The Ravens took Iowa’s Tyler Linderbaum with the No. 25 overall pick Thursday night, adding the NFL draft’s top center after two trades.
The 6-foot-2, 296-pound Linderbaum’s arrival suggests the team’s run-game philosophy will change next season. A former wrestler and consensus All-American, Linderbaum was considered a better fit for zone-running schemes during the predraft process. Ravens officials have typically targeted bigger interior linemen for their power-heavy concepts.
Despite Linderbaum’s high-level production and impressive athletic profile, he seemed to fall out of the Ravens’ range after he measured in shorter than expected at the NFL scouting combine. Team officials had also touted Patrick Mekari as their replacement for center Bradley Bozeman entering next season. With Linderbaum’s arrival, Mekari will likely return to a swing tackle position.
The pick was the byproduct of two draft night trades. Minutes after taking Notre Dame safety Kyle Hamilton at No. 14 overall, the Ravens announced they’d traded leading wide receiver Marquise “Hollywood” Brown and a third-round pick to the Arizona Cardinals for the No. 23 overall pick. Forty minutes later, they swapped spots with Buffalo, acquiring the Bills’ picks at Nos. 25 and 130 overall.
With needs at edge rusher, cornerback and offensive tackle, Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta instead produced another surprise. At his predraft news conference earlier this month, he’d suggested that the Ravens were looking for centers bigger than the short-armed Linderbaum.
”Our philosophy, honestly, is, we want big guys. We want big guys at every position, across the offense, across the defense [and] in general. So it’s a tough position to fill via the draft at times.
”If there’s a guy … If there’s one or two outstanding prospects in the draft, they typically go pretty high, and then after that, you’re looking at a bunch of guys that might be pretty good, or they might not be pretty good. I think one of the cool things about this draft at the center position is we see four or five guys that we like that might not be first round-type picks and that might be second-, third-, or fourth-round guys that we think would be good players at center this year. It’s a tough position to play. There’s a physical component. There’s also a very, very strong mental component, as well. Leadership is important. So you’re really looking for the perfect guy to play that position, and it’s very tough to find.”
The Ravens now have six fourth-round selections, all of them within a 31-pick span (No. 110 to No. 141). They’ll entire Day 2 with a second-round pick (No. 45), one third-round pick (No. 76) and plenty of ammunition to move up.
This story will be updated.
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