OTL: Keaton Mitchell on the Trade Block? Ridiculous!

As we emerge from the BYE week, there’s been a lot of conversation swirling about where the Ravens go from here, including what kinds of moves they could potentially make to bring some players in. With the trade deadline two weeks away, teams are calling around to check on availability of potential acquisitions, and either being told to kick rocks or to name a price. The Ravens are thought by some to be buyers in the market for players like Quinnen Williams, but if they choose to sell at the deadline, one of the names emerging from trade rumors has a good portion of the Flock riled up.

ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler mentioned Ravens RB Keaton Mitchell as a RB that could be traded

“He has game-changing speed but is the odd man out in the Ravens’ backfield…Chargers GM Joe Hortiz was with Baltimore when the team signed Mitchell as an undrafted free agent in 2023″ pic.twitter.com/r6abCYUogp

— Kevin Oestreicher (@koestreicher34) October 15, 2025

Last week, reports emerged that the Ravens were considering running back Keaton Mitchell as a trade candidate. The 23-year-old is in the last year of his contract after making the roster as an undrafted rookie out of East Carolina in 2023. Mitchell’s rookie season saw him post an impressive 8.4 yards per carry, logging 396 yards on the ground while adding another 93 receiving yards on 11 targets. Mitchell looked like a true spark plug that fit nicely as a speed back in a run-heavy scheme, but his season was unfortunately shortened with an ACL tear that cost him most of 2024.

Upon his return this season, questions remained about the team’s confidence that he could return to form. Mitchell himself acknowledged in an interview this offseason that the team has been slowly ramping him back up with his limited snaps in 2024, saying “They were just holding me back and telling me to chill, ‘You go out there and you do what you can do.’”

The outlook was good coming into the 2025 season as Keaton reported he’d hit a top speed of 22.4 mph during the offseason conditioning program.

.@_KeatonMitchell on hitting 22.4 MPH recently pic.twitter.com/4ZL5GSM4ko

— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) June 6, 2025

The warm and fuzzies didn’t last, though, as Mitchell was kept inactive for several weeks to begin the year, sparking questions and frustration from the fanbase, especially amidst the team’s struggles. Mitchell has recorded only 3 carries for 8 yards and one reception for five yards this season, all of which came in the loss against Houston. Mitchell seems to be the odd man out of Baltimore’s running back room, and I think many of us are wondering why, but on the heels of the trade rumors, the bigger concern would be losing a homegrown talent and watching him light it up elsewhere when he could be helping a desperate Ravens team right now.

The Ravens shouldn’t trade Keaton Mitchell. Here’s why they might. https://t.co/SVywbW3VnP

— Baltimore Beatdown (@BmoreBeatdown) October 20, 2025

If we’re examining a potential move from a purely businesslike standpoint, I get some of the reasons why a move might make sense. If you anticipate that Keaton would move on after this season is over, you get the chance to get something back for him now, even using him as a potential trade piece to parlay into a bigger move. Behind the scenes, perhaps the team knows more about the severity of Mitchell’s injury or the risk of reaggravating it, so they’re intentionally keeping him a hot commodity and allowing another team to get burnt if they spend high to bring him in. Otherwise, the decisions to keep Mitchell inactive seem to stem from the coaches feeling like he doesn’t have much of a natural fit in the offense they want to run…

John Harbaugh said Keaton Mitchell’s healthy scratch was a result of a numbers crunch.

When the Ravens are using Mitchell, they’re using him on “designer plays,” Harbaugh said. Sounds like it was hard to justify his activation for a few plays given Buffalo’s attention to him.

— Jonas Shaffer (@jonas_shaffer) September 8, 2025

…and despite Mitchell’s viability as a returner, maybe feeling like he’s superfluous based on their existing personnel, and that they would prefer to lean on Rasheen Ali as a special teams player.

Even with all of those factors at play, color me unimpressed with the potential reasoning.

As much as I don’t want to pick on individual players in terms of their long-term viability on the roster, I haven’t seen nearly enough from Rasheen Ali to make me feel like he has a higher ceiling for contributing to the team than Keaton Mitchell does. I will grant that he’s been an asset in the special teams game, but he’s shown next to nothing outside of this past preseason that suggests he can be an everyday contributor as an NFL running back, whereas Keaton has. It’s not like Ali isn’t dealing with injury baggage, either; the biceps tear that he suffered coming into his rookie year likely stunted his development, and he’s dealt with several minor injuries throughout his short career. In fact, I stand firmly in my opinion that the only reason Ali is more likely to remain on the roster is that the team used draft capital on him, and the coaching staff doesn’t want to make a move that would admit they might have missed on a player.

Speaking of coaching inflexibility playing a factor, while the coaches have shied away from including him in the lineup because they don’t feel he’s a good fit in what they’re trying to run, I’d argue that his inclusion would allow them to run some things they might not otherwise be able to. For example, the straight runs up the middle with Henry have been a struggle for weeks, but once the outside lanes opened up, there was progress. If Mitchell had been a part of the game plan, those outside lanes could have been exploited with his speed, as that’s where he’s seen most of his big plays.

39-yard rushing TD for Keaton Mitchell!!

The @Ravens aren’t messing around

: FOX pic.twitter.com/f2hrAqusGb

— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) November 12, 2023

Beyond that, there have been consistent reports from around the league that the Ravens tend to tip their hand on whether it’s a run or pass play based on the personnel on the field. Mitchell’s inclusion can keep defenses guessing with his viability in the receiving game, and he has the big-play potential every time the ball is in his hands that this team has been missing for a while.

While I know there’s no room for sentimentality on the business side, it actually plays into a potential future with Mitchell. You’re talking about a guy with a very low cap hit who now gets to play for the team his father played with. He worked his ass off to recover from a nasty injury and get out there. Mitchell’s allegiances to the Ravens name go deeper than making it to the league as a UDFA, and I’d imagine it would play into his willingness to negotiate a cheap deal, as well as the effort and return on investment the staff would get from him remaining here.

At a time when morale is low and there are a host of players who seem to be sleepwalking through the schedule, trading a guy who clearly wants to be here would be, in my mind, a huge mistake.

The post OTL: Keaton Mitchell on the Trade Block? Ridiculous! appeared first on Russell Street Report.

Source: https://russellstreetreport.com/2025/10/21/out-to-lunch/keaton-mitchell-trade-block/