Less than four months after being drafted in the fifth round by the Ravens, cornerback Shaun Wade couldn’t overcome the numbers at a very deep position.
General manager Eric DeCosta traded the former Ohio State standout to New England in exchange for a 2022 seventh-round pick and a 2023 fifth-round pick, which essentially gives Baltimore a long-term mulligan on a player who wasn’t going to pass through waivers to be eligible to land on the practice squad. Following the conclusion of Thursday morning’s practice, DeCosta, head coach John Harbaugh, and defensive coordinator Wink Martindale were engaged in a discussion with Wade for several minutes, a sign that a move was going down.
Considered by some as the potential heir apparent to the oft-injured Tavon Young at slot cornerback, Wade had an inconsistent summer and had fallen behind the likes of Chris Westry and even Nigel Warrior in the pecking order, putting him squarely on the roster bubble ahead of next week’s final cuts. Rookie safeties Brandon Stephens and Ar’Darius Washington have also seen plenty of snaps at slot corner this summer while Wade practiced more at outside cornerback, the position he played in the second half of both preseason games.
“When we get these young players coming in here, they’ve got to go out there and make plays in real games. He’s not playing against Michigan. We play Michigan every week,” pass game coordinator and secondary coach Chris Hewitt said earlier this month. “He’s just got to go out there and just continue to keep going and getting better every day. I’m not too high on him, not too low on him. We’ll see what happens come towards the end.”
The highlight of Wade’s summer was a game-sealing interception in the preseason opener against New Orleans on Aug. 14, but he hadn’t appeared to recapture his mojo from before the 2020 season when many believed he might be drafted as early as the first or second round. Wade still received acclaim in his final year with the Buckeyes, but the transition from slot corner to the outside led to struggles in coverage and a plummet down teams’ draft boards.
The 6-foot-1, 191-pound corner remains a work in progress, but the Ravens almost certainly would have shown more patience had they been big believers in what they’d seen in the spring and summer and their numbers at cornerback not been so plentiful. Should something happen to Young — who’s missed nearly three full seasons over the last four years — during the season, two-time Pro Bowl cornerback Marlon Humphrey remains Martindale’s best option to move to the slot with Stephens and Washington also showing promise in that role during the summer.
Wade’s departure would appear to all but guarantee a roster spot for Westry, who has been one of the biggest surprises of the summer after spending last season on the Dallas practice squad and signing a reserve-future deal with the Ravens in January. It also helps the roster chances of Washington and fellow safety Geno Stone, who both enter Saturday’s game on the bubble. Warrior has played well at cornerback since returning from a knee injury, but his most likely destination would still appear to be the practice squad.
