The Ravens entered with 11 picks and fewer immediate needs than almost any other team in the league. They quickly crossed off one of those, drafting complete package safety Malaki Starks in the first round.

But where would they go from there? Trade Mark Andrews? Draft a kicker to replace Justin Tucker? Find a potential starter at guard, edge rusher or cornerback?

After three days of choices ranging from the chalkiest of chalky to incendiary, here are five things we learned from the Ravens’ draft.

The Ravens steered into their draft identity, taking a first-round safety devoid of red flags.

We tend to treat “safe” as a pejorative when it comes to team building, a nice way of saying a front office isn’t going for the gold.

Don’t tell that to the men running the Ravens’ draft room, who have made “safe” a virtue going all the way back to their debut pick, left tackle extraordinaire Jonathan Ogden, in 1996.

Despite usually drafting in the second half of the first round, Eric DeCosta and Ozzie Newsome have whiffed far less than most of their peers. And that’s largely because they’re untroubled by lining doubles to the opposite field instead of swinging for the cheap seats.

Which brings us to Starks, the U.S. Treasury bond of 2025 draft prospects.

Seriously, try to find the risk in this guy’s profile.

He was a 5-star recruit who started three years at Georgia, the bluest of college football blue bloods, winning a national championship and seemingly impressing everyone who met him as an intelligent leader of men.

He blew DeCosta away with his football acumen during their predraft meeting, earning a “red star” as one of the Baltimore scouting department’s favorite prospects.

He comes with no apparent injury concerns.

He plays a non-premium position but can move around the secondary to maximize deception, like a smaller version of his new teammate Kyle Hamilton.

He fills a need for a defense that had grown thin in the backfield after Marcus Williams’ flameout and Brandon Stephens’ departure in free agency.

There was a reason so many mock draft wizards paired Starks with the Ravens. He met every criterion they have prized over the last 29 years.

Which might leave skeptical fans wondering if the fit was a little too easy.

Was there more of a home run swing to be taken at pick No. 27?

Sure.

They could have chosen Ohio State tackle Josh Simmons, who had a chance to be the top offensive lineman in the class before he tore his patellar tendon in October. The Ravens don’t need a starting tackle immediately but could certainly use young depth at one of the most expensive positions to fill. Again, they turned away from risk.

They could have rolled them bones in a different way by trading down. They might have lost Starks but would have remained in position to take another top safety (South Carolina’s Nick Emmanwori was still on the board) early in the second round.

DeCosta didn’t want to take that chance. He acknowledged he’s probably more conservative than he was when he ran drafts as Newsome’s assistant. The first round unfolded largely the way he expected, and he was in position to grab Starks, a player who’d thoroughly won him over. Why mess with a good thing?

The Ravens general manager stood in and smacked another double. Not a bad way to keep winning in a business laden with pitfalls.

It’s time to stop talking about zero tolerance after the Ravens selected Mike Green.

It was never an idea destined to stand up to the realities of building and maintaining an NFL winner.

Eleven years ago, the Ravens released running back Ray Rice after TMZ posted video of him striking his future wife in an Atlantic City, New Jersey, casino elevator. With the team under fire for its sluggish handling of the matter, owner Steve Bisciotti promised a tougher stance on signing and drafting players with histories of domestic violence.

Though Bisciotti didn’t ask for his words to be interpreted as a “zero-tolerance” policy, many fans and reporters made that deductive leap, reinforced by coach John Harbaugh’s 2022 comments on Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson.

The Ravens did not in fact steer clear of all players who had faced allegations of abusive behavior, but for years they did avoid drafting anyone accused of violence against women. Their position became messier this year, when 16 Baltimore-area massage therapists accused kicker Justin Tucker of inappropriate sexual conduct. With Tucker, who denies the allegations, under NFL investigation, the Ravens clarified in February that they “do not have a defined, written, zero-tolerance policy.”

They further confirmed it with their second-round selection of Green, a dynamite pass rusher who acknowledged at the NFL scouting combine that he faced sexual assault allegations in high school and in college.

Green denies wrongdoing and has faced no criminal charges.

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

The fact is, they prioritized football talent over the moral stance they embraced in 2014, when the Rice crisis felt all-consuming.

DeCosta didn’t run away from that complexity or the calculation involved.

“It’s a difficult decision when a guy has allegations,” he said. “It’s a difficult decision when a guy has an injury that you think he can’t overcome but maybe you can overcome. That all kind of gets factored in, because in the end, there is an element of risk mitigation with everything we do, and we want these guys to come and be productive right away, and they have to be talented.”

The Ravens are looking for a signature edge rusher to match divisional nemeses Myles Garrett, J.J. Watt and Trey Hendrickson.

Green’s tape at Marshall looked about as good as anyone’s from this class. Scouts say he’ll set a ferocious edge and chase double-digit sack totals. He’s exactly what the Baltimore defense needs to generate steadier pressure and more turnovers in the postseason. Such players aren’t usually available at No. 59 overall.

So they did what many contenders have, accepting some moral gray in pursuit of a Super Bowl.

There is no easy narrative here.

Green is a 21-year-old man who has every right to profit from his immense talent and every chance to prove the Ravens’ faith in him is well placed.

At the same time, fans have every right to feel uneasy about this pick and wonder if it signals some loosening of promises made 11 years ago.

