking up an extra pick to use on some of the other talent in the draft.
The lack of draft picks also may impact the Ravens desire to make trades for established veterans or sign players to RFA offer sheets, although they do seem committed to taking whatever actions are necessary to secure the missing pieces.
