Nfl 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.

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.

The Ravens traded away Anquan Boldin last month because the veteran wide receiver's production didn't match his salary cap hit, but they might have eyes for a draft prospect who is drawing comparisons to Boldin. Gil Brandt, a legendary talent evaluator in the NFL who now writes for NFL.com and does radio for Sirius/XM, is the most notable of the draft analysts who see a young Boldin when watching tape of Clemson wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, who as a junior caught 82 passes for 1,405 yards and 18 touchdowns for the Tigers in 2012.

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.

The NFL will soon reveal which teams will be awarded compensatory picks for free agents lost last offseason. The Ravens are expected to receive three or four compensatory picks -- likely four -- which would bring their number of picks for next month's NFL draft to 12. That's a lot of ammo for general manager Ozzie Newsome should the Ravens choose to move up, down and all around or acquire more picks for next year's NFL draft. Since the Ravens arrived in Baltimore in 1996, they have gone into the draft with nine or more selections in five different years.

The NFL offseason heats up on Tuesday when the free agency period begins and the NFL draft will take place next month. In anticipation of those events, blogger and reporter Matt Vensel will look at six key positions the Ravens might address in free agency and the NFL draft in the days leading up to the start of free agency. Asked about the team's offseason needs last month, Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome said he wanted to strength the middle of the defense.