The Ravens have selected guard Olaivavega Ioane out of Penn State at No. 14 overall in the 2026 NFL Draft.
One of the top offensive linemen in the 2026 draft class, Ioane appeared in 44 games with 32 starts for the Nittany Lions.
He spent all of his time at left guard.
Listed at 6-foot-4 and 320 pounds, Ioane will be an important part of the five up front for Baltimore and quarterback Lamar Jackson.
The Ravens have made an expected move to keep one of their top players for another year.
According to multiple reports, Baltimore has exercised receiver Zay Flowers’ fifth-year option, putting him under contract through 2027.
He is set to earn $27.298 million guaranteed in what is now the last year of his rookie deal.
Flowers, the No. 22 overall pick of the 2023 draft, was the first Ravens wideout in team history to make the Pro Bowl in 2024. He followed that with an even better season in 2025, recording 86 catches for 1,211 yards with five touchdowns, earning his second Pro Bowl berth.
In his 50 career games with 48 starts, Flowers has caught 237 passes for 3,128 yards with 14 touchdowns.
Ravens defensive tackle Nnamdi Madubuike appears likely to play this season.
Madubuike suffered a serious neck injury in Week Two of last season, and there were concerns that it could end his career. But Madubuike had neck surgery last week that has his doctors expecting him to play this season, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN.
That news comes after a report last month of “growing optimism” within the Ravens that Madubuike would return.
When healthy, Madubuike is one of the best interior pass rushers in the NFL. He’s also one of the most expensive defensive tackles in the NFL, with two years left on a four-year, $98 million extension. His 2026 base salary of $22 million is fully guaranteed, and he has a salary cap hit of $30 million.
Given that investment, the Ravens would love to see Madubuike recover to the point where he can contribute this season. That looks like it will happen.
The Ravens re-signed wide receiver Xavier Guillory, the team announced Monday.
Guillory was with the team last year during training camp and the preseason.
He broke his collarbone in the 2025 preseason finale against the Commanders after making three catches for 17 yards in the exhibition season.
The Ravens originally signed Guillory as an undrafted free agent out of Arizona State in 2025.
He caught 22 passes for 339 yards and five touchdowns in 13 games for the Sun Devils during the 2024 season.
The Ravens are expected to draft a wide receiver this week, with DeAndre Hopkins still a free agent and Tylan Wallace now in Cleveland.
For decades, the best college football players left school after three years, as soon as the NFL would take them. That’s changing. Ravens General Manager Eric DeCosta doesn’t see it as a good thing.
The NCAA now allows players to make money off lucrative name, image and likeness deals, and the NCAA has also become more lax about granting players extra years of eligibility. That means players are waiting to turn pro, and DeCosta says he sees more older players who have less room for growth in the NFL.
“There is a changing dynamic we’ve seen with the draft,” DeCosta said. “Players are older. The average age of the players is not necessarily older but there are older players in the draft. We’re seeing more 24 and 25-year-old players. That’s because of covid initially, and now because of NIL, guys are getting paid to stay in. That’s problematic for us because if guys are coming in older they’ve probably got less upside. They’re not three-contract players in some cases, they’re two-contract players. And in some cases they’ve got more injuries. They’ve been playing college football longer so they’ve taken on more injuries.”
DeCosta, who has been with the Ravens for 30 years, says the team has more players who will turn 25 as rookies than ever before.
“We’re trying to get a handle on that,” DeCosta said. “It’s tough for us to assess what that means. It’s something we’ve seen over the last three years, this will be the third year, 2024, 2025 and 2026. We might have had 4 percent of our players on the draft board 24 1/2 or older prior to 2024, now that number is up to 18 percent. So we’ve seen a 14 percent increase in older players on the draft board. That’s something that we don’t really understand fully what that means. I don’t think it’s a good thing, certainly. Historically we’ve tried to draft younger players when we can. That’s something we feel strongly. But now we’ve got 18 percent of the draft board that’s over 24 years old. So that’s going to change the way we target players.”
College football players are now professionals, making money and choosing their own career paths in a way they never had before. It’s a changing landscape in college football, and that changes the NFL as well.
