With the Ravens on the clock at No. 30 in the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft, general manager Eric DeCosta had his eyes on some offensive linemen and wide receivers, both considered positions of need. Instead, DeCosta selected Clemson cornerback Nate Wiggins.
DeCosta drafted another cornerback, T.J. Tampa from Iowa State, in the fourth round, adding to a position group that, maybe more than any other beside quarterback, can make or break a season in the NFL.
The rugged AFC North features Joe Burrow in Cincinnati, Deshaun Watson in Cleveland and now Russell Wilson and Justin Fields in Pittsburgh. Elsewhere in the conference, Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen and Justin Herbert, among others, sling the ball all over the field. And the league has skewed its rules toward the passing game for the past two decades. Taken together, DeCosta and the Ravens know that neutralizing opposing receivers is crucial for a deep postseason run.
“In our division, we play a lot of really good receivers,” DeCosta said, “and you have to get off the field on third down.”
DeCosta explained that the relative lack of elite cornerbacks in this year’s draft led to some urgency to take Wiggins.
“It became apparent that if we didn’t get a corner in the first round, it was going to be challenging to get a really good corner in the second round, third round, fourth round who could help us right away,” DeCosta said.
DeCosta had Wiggins rated among the top 20 players on his board and called him “the best cover corner in the draft.” Neither he nor head coach John Harbaugh expected Wiggins to be available at No. 30.
But some teams apparently had concerns about Wiggins’ size and whether he could compete physically in the NFL; the 6-foot-1 Wiggins officially weighed 173 pounds at the NFL Scouting Combine, or about 30 pounds lighter than Marlon Humphrey.
The Ravens saw no such issues.
“On tape, I didn’t see anything about him being undersized as anything that we critiqued,” new defensive coordinator Zach Orr said. “He flew up, set the edge in the run game, played physical with receivers at the line of scrimmage, came up, tackled … so he played like a Raven. We have no concerns about that at all.”
Wiggins said he was “never 170 [pounds]” and explained that he dropped weight at the Combine just by not eating much. Wiggins is officially listed by the Ravens at 182 pounds, about what he weighed at Clemson last season, and the Ravens’ strength and nutrition staffs will work to find his optimal weight.
Strength In Numbers
DeCosta and his predecessor, Ozzie Newsome, have long lived by the mantra “you can never have too many corners,” and at times they’ve had to grit their teeth and watch as backups such as Chykie Brown and Chris Westry were thrust into starting spots in key moments.
The lack of cornerback depth, DeCosta said last year, is “a fast way to get beat.”
The arrival of Wiggins and Tampa, the 2023 emergence of Brandon Stephens and the return of Humphrey, Arthur Maulet, Jalyn Armour-Davis and Damarion “Pepe” Williams — along with Kyle Hamilton, the Pro Bowl, Swiss-Army-knife safety who might be at his best in the slot — give the Ravens a nice problem to have: if healthy, how to find room for all these players?
Harbaugh said he envisions Wiggins on the outside, where he can use his physicality to jam receivers at the line and his speed to stay with deep threats. Wiggins ran the fastest 40-yard time (4.28) of any cornerback at the NFL Scouting Combine this year, and DeCosta called him “a ridiculous athlete.”
Stephens moved from safety last spring and developed into one of the team’s most reliable corners. He finished with 74 tackles, 11 passes defensed and two interceptions. If Wiggins and Stephens start outside, Humphrey could slide inside to the slot, where his physicality can be an asset.
But Hamilton lines up all over the secondary, and he did some of his most effective work in the slot last season. He had three sacks against Indianapolis, he intercepted a pass that he returned for a touchdown against Cleveland, and he shed a block and blew up a bubble screen multiple times.
Then there’s Maulet, last year’s summertime acquisition who finished with 37 tackles, a pair of sacks and an interception as a nickel defender. Opposing quarterbacks in 2023 had a passer rating of 65.8 throwing against Maulet, according to Pro Football Reference.
“We all sleep on Arthur,” DeCosta said. “He had a heck of a season for us last year.”
Williams, meanwhile, was a front-runner to start in the slot last year before his season was derailed by injury, and now he needs to show he is healthy just to compete for playing time.
“It’s hard to play the nickel,” DeCosta said. “It’s a very interesting skill set. You’ve got to be feisty, you’ve got to have some speed, quickness, change of direction, you’ve got to be able to tackle, you’ve got to be able to blitz.”
A Long-Term Play
In drafting Wiggins and Tampa, the Ravens also have an eye toward the future.
Humphrey, a three-time Pro Bowl pick, has been slowed by injuries in two of the past three years, and he has a $25 million cap hit in 2025. Stephens is entering a contract year, and with another strong season, he might price himself out of Baltimore.
The Ravens like to retain homegrown, ascending players with extensions before free agency nears, but asked last month about his contract situation, Stephens said, “I’m not focused on that right now.”
He said any such discussions would be handled by his agent.
DeCosta has already noted how Lamar Jackson’s record-setting deal has changed the way the team must build the roster. When the quarterback has a cap number of $32 million this year and $43 million next year, as Jackson does, there is only so much money to go around for others.
Hamilton will be in line for a massive payday in a year or two, so getting Wiggins on a four-year rookie deal, with a fifth-year option, becomes critical to the balance sheet. Wiggins has a cap hit of $2.3 million this year and $2.9 million next year, according to Over The Cap, which tracks player contracts, and that would be a bargain if he evolves into the player the Ravens expect him to be.
Those money issues are a problem for another day. For now, the important thing is the Ravens have all these players under contract. They are focused on getting Wiggins and Tampa up to speed, keeping Williams and Armour-Davis healthy enough to contribute, and putting together a secondary that can neutralize the high-octane offenses that inhabit the upper echelon of the AFC.
How that secondary looks might change from week to week, or even from series to series. But the Ravens think they have the talent and the depth to succeed.
“What we’ve done,” DeCosta said, “is build a nice combination of players who can all play multiple spots, which I think is going to give opposing offenses a tough time.”
Photo Credits: Kenya Allen/PressBox
Originally published June 19, 2024