Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta has not been one to shy away from making a trade to acquire more draft capital.
However, in the 2024 NFL Draft, he decided to stand pat at pick No. 30 and select former Clemson cornerback Nate Wiggins. ESPN’s Jamison Hensley has since revealed that DeCosta turned down several trades to do so.
“The Ravens showed how much they wanted Wiggins by turning down eight trade offers from other teams looking to move up,” Hensley wrote.
It is unknown what was offered by the teams attempting to trade up, but DeCosta’s inactivity says more about how Baltimore viewed Wiggins than anything else.
“For us, it was always, ‘If Nate [is] there, we [are] going to pick,'” DeCosta said. “In our opinion, [he’s] a guy that can be a true shutdown-type corner.”
The Ravens were clearly shocked that Wiggins was still available and rightfully so. The Clemson product registered 58 tackles, one sack, two forced fumbles, three interceptions and 17 passes defensed the past two years.
The biggest concern surrounding Wiggins is his size (6-foot-1, 185 pounds) and if he’ll have trouble defending bigger receivers in a physical AFC North. Defensive coordinator Zach Orr does not share those concerns, however.
“On tape, I didn’t see anything about him being undersized as anything that we critiqued,” Orr said. “He flew up, set the edge in the run game, played physical with receivers at the line of scrimmage, came up, tackled, getting the ball off people. So he played like a Raven. We have no concerns about that at all.”
If Baltimore as a whole shared any of those concerns, it would have likely accepted one of the eight trade offers. That was not the case.
Plus, the Ravens needed to add to their cornerback room after watching several key players in their secondary suffer injuries last season.
Wiggins will provide some much-needed depth at the very least with a good opportunity to be a Week 1 starter while also giving them a great chance to continue having one of the best defenses in the league.