OWINGS MILLS, Md. — After the NFL draft ended in April, Reuben Lowery sat with his family in awkward “radio silence.” Jay Higgins wrestled with the idea that his football career might be over. And Keyon Martin just waited and hoped that someone — anyone — would call to give him a chance.
Ultimately, each of these players, ignored by all 32 teams across 257 picks in the NFL Draft, got his chance in training camp with the Ravens, and each beat considerable odds to earn a spot on the initial 53-man roster.
As they met with the media on Aug. 27, a day after learning they had made the team, the undrafted rookie trio expressed relief, vindication and validation, saying that they ultimately never lost belief that they could play at this level.
This marked the 21st time in 22 seasons that the Ravens have kept at least one undrafted rookie on the initial 53-man roster, but the odds seemed especially long this year. Not only did the team face relatively little roster turnover, but it also drafted 11 rookies, tied for its third-largest draft class ever.
But the Ravens are known for doing their due diligence well below the radar, and general manager Eric DeCosta credited local and regional scouts with finding another strong group of undrafted rookies.
“When the draft ends, those guys go to work,” DeCosta said, “and they do just a great job. … We spend hours on those guys, evaluating those players and talking about their backgrounds and their mentalities. We really are just hoping to hit on one guy every year. And this year, we hit on three guys.”
DeCosta noted there were a couple of other undrafted rookies who came close to making the team as well.
“Like I said, the scouts and coaches did a phenomenal job,” he said.
Martin takes most unlikely route
Martin, a 5-foot-9, 170-pound cornerback out of Louisiana-Lafayette, had the longest odds of all. Unlike Lowery and Higgins, Martin wasn’t signed by the team immediately after the draft as a rookie free agent.
Instead, Martin was invited to a tryout at rookie minicamp. He would need to do enough there just to earn a training camp spot on the very bottom of the depth chart in a cornerback room that was viewed as one of the deepest and best in the league.
The Ravens were the only team that gave Martin such a chance.
“I had only one tryout,” Martin said. “It was pretty hard on me, I’m not going to lie … right after the draft, realizing that nobody was going to sign me. But once I got that call about the minicamp, I’m like, ‘All right, it’s on me now.'”
Martin, whose father, Manny, was an NFL defensive back in the 1990s with Houston and Buffalo, seized his chance.
He jumped onto the radar with a sack for a safety in the Week 2 preseason game at Dallas, and he had a pick-six touchdown in the preseason finale at Washington. But his stock also rose with consistent, less heralded play on special teams.
Injuries in the cornerback room opened the door as well. Rookie sixth-round picks Bilhal Kone and Robert Longerbeam were lost to season-ending injuries, and veterans Jaire Alexander and Chidobe Awuzie missed time at various points this summer.
By mid-August, Martin was working among the top group of defensive backs, and the surprising release of Jalyn Armour-Davis was a signal that Martin’s remarkable rise up the depth chart had succeeded.
Martin said that when he was called up to DeCosta’s office to be told he had made the team, he thought he was being cut.
“Every day I step in this building,” Martin said, “I know that I’m beating the odds.”
Lowery shows a nose for the ball
Lowery, who was undrafted out of Tennessee-Chattanooga, was signed after the draft — after that awkward “radio silence” — but he received no signing bonus, and like Martin, he joined a secondary that was loaded.
But Lowery immediately made himself noticed. There hardly seemed to be a day in OTAs, minicamp or training camp when Lowery wasn’t either intercepting or breaking up a pass. He quickly became a trendy choice to be that undrafted rookie who makes the team.
Lowery (5-9, 204) had played multiple spots in the secondary in college, and the Ravens looked at him at pretty much every position in the secondary this spring and summer, focusing especially at slot corner and safety. There was never any doubt that Lowery, a Dean’s List student with a degree in mechanical engineering, would be able to grasp the concepts.
“It was hard learning two positions at the same time and not knowing which one you’re going to play at on certain days,” he said. “But definitely, once you learn those positions, you understand the defense better, you understand the scheme better, and then ultimately, it just helps you with your play.”
Lowery was competing with Martin while he was playing nickel, but the Ravens steadily increased Lowery’s workload at safety, and he ultimately beat out Beau Brade for a final safety spot.
Lowery finished the preseason with a team-best 14 tackles on defense and 15 overall, and he recorded an interception at Dallas.
Lowery said in the tense moments leading up to the roster cutdown, “My mindset wasn’t on, ‘Did I do enough?’ My mindset was basically, ‘Did I give it my all every single day?’ “
He felt he had, so he was at peace with whatever decision would come. When DeCosta told Lowery that he had made the team, he said, “It’s just a moment that you’ve been waiting for … a moment of triumph.”
Higgins joins long line of undrafted linebackers
Higgins had the strongest pedigree of the Ravens undrafted rookies, earning All-America honors out of the Big Ten at Iowa. But some scouts viewed him as undersized at 6-foot and 230 pounds, and his draft stock tumbled after Higgins posted the slowest 40-yard dash among linebacker at this year’s NFL Scouting Combine.
After the Combine and then a draft that completely bypassed him, Higgins acknowledged that he began to question his future.
“It was just kind of hard on me,” Higgins said, “I was like, ‘I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong.’ … I was having real conversations with myself after the draft if football’s in my future, [or] if I need to go do something else.”
Yet something his agent said late in the draft stuck with him.
“He mentioned that the defensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens was an undrafted linebacker,” Higgins said. “I knew … that connection wasn’t going to be enough to just get me on a Super Bowl-ready team, but I knew that if you go to Baltimore, you play hard, and you play physically, they respect their linebackers. So I felt like this was a good fit for me.”
Indeed, defensive coordinator Zach Orr initially joined the Ravens as an undrafted rookie, and it’s understandable if Orr sees a little of himself in Higgins, who was also overlooked coming out of high school in Indianapolis; neither Indiana nor Purdue ever expressed much interest, he said.
Still, Higgins needed to earn his roster spot, and ultimately he did that over a consistent summer. He made headlines with a takeaway in each of the first two preseason games, with an interception against Indianapolis and a strip-sack at Dallas. He finished the preseason with 11 tackles on defense and — perhaps more significantly — a team-high four on special teams.
Higgins thus joins a long list of undrafted inside linebackers who made the Ravens roster, several of whom became impact players for the Ravens. In addition to Orr, that list includes Bart Scott, Jameel McClain, Dannell Ellerbe, Josh Bynes, Patrick Onwuasor, Chris Board and others. (Bynes and Onwuasor did not make the initial roster as rookies but became contributors later.)
Higgins said he felt his “heart rate rising and rising” as he made the walk to DeCosta’s office, and he doubled over and said he got lightheaded upon learning that he had made the team.
“I was so surprised,” Higgins said. “I knew there were so many talented players on the roster.”
Higgins said he drew strength throughout the process from his father, Roy, who has been his No. 1 cheerleader his entire life.
“If you would have asked him after the draft,” Higgins said, “he knew this day was going to happen.”
Photo Credits: Bo Smolka/PressBox