Draft

Since moving to Baltimore from Cleveland for the 1996 season, the Ravens have been one of the NFL's best performers in the annual draft. They have had their share of great picks, but some busts as well. The Ravens have participated in 13 drafts and have selected a total of 15 players in the first round. Of those, eight are currently on the roster. Those 15 players have earned 39 Pro Bowl invitations. At the beginning of last season, 60.8 percent of players the Ravens drafted were on NFL rosters, the second-highest rate in the league.

The Ravens now know they don't need to draft a starting offensive tackle this weekend. Jonathan Ogden told The Sun last night that he plans to return to the Ravens for his 12th season. Ogden, the 10-time Pro Bowl offensive tackle, had been contemplating retirement since the Ravens' playoff loss to Indianapolis. Although team officials always remained optimistic about Ogden coming back, he made it official two days before the NFL draft, boosting the Ravens' chances of repeating as AFC North champions and returning to the playoffs.

Your friendly neighborhood columnist dived headlong into his fantasy season Sunday with a six-hour auction during the day and a mixed-league draft at night. As is often the case in this foolish pursuit, my best-laid plans became obsolete about an hour after I called out the first bid. So this recap shall serve as a bit of a cautionary tale. But before I explain, let me set up the day. You may remember about five weeks ago, I offered to set up a league for fantasy hard-cores. Well, it came together, and we all met and went through an 11-team, American League auction last weekend.

A majority of the more recent NBA mock drafts had D.J. Strawberry going late in the second round of Thursday's two-round affair, so, intellectually, he was prepared to sit and wait. But, as the draft droned on into its fourth hour and he still hadn't been picked, Strawberry, a 6-foot-5 guard from Maryland, got understandably anxious. Finally, when the phone rang and the Phoenix Suns were on the other end of the line, saying they had taken him with the 59th and next-to-last pick of the draft, Strawberry got considerably more comfortable.

WASHINGTON -- Going from one NBA tryout to the next as he has, the faces and places have been coming at D.J. Strawberry so fast for the past couple of weeks that it took a moment the other day for him to recall just who had given him the best piece of advice he has received recently. "It was somebody in Phoenix," Strawberry said. "Was it [Steve] Kerr?" a reporter asked, referring to the Suns' new head of basketball operations. "He [Kerr] said something, but it was someone else," Strawberry said.

I'm a hypocrite. There's really no other way to put it, given that I picked Larry Johnson third overall in a recent draft after telling you all for the past two months to do the exact opposite. But this points to an interesting dichotomy in fantasy sports. These games are ideological exercises, ones in which the greatest satisfaction comes from charting an imaginative course and having it pay off with smashing victory. On the other hand, they're games and you want to win, even if that means following the dullest strategy imaginable.

NFL teams choose to be pickier with draft selections The NFL's two-day draft of college players that begins today will be the first test of rookie commissioner Roger Goodell's tougher personal conduct policy. After a spate of off-field arrests in the past year, Goodell warned all 32 teams April 10 that they would be held accountable for players who stray beyond the line of good conduct into criminal behavior. The draft is the arena in which the NFL restocks its rosters with the most promising - and sometimes most troubled - players from the college ranks.

Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn fell so far in the first round of the NFL draft that the Ravens almost reached out to catch him. When Quinn slipped from a projected top-five pick to the low 20s, offensive coordinator Rick Neuheisel picked up the phone and gave him a quick call, though opinions differ on whether there was genuine interest in trading up from the 29th pick to get him. "We did talk to Brady," Ravens director of college scouting Eric...

Rather than take a plan into tomorrow's amateur draft, the Orioles are bringing something more closely resembling a philosophy.Pitcher or position player? Left-hander or right? High school or college? To scouting director Tony DeMacio, there's no clear preference."We'll just take the best players available," said DeMacio, who was hired Dec. 4 after spending the past four years as the Chicago Cubs' East Coast scouting supervisor."We have not been told anything other than that, and we're approaching the draft to line up our board and take the best players available."

When Lamar Odom was drafted last June by the Los Angeles Clippers, it seemed a perfect fit. The player who took more baggage with him to the NBA than any college star in recent memory was picked by a team that has had as many bad actors in its 15-year history as the cast of an Aaron Spelling production.Odom and the Clippers are trying to change their respective images: his as a obscenely talented 6-foot-10 head case who slipped to fourth in the draft after failing to show at a pre-draft camp in Chicago; theirs as one of the NBA's losingest, and most laughable, franchises.

