Ravens' hypocrisy on full display with Mike Green pick in 2025 NFL Draft

The Baltimore Ravens famously told reporters in 2022 that they have a "Zero tolerance policy" when it comes to allegations of sexual misconduct and assault.

Their actions in recent months, however, paint a very different picture.

The hypocrisy was on full display Friday night, when Ravens GM Eric DeCosta drafted Marshall defensive end Mike Green in the second round of the 2025 NFL Draft. Green was widely seen as a top-10 caliber talent, and on paper, Baltimore was lauded for getting a real steal in the second round.

That is, until you look into why Green fell as far as he did. The defensive end has a history of sexual assault allegations, first in high school, and then again at the University of Virginia. The former of those cases prompted the Cavaliers to have Green sign a zero tolerance agreement before he set foot on campus, which he then violated when he was accused of sexual assault in 2022. He let the university and transferred to Marshall.

For his part, Green has denied all wrongdoing in both cases.

DeCosta was asked about the decision to take Green after Day 2, per Pro Football Talk's Josh Alper.

“I would say that we investigated this situation very thoroughly,” DeCosta said, via a transcript from the team. “I think we have the best scouts in the NFL. We’ve got great scouts that go into Virginia. They go into Marshall. We’ve got people that work for investigating different incidents with players all the time, and we felt comfortable taking him. We think he’s a talented player. We understand the severity of what these allegations were, of course, but doing our due diligence, we are comfortable with Mike. I personally spent an hour and a half with him in my office, and I think the best is yet to come with him, and I’m glad we got him.”

I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like zero tolerance to me. It doesn't sound like a team who made the conscious decision to avoid drafting a player who has multiple credible sexual assault allegations levied against them in their career, which is what 32 other teams had done once, and almost two dozen others had done twice over the course of the first two rounds of the Draft.

What it sounds like to me is a team who is willing to take a principled stand when it doesn't impact them. Remember, their zero tolerance policy was first mentioned in relation to the Browns signing Deshaun Watson.

More Harbaugh regarding Watson suspension: "I respect what Steve Bisciotti and Dick Cass created here almost 10 years ago. Basically, what we decided [was] that we're kind of zero tolerance. We've stayed away from that particular situation. I'm glad we have that policy."
— Jamison Hensley (@jamisonhensley) August 1, 2022

If it were just Green, that would be one thing. But the Ravens have another ongoing sexual misconduct investigation relating to longtime kicker Justin Tucker's behavior towards massage therapists between 2012 and 2016.

So what happened to zero tolerance? What happened to staying away from "that particular situation"? Does all of that go out the window when it actually, directly impacts your team? Does Green's ability to help the team and potentially become a star outweigh the severity of the allegations against him?

Because if the answer to that question is yes (and it certainly appears that it is yes, given that the Ravens picked him), then it's not a zero tolerance policy at all. It's not any kind of moral policy, or ethical high ground. It means that those words in 2022 were nothing more than words, meant to placate and appear holier than thou. It means the Ravens are hypocrites, quick to trumpet a policy that seems like a good thing until they actually have to implement it.

This isn't about Green, really. It's not about his play on the field or his potential or whether he's going to be a Pro Bowl edge rusher one day, which he very well could be. This is about a team deciding that that potential outweighs a policy they claimed to hold and enforce because of that potential. About them failing to uphold the values they claimed to have.

It's easy to act moral when it doesn't impact you, doesn't cost you anything. But if the Ravens were serious about zero tolerance, about staying away from players who had run afoul of the law regarding sexual misconduct, then this would have been the chance to prove it. Tucker would have been the chance to show they meant what they said, and were willing to sacrifice a little potential on-field success to behave in an upstanding way.

Instead, they folded, and left their hypocrisy on display for everyone to see.

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