Chasing Marshal Yanda could be a little foolish – the juice isn’t worth the squeeze when the juice is made up of Danny Watkins, Forrest Lamp and Germain Ifedi. Yanda is like the little passion fruit cup you float on top – sure it’s delicious, but was it worth it when you have to drink three Jeremiah Poutasi’s to get to him?

It is really hard to know what a “Raven” looks like as a wide receiver. Is it a fast, tall guy who can’t catch? We’ve had a lot of those over the years. Is it a fast, smaller guy that we draft in the first round but who doesn’t quite pan out as the number one receiver you would want them to be? I’ve been tempted over my years of doing this to place my “red stars” on many a wide receiver prospect but always struggled to make the final decision to do it. It has certainly taken me longer to hone what I’m looking for at the wide receiver position myself, like the Ravens, I’ve had some glaring misses.

The Ravens are still obsessed with speed at the position, especially in the earlier rounds. The clearest tendency that they have in all of their receiver selections is their need for speed on day one and two of the NFL Draft. A 4.4 40 or faster highlights the profile of all of these selections. They also like to find wide receivers who are big, and fast for their size – in the case of Aaron Mellette or Jaleel Scott, or receivers who are simply big, and fast for anyone’s size – in the case of Tommy Streeter or Miles Boykin.

What I’m saying is that, if I were the Ravens, and acting as they do hoping for significant value to fall to them at the bottom of the first round, Bateman would fit the bill for me as someone who will likely be head and shoulders above the other options staring them in the face at 27. I would even consider giving up our precious draft capital to go up slightly in the 20s to make sure I get him.

As I was looking through this list and the teams they were a part of, I noticed that since Carl Davis in 2015, we have not selected a defensive lineman that didn’t have some experience being part of a multiple or 3-4 defensive front… the Ravens are not comfortable with projecting the ability to two-gap unless the linemen has proven he can do it at the college level.

I think the Ravens will feel caught out badly by this scenario, finding themselves so bereft of homegrown talent at a premium position is something they are not accustomed to. In short, I think they’re ready to dip into the edge rusher bucket in this upcoming draft

Having said that, as with every single draft year, many receivers have been mocked to us over recent months. Like every year, after I’ve worked through most of my evaluations, I find myself going back to watching potential late first round receivers. From Hakeem Nicks, to Devin Smith to AJ Brown himself, I’ve had my favourites going way back but they read like a crapshoot.

Smart and physical. Horn’s tape absolutely screams both of these things. You can see it immediately at the line of scrimmage when he will rock receivers back in press. He has decent length so he will throw out a hard punch at the line and clock the receiver in the upper chest, remaining physical at the start of the route, mirroring well with it too. His physicality is complemented well in this regard with his smarts

Having studied other team’s draft histories, I have noticed that patterns start to emerge that betray a little, what types of players different teams are looking for and what they are want to do on draft night. In the same way that teams study play-calling tendencies before a game, we can begin to evaluate team’s drafting tendencies when considering whether to trade up and above them or to play out scenarios on who might be there from our board when we pick.

The first rounder fifth year contractual option has changed this landscape drastically. If you consistently hit on first rounders, as the Ravens do as well as any team, then that fifth year option really helps

When you look at both trades, I think they’ve ultimately made the front office a little gun shy of trading back out of the first round entirely from the 20s. Kindle and Upshaw did not meet the standard of a Ravens number one pick

This who’s who of wide receiver busts that fell out of simply looking at top 10 lists on the yards per reception data-point led me to wonder, what the history of the top of this list looked like. That was where I found Breshad Perriman – sitting proudly at the top of the 2014 list.

Ojulari is an intriguing prospect for the Ravens at the end of round one. I think where the Ravens pick is about where his talent dictates he should come off the board. There are things about him the Ravens will love, his pass rush skills are advanced and the way he deploys his athleticism off the edge is enticing.

Oh, how I wish the Ravens challenged themselves with this when they drafted Breshad Perriman in the 1st round all those years ago. I know there were many reasons for his demise in Baltimore, not least John Harbaugh’s frustration with the all-time slowest healing PCL injury

You know the Ravens look for toughness and this kid has that too. Sometimes college players put toughness on for show – laying big hits in traffic when the ball carrier doesn’t expect it but then whiffing on an open-field tackle that results in a big gain. You don’t see any of that with Trevon Moehrig, he will do the dirty work and make the tough plays as well as be the tough guy.