Joe Jordan's draft philosophy hasn't wavered since he took over the Orioles' amateur scouting department in November 2004. He takes the highest-rated player on his scouting board, regardless of position, need, representation or educational status. In analyzing Jordan's first four Orioles drafts, however, a clear pattern emerges. Of his top-10 picks in each of the past four years, 30 were college players and 10 from high school. Of those 40, only three were high school pitchers; the highest selected were third-rounders Brandon Erbe (2005)

COLLEGE PARK - -Maryland basketball guard Greivis Vasquez is set to attend an NBA pre-draft camp in Chicago this month, but those who know the player say he has not decided whether to leave school for his senior season. Vasquez declared for the draft three weeks ago. After leading the Terps last season in scoring, rebounding and assists, Vasquez has attracted the interest of a number of NBA clubs, including the Washington Wizards. But the 6-foot-6 guard from Caracas, Venezuela, remains enrolled at Maryland, and he has preserved his option to return next season by not hiring an agent.

The Ravens didn't trade for Anquan Boldin and didn't select one of the 34 drafted wide receivers this weekend. In fact, they were one of only four AFC teams not to take a wide-out. But this draft wasn't about building a passing attack around quarterback Joe Flacco. It was about loading up on players who have the mind-set to overtake the Pittsburgh Steelers in the gritty AFC North. "This was a draft about toughness," said Eric DeCosta, the Ravens' director of player personnel. "Most of these guys have had some sort of adversity that they've overcome in some way. We have a tough team.

SILVER SPRING - First came the euphoria for Darrius Heyward-Bey, then the sucker punch. When the Oakland Raiders made Heyward-Bey the seventh pick - and first wide receiver - of the draft Saturday, a group of 30-plus close friends and family exploded in delirium. Scant moments later, with Heyward-Bey still seated on the brown, L-shape family room sofa, already wearing a Raiders cap, ESPN's Todd McShay delivered the punch. "To me, this has bust written all over it," McShay said, more in declaration than analysis.

The NFL draft is full of suspense for the Ravens on Saturday because of their position in each round. Because they are drafting so late, much of what they do will be decided by who picks in front of them. But the Ravens are right in planning to choose the best player available. If you listen to many fans, you would think the Ravens are only one player away from the Super Bowl because they reached the AFC championship game last season. That's so far from the truth. Because of parity and how quickly things change in the NFL, you're never one player away from the Super Bowl.

It might take until the late rounds, but there is a chance the Ravens could make team history in this weekend's NFL draft. Though the Ravens have given a vote of confidence to Steve Hauschka as Matt Stover's successor, the club has contemplated drafting a kicker. The Ravens have never selected a place-kicker in 13 previous drafts, a total of 106 selections. So, what are the chances the Ravens end that streak this year? "Never say never," said Eric DeCosta, the Ravens' director of player personnel.

Since moving to Baltimore from Cleveland for the 1996 season, the Ravens have been one of the NFL's best performers in the annual draft. They have had their share of great picks, but some busts as well. The Ravens have participated in 13 drafts and have selected a total of 15 players in the first round. Of those, eight are currently on the roster. Those 15 players have earned 39 Pro Bowl invitations. At the beginning of last season, 60.8 percent of players the Ravens drafted were on NFL rosters, the second-highest rate in the league.

COLLEGE PARK -The man everyone came to see yesterday was hard to miss, even if you didn't notice the red-and-gray numbered shirt he wore when he ran the fastest 40-yard dash in the NFL scouting combine three weeks ago. Darrius Heyward-Bey, at home and at ease, towered over the field in more ways than one on Maryland's pro day. At least 25 teams and as many as 40 NFL scouts or coaches were on campus to watch 24 draft-eligible Terps get timed, tested, weighed...

Path to the Draft 6:30 p.m. [NFL Network] Somehow, the NFL Network will look ahead to the draft with the decibel level - and the hair - not nearly as high as it gets on a certain all-sports network when they debate who's going where in which round.

Executives at the NFL combine need the results of medical exams to know that a player they draft is healthy. They need to talk with a player to get a sense of his personality. But more than anything, the scouts who flock here each year come to see speed. ( For more, go to baltimoresun.com/ravensinsider)