The Baltimore Ravens finished the 2021 season 8-9, missing the playoffs for the first time since 2017. Injuries played a key part in their down year, some of which came on their offensive line. That unit didn’t perform as the team would have liked, and it had a clear impact on how the offense as a whole played.
Baltimore has an opportunity to add talent to their offensive line in the 2022 draft from a very deep rookie class at the position. When laying out a predictive mock draft, Jamie Eisner of The Draft Network has the Ravens selecting Boston College offensive lineman Zion Johnson at No. 14 overall. When explaining why, Eisner talked about how Johnson played center at the Senior Bowl.
“Maybe you’ve heard that Zion Johnson played center at the Senior Bowl? If you didn’t, now you know. The versatile OL could snap for the Ravens or provide an upgrade somewhere else across the line.”
Johnson is regarded by many to be a mid/late first round pick, but his value has been gauged somewhere in the 20s as opposed to in the teens. It feels like a lot of people would view this as a reach for Baltimore, but there’s no denying the talent that Johnson has and the potential that he has to become an elite-level player in the NFL.
