Benjamin Keith Cleveland (born August 25, 1998) is an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wit ...

offensive guard Offensive may refer to: * Offensive, the former name of the Dutch political party Socialist Alternative * Offensive (military), an attack * Offensive language ** Fighting words or insulting language, words that by their very utterance inflict in ...

for the

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of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ma ...

(NFL). He played college football at

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to t ...

, and was drafted by the Ravens in the third round of the

2021 NFL Draft The 2021 NFL Draft was the 86th National Football League Draft, the annual meeting of National Football League (NFL) franchises to select newly eligible players for the 2021 NFL season. The draft was held in Cleveland from April 29 to May 1, 2021 ...

Early life and high school

Cleveland grew up in

Toccoa, Georgia Toccoa is a city in far Northeast Georgia near the border with South Carolina. It is the county seat of Stephens County, Georgia, United States, located about from Athens and about northeast of Atlanta. The population was 9,133 as of the 2020 ...

, and attended Stephens County High School, where he played baseball and football. He was rated a four star recruit and committed to play college football at Georgia during the summer before his junior season.

College career

Cleveland

redshirted Redshirt, in United States college athletics, is a delay or suspension of an athlete's participation in order to lengthen their period of eligibility. Typically, a student's athletic eligibility in a given sport is four seasons, aligning with the ...

his true freshman season. He played in all 15 of Georgia's games as a redshirt freshman and started the final five, including the

2018 College Football Playoff National Championship The 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship was a college football bowl game that determined a national champion in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision for the 2017 season. The Alabama Crimson Tide defeated the Georgia Bu ...

game. Cleveland started eight games with six games missed due to an injury in his redshirt sophomore season. He played in 13 games with seven starts at right guard as a redshirt junior. Cleveland returned to being a full-time starter at right guard in his final season at Georgia was named first-team All-

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities o ...

and a third-team All-American by the

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after starting nine games in the

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shortened 2020 season.

Professional career

Baltimore Ravens

Cleveland was selected in the third round with the 94th overall pick of the

by the

. On July 20, 2021, Cleveland signed his four-year rookie contract worth $4.8 million. He was placed on the active/

non-football injury list Non-football injury and non-football illness (NFI) are roster designations used in the National Football League (NFL) for players who are unable to practice as a result of conditions unrelated to football, or injuries that did not occur during NFL g ...

at the start of training camp on July 21, 2021. On October 12, 2021, Cleveland suffered a knee injury in Week 5 against the

Indianapolis Colts The Indianapolis Colts are a professional American football team based in Indianapolis. The Colts compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) South division. Since the 20 ...

and was placed on injured reserve. On November 20, 2021, Cleveland was activated to the active roster from

injured reserve The injured reserve list ( IR list) is a designation used in North American professional sports leagues for athletes who suffer injuries and become unable to play. The exact name of the list varies by league; it is known as "injured reserve" in th ...

References

External links

Georgia Bulldogs bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cleveland, Ben Living people American football offensive guards Georgia Bulldogs football players Players of American football from Georgia (U.S. state) Baltimore Ravens players People from Toccoa, Georgia 1998 births