Three Key Tells From Ravens Draft Press Conference (What You Can Actually Believe)

It's dangerous to believe much of what you hear, especially this close to the draft, but we've been doing this more than long enough to read between the lines.

Feb 24, 2026; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Baltimore Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta speaks at the NFL Scouting Combine at the Indiana Convention Center. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Buyer beware when it comes to reading too much into what is said at a Liar’s Lunch – any NFL team’s pre-draft press conference.

This is the perfect opportunity for team officials to obfuscate and spin and bloviate in an attempt to get the media and fans and other NFL teams to think they are up to something they are not. General managers and coaches have no real incentive to tell the truth in a setting like this. If anything, it’s the perfect opportunity to do just the opposite.

The Baltimore Ravens, facing steep expectations after a miserable 2025 campaign and with a rookie head coach in place for the first time in nearly 20 years, find themselves in a very different position ahead of this draft than most others in franchise history. So everything that GM Eric DeCosta and rookie head coach Jesse Minter said during Wednesday’s press conference will be closely evaluated.

Here were my three primary takeaways:

They Are Staying At 14 And Taking An Offensive Lineman

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but there is a very real chance that multiple plug-and-play starters to improve a broken offensive line sitting there when Baltimore picks at 14. We have had other GMs and execs tell us precisely this privately and you can believe DeCosta when he echoed it today.

“Looking at the board (in the first round), we see tremendous value offensive-line wise … receiver-wise,” DeCosta said before also mentioning defensive position groups. “We feel like it’s a sweet spot for us.”

Minter didn’t have much to say, understandably (more on that later), but he gushed a little when asked about rebuilding this roster from the inside out. “It’s a great draft for that.” This is an awful defensive tackle draft – last year was the time to load up there – and there will be more to offer at the tight end/big wide receiver group beyond Day One.

Alabama tackle Kadyn Proctor, Utah tackle/guard Spencer Fano and Penn State guard Vega Ioane are he names rival evaluators are strongly connecting to the Ravens.  For good reason. Sweet spot is the exact term we heard from other organizations about where the Ravens sit and what they are most likely to do.

They Are Not Using All 11 Picks

The Ravens have taken heat for going overboard in their lust to accumulate – and use – as many comp picks as possible over the years. It hasn’t served them well and DeCosta said the obvious Wednesday (this draft is thinner than last year) and also spoke at length about how difficult players staying in college into their mid-20s has made the drafting process.

The willingness to deal two first-round picks for Maxx Crosby was a tell – even if the trade fell through - and there seemed to be a level of sincerity in DeCosta’s voice when he spoke about not becoming too predictable, and conversations he has had with owner Steve Bisciotti about just that.

‘You don’t want to be too predictable,” DeCosta said. “You don’t want to be type cast.”

The Ravens have suffered from drafting injured players too frequently and there was anguish in DeCosta’s voice as he spoke about all the snaps guys take in college and all the injuries they now routinely play through. He bemoaned that NIL negated potential advantages; kids that would have been small-school finds in the past have already moved up to bigger schools by the time they enter the draft. He’s used all four picks in a single round in the past, and it’s failed. No way are they utilizing all of their fifth-round picks here.

When DeCosta reveleased that like 18% of the players they might be willing to draft are now over the age of 24, you felt the pain, man. Loading up on picks and being slaves to "draft-and-develop" ain't what it used to be.

“We may end up with 14 (draft selections) and we may end up with six,” DeCosta said.

I’d lean closer to six. I'd set the O/U at 8.5.

This Is A Scout’s Draft

DeCosta went out of his way to talk about the role the new – and widely inexperienced – coaching staff is playing in this process. Whatever.

The front office grabbed more power than ever before in a post-John Harbaugh world and Minter goes out of his way to defer on any and anything personnel related. The kind of pushback that would have come from a veteran coaching staff fighting for their jobs with a head coach who has won a Lombardi Trophy is gone.

Minter barely got asked anything – not a surprise and not a big deal – and the coaches will have input, but the days of wondering who would settle ties or how clashes over a player might go down are long gone.

“On draft night, man, it’s - let this guy do his job and be there to support,” Minter said of the general manager that hired him. “…  Be a sounding board, but let the guy do the great job that he does.”

DeCosta said: “I had to instruct the coaches on how we do things … That’s probably a one-year thing.”

It’s a new dynamic, by design, and it will have implications beyond one draft. The chams in experience between football operations and the coaching staff couldn’t be more stark.