Ravens insist they did their ‘due diligence’ on the allegations against their 2nd-round draft pick

By Canadian Press on April 25, 2025.

OWINGS MILLS, Md. (AP) — Whichever team drafted Marshall linebacker Mike Green was going to face questions about his off-field history.

That turned out to be the Baltimore Ravens — who were already under scrutiny because of the allegations against star kicker Justin Tucker.

The Ravens drafted Green late in the second round. The standout edge rusher had 17 sacks last season at Marshall. It was his second season there after two at Virginia, and he said at the NFL scouting combine that he transferred after being accused of sexual assault for a second time.

“We understand the severity of what these allegations were, of course,” Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta said Friday night. “But doing our due diligence, we are comfortable with Mike.”

Green told reporters at the combine that he also was accused of sexual assault in high school. He said he was never charged and insisted he did nothing wrong. He was considered a possible first-round pick but ended up going to Baltimore at No. 59 overall.

“We got as much information as we could, we considered the facts, we considered the allegations,” DeCosta said. “We considered what the reports actually were and what they actually weren’t, and we made the decision based off of that.”

Neither of the Ravens’ two draft picks Friday were available to the media, but much of the news conference with DeCosta and coach John Harbaugh was spent on off-field concerns about Green.

“The coaches and administrators and teammates at Marshall were fully supportive of everything he had done there,” Harbaugh said. “And same at U-Va. Wasn’t any different at U-Va. It was exactly the same.”

Coming into the draft, one of the questions surrounding the Ravens was whether they’d take a kicker as a potential replacement for Tucker. The veteran kicker’s status is uncertain after the Baltimore Banner reported that over a dozen massage therapists have accused him of inappropriate sexual behavior. The NFL has said it would investigate.

Going further back, the Ravens’ reputation took a hit over a decade ago because of their handling of the Ray Rice incident. The team released Rice only after a video surfaced of him punching his then-fiancee in the elevator of an Atlantic City casino.

That scandal led Steve Bisciotti to call 2014 his “worst year” as the team’s owner.

Time will tell what kind of player and citizen Green will be in the pros. The Ravens insist they’ve been careful.

“It is a difficult decision,” DeCosta said. “It’s a difficult decision when a guy runs a slow 40, it’s a difficult decision when a guy has allegations, it’s a difficult decision when a guy has an injury that maybe he can’t overcome. That all kind of gets factored in because in the end, there is an element of risk mitigation.”

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Noah Trister, The Associated Press