Many NFL players, much like its fans, spent Thursday night watching the first round of an unprecedented draft unfold on live television.
Reigning Most Valuable Player Lamar Jackson and teammate Marquise Brown shared the experience via Instagram Live, and when their Ravens made their pick at No. 28, it produced enough excitement for Jackson to speak the name of a Hall of Famer.
As highlights of wood-laying LSU linebacker Patrick Queen flashed across the screen, Brown exclaimed "that boy hittin'!" Jackson raised the bar with his response.
"Ray Lewis Jr.!" Jackson shouted in the live video recorded and tweeted by ESPN's Jamison Hensley.
The parallel between the two is rather interesting. Lewis slid down to the bottom of the first round back in 1996, in which Baltimore held two first-round selections thanks to a 1995 trade with San Francisco that preceded the franchise's move from Cleveland to Maryland. With its second pick in the round -- the first was spent on Hall of Fame left tackle Jonathan Ogden -- Baltimore snagged the 6-foot-1, 240-pound Lewis, who went on to become one of the league's most-feared linebackers.
Queen, meanwhile, rose from a 6-foot, 229-pound middling sophomore to the 2020 National Championship Game MVP in a little over a year. If he can continue on such a path in his professional career, his story will be a remarkable one -- and the city of Baltimore might just grow to love him as much as the man whose likeness has been replicated with a statue outside of M&T Bank Stadium.
