Bengals
The Bengals reinforced their receiving corps with WR Jermaine Burton in the third round. Bengals HC Zac Taylor raved about all the different things they saw Burton do well that made him stand out on their board.
“You can see him run all sorts of routes from all positions,” he said via the Athletic’s Paul Dehner Jr. “You see him make contested plays down the field. You see him run away from people down the field. You see no drops on tape this year. You didn’t see a single one. And you saw run after the catch. You saw great scramble awareness, getting in phase with the quarterback and creating big plays on scrambles. So I just think he’s got the ability to really add to the competition in that room. I’m really excited.”
- According to ESPN’s Ben Baby, Taylor stated DE Trey Hendrickson will play for Cincinnati this season despite his trade request.
Browns
With their first two picks in the draft, the Browns selected DT Michael Hall Jr. from Ohio State and G Zak Zinter from Michigan. Although the two were a part of a heated rivalry in college and Hall even caused a season-ending injury to Zinter, they’re putting all that past them to work together in Cleveland.
“Being my rival throughout my career and finally being teammates here, it’s crazy,” Zinter said, via ESPN’s Daniel Oyefusi. “I’m going to be seeing him day in and day out. But we’re brothers now and it’s all about that.”
Ravens
Ravens GM Eric DeCosta told reporters that the team was “ecstatic that he fell to us” when referring to drafting CB Nate Wiggins with the 30th overall pick of the first round on Thursday.
“In my opinion, [he’s] the best cover corner in the draft,” DeCosta said, via Pro Football Talk. “Highly athletic, fantastic feet. Really, in our opinion, a guy that can go into being a true shutdown-type corner. We had a couple of guys that we really liked. We were so hopeful. Honestly, I didn’t think that Nate would be there for us. As the draft started to unfold, and we started to see all of those offensive linemen come off the board, we thought there might be a chance, and then you started to see the run on corners in the 20s. Philly might’ve taken [Quinyon] Mitchell, and then [Terrion] Arnold went, and then we started to get antsy. Either the phone was ringing — we had a lot of different potential trade possibilities — but for us, it was always, ‘If Nate [is] there, we [are] going to pick.’ If Nate wasn’t there, [and] there was another guy we liked … but we also were going to look at trading out.”
“He’s fast. He’s tough. He’s competitive,” DeCosta added, referring to Wiggins a ridiculous athlete. “In our division, we play a lot of really good receivers, and you have to get off the field on third downs. And, we were blessed last year to have a lot of depth in the secondary, and it really helped us quite a bit. And this is a guy that can come in here and play meaningful football right away for us. We’re excited about that.”
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