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The Baltimore Ravens have had many successful
drafts over the course of their franchise history. They’ve built competitive
teams year after year with not only quality early round selections, but also
great mid-round selections.
When assessing each NFL team’s best value
draft pick since 2006, Michael Renner of Pro Football
Focus named former third-round draft selection Marshal Yanda as Baltimore’s
representative. When explaining
his decision to pick Yanda, Renner called him “the best guard of his
generation”.
“If PFF had a Hall of Fame vote, Yanda would be a
lock. He was quite simply the best guard of his generation. In 13 seasons, he
never earned a grade below 80.0. The crazy thing is, two of those seasons came
at right tackle, where he earned an 85.9 grade as a rookie and an 80.5 grade in
2010.”
Yanda was taken 86th
overall in 2007 and would go on to become one of the best offensive linemen in
Ravens history. He established himself as an extremely physical player, was as
tough as they came, and also was a steady veteran presence.
Baltimore certainly felt the absence of Yanda during the 2020
season after he retired from the NFL. While there’s no replacing a player like
Yanda, the team will look to get good production from new right guard Kevin
Zeitler in 2021.
While there are plenty of other Ravens players who could be deemed
the best value draft pick, Yanda
was an absolute steal for the team and provided over a decade of Hall of Fame
play at a tough position. He’s destined for a gold jacket in the coming years,
and he’ll be remembered in the Baltimore history books forever.
