Ravens GM Admits He Did Not Expect Kyle Hamilton to Be Available

Eric DeCosta explained why the Ravens draft didn’t play out as he expected.

According to most pundits, the Ravens had another successful draft last weekend, adding multiple players who seemed to fall throughout the weekend. It started with their first pick at No. 14, where Baltimore took Notre Dame safety Kyle Hamilton, a player many experts thought belonged in the top 10.

The Ravens seemed to agree with those experts. When speaking to the media on Friday, Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta explained the team was between Hamilton and Georgia defensive tackle Jordan Davis at that spot, but the Eagles took Davis one pick earlier.

In fact, the team wasn’t prepared for Hamilton to fall that far.

“I was thinking thank God Kyle Hamilton is still on the board because he was the highest-rated player, quite honestly, and it wasn't super close between those two,” DeCosta said, via the team website.

“People have asked me, ‘Would you have taken Jordan Davis?’ Yeah, we would have. Jordan Davis is an excellent football player and fits us very, very well. But as we mocked out and looked at all the different scenarios, in no scenario did we see Kyle there for us.”

Hamilton will join new Ravens safety Marcus Williams to form a formidable and revamped Baltimore secondary.

If neither Hamilton nor Davis was available, DeCosta said Baltimore was preparing to trade back from No. 14 for a team that wanted to jump up and add a receiver. However, the wide receiver run seemed to start earlier, causing Hamilton and Davis to drop a bit.

“I thought the scenario that would probably be most accurate might be that a team picking in the 20s would have traded up to 14 to take a receiver,” DeCosta said. “I thought looking out at it that Chris Olave might have been there at 14. And had that happened, I feel like our phone would have rung.”

• New England Patriots 2022 Fantasy Outlook
• The State of Sports Media, Summed Up by the Reaction to Tom Brady’s Tuck Rule TikTok
• NFLPA Releases List of Top Players By Jersey, Merchandise Sales
• Raven Country: The Ravens Full 2022 Rookie Class