Baltimore Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta knows that his team needs to add talent to its running back room this offseason. At the moment, the only backs under contract are Justice Hill and Keaton Mitchell, the latter of whom is rehabbing from a torn ACL suffered toward the end of the 2023 regular season.
"We need more than two running backs, so certainly I think you'll see us make a couple acquisitions along the way," DeCosta said Tuesday at the 2024 NFL Combine, per the team's official website. "We think Keaton Mitchell's going to come back from his knee injury. Justice is a player last year that was probably one of the unsung heroes of our whole team, I would say.
"We've looked at the draft class. It's probably not as deep as some other positions that we'll see in this year's draft class. There's some talented [free agent] players that we will look at as well, but I think it's probably safe to say that we'll have more than two running backs on our roster at some point. We will definitely have a plan for that position."
Two of the running backs available in free agency that the team will look at are incumbents: Gus Edwards and J.K. Dobbins.
"We're still talking to Gus. We'll talk to J.K. -- a couple of free agents that we had," DeCosta said. "We're hopeful that we can get something done with those guys."
Dobbins was expected to return to his role as the team's lead back last season, but he tore his Achilles in the third quarter of Week 1. Edwards and Hill then split the backfield for most of the year, with Mitchell emerging over the second half of the season before suffering an injury. Behind Edwards and Hill, the team at times relied on veterans like Melvin Gordon and later Dalvin Cook.
The Ravens will surely need to add multiple backs this offseason, and it seems likely that at least one of them will need to have the requisite size to shoulder a large burden, given that both Hill and Mitchell are on the smaller side. With players like Josh Jacobs, Saquon Barkley and Derrick Henry available in free agency, the Ravens are likely to be mentioned as suitors. It would go against the organization's history to make a big play for one of them, though, so they might be more likely to add lower-level veterans and address the position in the draft.
