Family Comes First for Ravens Rookie Malik Harrison

Ohio State product has tight bond with father

Malik Harrison was a stellar athlete in high school and had numerous scholarship offers from some of the top Division I football programs.

When the time arrived to make his decision, Harrison decided to stay close to home and attend Ohio State. 

Ultimately, it was a family decision. 

"One of the reasons why I really stayed home is because of my dad. He owns his own flooring business in Columbus," Harrison said. "He has a lot of contracts in Columbus, so he wasn’t able to – if I go hours away – he wasn’t able to just be like, ‘Oh, I’m going to take this weekend off and go see my son’s game.’ 

"So, he was able to go to work on Saturday and bring his clothes with him and change in the car. Then right after work, he was able to come to the games.”

Harrison's parents, Donetta and Charles Harrison, will not have to travel a bit farther to watch their son play for Baltimore. 

The Ravens added more depth to its group of linebackers by selecting Harrison with the 98th pick. Baltimore also added Patrick Queen from LSU in the first round. 

Harrrison was a two-year starter and led the team with 75 tackles and added 4.5 sacks, 16.5 tackles for losses and four pass breakups as a senior. He's an old-school linebacker that will perfectly into the Ravens' scheme. 

Harrison ranked third in ProFootballFocus.com’s run-stop percentage, a metric that essentially measures impact tackles. Only Andy Katzenmoyer (23 in 1996), Ryan Shazier (17 in 2012 and 22.5 in 2013) and Matt Wilhelm (19.5 in 2002) had more tackles for a loss from the linebacker position than Harrison in 2019.

Ravens coach John Harbaugh expects Harrison to spend much of his time at weakside inside linebacker. Queen will mostly play at middle linebacker and stay on the field for almost every defensive snap.

However, both players have the versatility to split roles.

"I think Patrick Queen will play probably at 'Mike' for the most part — right down the middle. Let him use his speed and his instincts to run around and make plays for all three phases, be a three-down guy both in our base package and sub-package," Harbaugh said in a conference call with season ticket holders. "As for Malik, we'll probably start him off at 'Will' in the base package. He also will be representing at 'Mike.' We'll flip those guys around

"Really to say that they'll be at a specific position is probably not actually all that accurate probably because by assignment we flip spots a lot for different things. Sometimes guys play defensive end, sometimes they wind up playing the safety spot."