Zero tolerance is a hard, clean term that rolls off politicians’ tongues when they need to sound tough. But rarely does it stand up to the complexities of our world, where competition, money and simple common sense demand that we consider each case on its own terms.

The Ravens sent their strongest signal yet that Justin Tucker’s time in Baltimore is almost up.

For more than a decade, kicker was the spot the Ravens never had to think about. They had the gold standard at the position, and he also happened to be one of the most charismatic athletes in Baltimore.

Tucker didn’t kick up to his impeccable standard last year. Even so, he was expected to hold the job that had been his since 2012. Until the flood of detailed allegations from massage therapists who said he’d acted inappropriately at multiple Baltimore spas. Three months later, he faces the possibility of NFL discipline and of having to search for a new team.

Though Tucker is still a Raven for now, the team would not have drafted Tyler Loop, the best kicker in the draft according to ESPN’s Mel Kiper and others, if DeCosta and Harbaugh weren’t serious about making a change.

They strongly hinted at the possibility with their comments at the combine and backed those words with action Saturday.

Loop brings a powerful leg, having made six of nine attempts from 50 yards or more last season, including a 62-yarder against Houston. The Ravens believe they have the best kicking coach in the sport in Randy Brown and leaned on his observations of Loop, who will become the most important project of Brown’s career.

“We feel like we had to draft him,” DeCosta said, noting Loop was the one college kicker Brown coveted.

It’s hard to believe the general manager’s statement that he hasn’t thought about whether Loop might compete with Tucker in training camp, though Harbaugh said Tucker was at the team’s facility in the last week and aware the Ravens might draft his potential replacement.

This awkward saga will roll on for at least a little while longer.

We can’t process Tucker’s potential downfall without discussing morality and public relations. But, make no mistake, this was a football move as much as anything. The Ravens see an expensive (they’d save $4.2 million by cutting Tucker post-June 1) 35-year-old incumbent coming off his worst season and facing a possible suspension.

They’re getting ahead of a problem by turning to Loop.

“I think it’s really exciting more than pressure,” the new kicker said of potentially succeeding Tucker. “It gives you something to shoot for.”

Mark Andrews will remain a Raven, and that’s best for the immediate mission

Plenty of fans openly rooted for the Ravens to dump Andrews after his dropped pass sealed the team’s playoff demise in January.

DeCosta didn’t dissuade suitors from pursuing a deal, refusing to guarantee Andrews would be on his roster as late as the Ravens’ April 15 predraft news conference.

He finally closed the door on an Andrews trade Friday night. In other words, the Ravens weren’t willing to move their three-time Pro Bowl tight end for less than a Day 2 pick.

“Well, I would never say if I entertained any trade offers at this point,” DeCosta said. “I would really expect Mark to be on this team. Great player, I love him.”

And that’s a fine place for the matter to stand until after the 2025 season, when the Ravens will have to choose between Andrews, who’ll turn 30 in September, and Isaiah Likely, who’s 25 and ready to thrive in a bigger role.

The Ravens’ immediate mission is to build the best roster in the AFC and reach the Super Bowl for the first time in 13 years. Flipping Andrews — still Lamar Jackson’s most trusted third-down and red-zone target — for a fourth-round pick would not have helped.

They showed just how content they are with their skill-position talent, using but one pick on a pass catcher (LaJohntay Wester, whose value will likely be as a punt returner). They’ll roll it back with the powerhouse offense Todd Monken built around Jackson. That means another year and a shot at playoff redemption for Andrews.

The Ravens’ Day 3 is best judged in broad strokes

It’s instructive to review past Ravens drafts and recognize how few players picked after the third round become long-term NFL starters.

Draft obsessives live to break down the value of every selection but, in the aggregate, the Ravens will be delighted if one or two of the eight players they added Saturday become significant contributors.

For every Ben Powers (fourth round, 2019), there’s a Daylon Mack and an Iman Marshall. Eight Day 3 picks in 2018 produced DeShon Elliott and Bradley Bozeman but also Kenny Young, Jaleel Scott, Jordan Lasley and Greg Senat.

In that light, it’s pointless to grade each move. The best we can do is look at the big picture of what the Ravens did with their many bites at the apple.

They added a terrific all-round athlete, Teddye Buchanan, at inside linebacker, where they don’t have a lock starter to play next to Roquan Smith.

They drafted 6-foot-7 Carson Vinson to join third-round pick Emery Jones Jr. in their developmental pipeline at offensive tackle, a position where a midround steal would be extremely valuable.

They used their first of five (five!) sixth-round picks on Bilhal Kone, a tall, fast cornerback from Western Michigan. Again, if you hit at that position near the bottom of the draft, the value would be tremendous.

We can’t say the Ravens answered every question on the fringes of their roster. They could still use ready-to-play options at cornerback, defensive tackle and guard. Some of those holes — DeCosta pointed to the absence of a wide-bodied defensive lineman — will have to be plugged with veteran free agents, but that’s true every year.

DeCosta has said for years that the draft is as much about volume as targeted strikes. It’s the reason he cherishes comp picks. He came in with an unusually complete roster and capitalized on that flexibility by taking speculative shots at premium positions.

Most of them won’t pay off, but it takes only one or two.