The 2026 Ravens Are All About Change, Except When It Comes To This Roster Trend

Ravens fans might be sick of it. They might be over it.

But they also better brace themselves for the possibility that their front office will once again utilize prime draft capital on a defensive back, particularly a cornerback.

Okay, most likely not in the first round this time, but if you think all the recent investments in top picks and contract extensions and free agent money has significantly lessened cornerback as a need, well, sorry to inform you otherwise. New head coach Jesse Minter is very much a product of the Ravens’ overarching roster philosophies and this continues to be a pass-first league and Baltimore is going to continue collecting defensive backs and this could absolutely be another year in which they take a corner in the first two days of the draft.

It’s What They Do. And Will Continue To Do

The Ravens have used three of their last four first-round picks on defensive backs. Over the last four years, only once have they failed to select a defensive back in one of the top three rounds. They have routinely constructed rosters that led the league in first-round corners (not all selected by the Ravens themselves, of course) and here is where the Ravens have ranked in cornerback spending, per Spotrac.com, from 2025-2020: 14th, 3rd, 8th, 1st, 3rd, 2nd.

Yet here we find ourselves again.

Despite those investments, there are major questions to be asked about the current group of corners. It’s time, frankly, to move on from Marlon Humphrey, though he’s a favorite of this front office and it’s far more likely he sticks around on a reworked contract. With Minter prizing length and heft and wingspan in his corners, there is at least a decent chance recent top pick Nate Wiggins is headed to the slot, so beyond Chidobe Awuzie (who has been great when healthy but is aging and on a one-year deal), you show me the starting outside corners on this roster.

Depth ain’t great, the TJ Tampa thing might never actually be a thing, and while Minter isn’t going to be using the almost exclusive nickel/dime packages that overwhelmed defensive coordinator Zach Orr resorted to a year ago, make no mistake there are going to be five or six defensive backs on the field roughly 80% of the time.

During his two years running the Chargers defense, Minter ranked 6th in the NFL in usage of nickel or dime (78%, per TruMedia), behind only the Ravens (87%), Seahawks (85%), Bears (83%), Commanders (81%, Texans (80%) and Eagles (80%). That ain’t changing; he has core beliefs about utilizing deep safeties and lighter boxes while still defending the run.

The question is, does he have sufficient personnel to run it? And how much of a priority should this be next week when the draft unfolds?

What About The Offense?

We suspect rookie offensive coordinator Declan Doyle – bereft of having ever installed his own offense or calling play before – will get fed with the top few picks. He badly needs personnel upgrades to the line and at pass catcher, and the Ravens need to make Lamar Jackson feel as good about this situation as possible while they endure yet another protracted contract negotiation with him.

Minter needs big bodies up front too, badly, but the Ravens feel like they are particularly adept at finding linemen in different corridors of the draft, and by round three they could be antsy about their DB depth chart. General manager Eric DeCosta spoke Wednesday about his conversations with owner Steve Bisciotti about changing some of his tendencies and not defaulting to how they’ve always operated.

“You don’t want to be typecast,” he asserted, and I actually believe him.

And I strongly suspect this draft won’t look like a facsimile of some recent iterations. They will be more aggressive in some spots and won’t use all four fifth-round picks, for instance. But DeCosta loves drafting corners, and his novice coach needs them (the bigger the better, please), and you probably won’t have to wait all that long before he does so again.