Rayshaun Benny, a standout at Oak Park who spent five years with Michigan football as he rose from reserve to starter, was selected by the Baltimore Ravens on Saturday, April 25, with pick No. 250 in the seventh round on Day 3 of the 2026 NFL Draft.
Benny started all 13 games along the defensive line in 2025 and made 35 tackles (including three for loss) and 1½ sacks, along with a pair of pass breakups and a fumble recovery for U-M in 2025. He shared the team's Defensive Player of the Week honors six times, was given Michigan's Woodley-Graham Award as the team's top defensive lineman and was a consensus third-team All-Big Ten selection.
In Baltimore, he'll reunite with his former position coach, Lou Esposito, who was hired to coach D-linemen this winter by new head coach Jesse Minter, himself a former defensive coordinator at Michigan during Benny's time in Ann Arbor.
FROM OAK PARK TO THE PROS: Michigan football DT Rayshaun Benny's journey to 2026 NFL Draft
The 6-foot-3, 298-pound tackle played 53 games across five years in Ann Arbor and finished with 107 tackles (including 12 for loss) and four sacks. He appeared in just three games on defense during his true freshman season (a redshirt year), then played in 11 or more in each of his final four seasons.
Benny broke his fibula in the Rose Bowl in January 2024 and missed the Wolverines' College Football Playoff championship game. It was a brief pause in the maize-and-blue career of a consistent contributor throughout, even while buried on the depth chart behind Kris Jenkins, Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant.
"Iron sharpens iron," Benny recently told "Good Morning Football." "Being able to see some of the best guys go out there that's our guys just gives me a standpoint on how I'll turn out in the league. A lot of motivation, being that we come from a blueblood factory, so just trying to be able to keep up that history is big for me."
Benny played the 2i-, three- and four-technique and while he did not do any testing, he did participate in drills at the combine. At Michigan’s pro day last month, Benny ran a 4.88-second short shuttle and 7.60-second three-cone drill.
He's now the 10th Michigan defensive lineman drafted in the past four NFL Drafts and the third this season, following Derrick Moore (at No. 44 by the Detroit Lions) and Jaishawn Barham (at No. 92 to the Dallas Cowboys).
Tony Garcia is the Michigan beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football DT Rayshaun Benny taken by Ravens in 2026 NFL Draft