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.