Ravens General Manager Eric DeCosta knows the value of trading down in the NFL draft and getting additional picks, but he saw more value in cornerback Nate Wiggins.
The Ravens turned down eight trade offers from teams trying to move up before they stayed at No. 30 and drafted Wiggins with their first-round pick, according to Jamison Hensley of ESPN.
DeCosta said Wiggins was a player the Ravens identified early in the draft process, and that they weren’t expecting him to still be on the board after 29 picks. When he was, picking him was an easy choice.
“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.”
Wiggins was First-Team All-ACC at Clemson last year and was the fastest cornerback at the Combine, but at 6-foot-1 and 173 pounds, some questioned whether he’s too skinny for the NFL. Ravens defensive coordinator Zach Orr, however, has no questions.
“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 the Ravens had any concerns, they would have accepted one of those trade offers and moved down. But with Wiggins available, they wanted to stay right where they were.
