The Ravens had a chance to make a move or two prior to the roster cutdown deadline, but opted to keep the secondary strong.
Among the strongest positions the Baltimore Ravens enter the 2024 NFL season with is cornerback and safety. With six safeties and five cornerbacks (and Arthur Maulet designated to return after Week 4), the Ravens boast a surplus of talent on the back end of their defense. According to General Manager Eric DeCosta, other teams took notice and were willing to engage in trade talks.
“We’re really strong [in the secondary], and we had a few teams call us about a few of our players,” DeCosta said.
But the talks were cut short as DeCosta opted to keep his secondary intact.
“…and my mentality is, ‘If you’re strong, stay strong.’ In some years, we’ve traded players, and then you get a couple of injuries and then you look at it and kind of regret it, now you’re happy at draft time, but it makes for some challenges in [the] season,” DeCosta said. “We just decided this year that we liked our team and we were going to stand put with the players that we had. We felt that there was a chance we could get some really good players to the practice squad, and we were fortunately able to do that.”
The Ravens secondary was stronger at the beginning of camp, with more than a handful of cornerbacks proving themselves roster-worthy. But misfortunate for cornerbacks Maulet and Trayvon Mullen gave the team a logistical way to keep them. Maulet underwent arthroscopic knee surgery in early August while Mullen suffered a shoulder injury. At cut-down day, Mullen was placed on season-ending injured reserve while Maulet was placed on injured reserve with a designation to return.
With two spots freed up, one short-term and the other long-term, the Ravens have the benefit of hanging on to at least one more of their secondary members for the first four games of the season. And with the first quarter of their 2024 season being a challenging stretch, they’ll need it.