Overall, the Baltimore Ravens had a very successful season in 2018. They won the AFC North, and got to host a playoff game. They got bounced in the first round by the Los Angeles Chargers, but it was still a clear success.
Lamar Jackson burst onto the scene as a rookie, and Baltimore's unique run-heavy offense took the league by storm for a while. They did all that while having an offense that wasn't built around Jackson. The Ravens went into last season with Joe Flacco as the starter, and the offense had been built to tailor to his strengths.
Now that the Ravens are going into their first full year with Jackson at the helm, they're able to plan accordingly. It's also the first offseason that Eric DeCosta is running the show in the front office. DeCosta had his first draft this past weekend, and used it to build around Jackson.
Speaking to the media following the draft, DeCosta elaborated on his strategy:
“We played a lot of teams, really good offenses this year [and] I had a chance to sit up in the press box and watch some of these offenses. One of the main common denominators is speed,” DeCosta explained, per Jamison Hensley of ESPN.com.
“We got a chance to see what Lamar can do this past year, and I think our vision, collective vision, for the offense is to add more guys like that to make it really challenging on the defense,” he continued.
DeCosta is feeling good about his first draft, and thinks he was able to do just that.
“We added a lot of speed. We had some playmakers [and] we had some big guys,” DeCosta said. “I think we helped our football team quite a bit.”
The Ravens added Marquise Brown in the first round, a blazing fast receiver.
He'll be a nice weapon for Jackson moving forward, and they also added receiver Miles Boykin from Notre Dame in the third round, who ran a 4.42 at the combine.
Follow Us
Subscribe