ESPN\u2019s Mike Clay\u2019s positional rankings<\/a>. Clay ranked all 32 teams at 13 positions and the Ravens took the No. 1 spot at quarterback, tight end, and cornerback. The Detroit Lions, who took the top spot at two positions, were the only other team to be No. 1 in multiple positions.<\/p>\nThe Ravens were No. 1 overall.<\/p>\n
“Baltimore has perhaps its best roster on paper since it won Super Bowl XLVII,” Clay wrote. “Jackson is obviously the big difference-maker, but he has a ton of help at the skill positions (including Derrick Henry, Zay Flowers, Mark Andrews and newcomer DeAndre Hopkins) and on the offensive line (led by Ronnie Stanley and Tyler Linderbaum).<\/p>\n
“The Ravens’ defense, which has ranked in the top five leaguewide in sacks each of the past three seasons, returns 10 of its top 11 snap-getters from 2024 (including stars Kyle Hamilton, Marlon Humphrey, Roquan Smith, Kyle Van Noy and Nnamdi Madubuike). They added potential impact players in star corner Jaire Alexander, first-round pick Malaki Starks and second-round pick Mike Green.”<\/p>\n
The Ravens also ranked in the top six at running back (No. 5), safety (No. 5), and offensive line (No. 6).<\/p>\n
Their lowest-ranked position group was edge rusher, at No. 22 (no other unit was ranked lower than No. 13). It’s surprising the Ravens weren’t higher at edge rusher considering the team was No. 2 in sacks last season and returns two players coming off double-digit sacks in Van Noy (12.5) and Odafe Oweh (10.0).<\/p>\n
The defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles were No. 2 overall, followed by the Buffalo Bills, Kansas City Chiefs, and Lions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ESPN Rankings Have Ravens No. 1 Overall and at Three Position Groups It certainly wouldn’t be a surprise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[257,11179,14382,2589,19694,349,99],"class_list":["post-84972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-general","tag-homepage-centerpiece","tag-lamar-jackson","tag-late-for-work","tag-nate-wiggins","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}