Baltimore Ravens stayed put at the end of the first round and ended up adding CB Nate Wiggins, who perhaps shouldn’t have been on the board.
Baltimore was able to add a nice player with good upside for their defensive backfield who could be a longtime starter opposite of Marlon Humphrey.
Following the draft, head coach John Harbaugh went into detail about the role that Wiggins would have with the team as a rookie.
“You see him as an outside corner, that’s kind of where he’s made his hay, but he plays inside as well, and he did it in college,” said Harbaugh. “We’ll just continue to be versatile through those DBs. [We’ll] move them around and let them play in different spots. That gives us another quality starting corner; I’d say we have three legitimate starting corners.”
According to Pro Football Focus, Wiggins lined up in the slot just 14 times in 2023 with 431 snaps as a boundary corner. The newest member of the Ravens gave up just 18 catches on 41 targets for 176 yards at Clemson in 2023.
“He has to come in and prove it and do it and all that, but we expect him to do it. We were excited. We were looking for Nate [Wiggins]. We were in the defensive room, actually [assistant head coach/pass game coordinator] Chris Hewitt’s office – me and about five of the defensive coaches before the Draft started about 7:45, it came up, ‘What if Wiggins falls to us? Wouldn’t that be something?’ We were like, ‘Nah, that’ll never happen. That couldn’t happen, but how good would that look in our defense?’ It worked out, and it came true. So, we’re excited.”
It sounds as if the Ravens were able to grab a player that they had believed had no chance at being there as well and that could bode huge for them. Picking at the end of the first round is not always easy, but the Ravens may have hit a home run with their speedy cornerback.
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