Eric DeCosta says NIL is making NFL draft prospects older

Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta said the NFL Draft pool has shifted significantly in recent years toward older prospects, pointing to changes in college football eligibility rules and the rise of NIL as key factors behind the trend.

DeCosta noted that Baltimore has seen a meaningful increase in the number of draft-eligible players who are 24 years old or older, a development he said the organization is still working to fully evaluate as it adjusts its scouting approach.

"There is a new, a changing dynamic that we've seen with the draft. Players are older. I think the average age of the players is not necessarily older, but I think what we're seeing now, there are more older players in the draft. So, we're seeing more 24- and 25-year-old players, and that's something that that's because of COVID initially, and now because of NIL, guys are staying in, because they're getting paid to stay in. That's problematic in some ways for us because these guys are coming in older. They probably have less upside. They're probably not three-contract players, in some cases, they're two-contract players. And in some cases, they have more injuries, because they've been playing college football longer, so they've taken on more injuries. And so, we're trying to get a handle on that, I think in some ways. It's tough for us to kind of assess what that means. It's kind of something that we've really seen over the last three years. This will be the third year, so '24, '25 and '26. We've seen, actually, probably players – we might have had 4% of our players on the draft board, 24 and a half or older prior to 2024. Now that number's up to 18%. So, we've seen about a 14% increase in older players on the draft board, and that's something that we don't really understand fully and what that means. I don't think it's a good thing, certainly, but historically, we've tried to draft younger players when we can. That's been something that we feel strongly [about], but now we've got 18% of the draft board that's over 24 years old. So, that's going to change the way that maybe we target players."

DeCosta said the organization is still working through the long-term implications of the shift, but acknowledged it has already begun to impact how Baltimore evaluates age, upside, and development timelines across its draft board.

This article originally appeared on Ravens Wire: Ravens GM Eric DeCosta details NIL impact on draft ages