Draft

Rob Moore had just watched Missouri open up a 14-3 first quarter lead on the Syracuse football team, and the wide receivers coach knew the Orange was in desperate need of a spark. So he pulled Alec Lemon aside and implored the senior wideout to will the team back into the game. "'You're going to have to take over,'" Lemon recalled Moore telling him. "'If we're going to win this, we're going to need you to step up.'" That's exactly what he did. Lemon caught 12 passes for a career-high 244 yards and two touchdowns - including a game-winning 17-yard score with 20 seconds remaining - to lead Syracuse to a 31-27 win over the Tigers on Nov. 17. For Lemon, it was nothing new. Ever since his freshman year at Arundel, the Crofton native has been a player who performs best when the game is on the line.

Ravens assistant general manager Eric DeCosta was reading comments recently from former Dallas Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson that he felt summed up his organization's drafting philosophy perfectly. "I think the thing we want to try to do - this is something that Jimmy Johnson believes - [is] when you have a lot of picks as he had when he did the Herschel Walker trade, you've got to make sure to approach the draft like every pick is the only pick you have," DeCosta said. "It's easy when you have so many picks to just throw some picks away and deal and do all these different things.

Each weekday through April 24, the day before the first round of the NFL draft, The Sun will look at where the Ravens stand at each position, the likelihood that they will address that spot early in the draft and some of the prospects that they may consider. Today we'll examine running backs: Current running backs under contract : Ray Rice, Bernard Pierce, Anthony Allen, Bobby Rainey, Damien Berry, Lonyae Miller, Vonta Leach (fullback) Chances that the Ravens draft a RB in first three rounds : Highly unlikely.

Maryland coach Mark Turgeon took the two little turtle figurines out of his coat pocket and placed them on the table in front of him. Alex Len, whose mother Juliya had given Turgeon the figurines when her then 18-year-old son first committed to the Terps, sat at the coach's side. One of the figurines represented a baby turtle, the other one fully grown. “She said I am giving Alex to you as a baby, when he leaves here I want him to be a man,” Turgeon recalled Tuesday after Len announced he was leaving Maryland to make himself eligible for the NBA draft.

What has been anticipated around the Maryland basketball program for months has become reality: sophomore Alex Len will forgo the last two years of his college career, a source with knowledge of the situation said Sunday night. Yahoo Sports first reported Sunday that the 7-1 center from Ukraine has put his name into the NBA draft. It is not known whether Len, who is expected to be a lottery pick, has hired an agent. Len, who averaged 11.9 points and 7.8 rebounds for the Terps last season, had until April 28 to put his name in the draft.

This afternoon I did a chat on our site about the Ravens and the NFL draft. Maybe the most popular question, besides ones about the situation at inside linebacker and the uncertainty along the offensive line, was about what it would take for the Ravens to trade up so they can draft one of the top left tackles or electric wide receiver Tavon Austin or some other highly-touted prospect who will be long gone by the time the Ravens pick. We get these questions every spring, so I figured I would do a little homework and address trading up here.

Here is a roundup of which first-round draft prospects the Ravens are linked to in 2013 NFL mock drafts. --- ESPN's Todd McShay predicts that the Ravens will select Louisiana Tech wide receiver Quinton Patton . “This was a tough one to project. The Ravens could go with ILB Kevin Minter to replace the retired Ray Lewis, or with a safety like Matt Elam, D.J. Swearinger or John Cyprien to fill the void left by Ed Reed's departure,” he wrote. “There are a lot of options, but I like Patton's ability to step into the role previously filled by Anquan Boldin.

The Ravens continued the renovation of their defense on Wednesday, signing former Oakland Raiders safety Michael Huff to a three-year deal worth $6 million. He is the fourth defender the Ravens have signed in free agency, along with pass rusher Elvis Dumervil and defensive linemen Chris Canty and Marcus Spears. With the Ravens being forced to pinch pennies and cut ties with a couple of valuable veterans due to their tight salary cap situation, we have been talking a lot about the “right player at the right price” this offseason.