Maybe the only normal thing about Marlon Humphrey’s 2023 debut was how it started.
For the first three-plus quarters of the Ravens’ Week 5 trip to Pittsburgh, the star cornerback looked surprisingly like himself. Humphrey pressed at the line of scrimmage. He moved fluidly in coverage. He punched at the ball. He hit hard in the open field. Only a limited snap count hinted that Humphrey, who’d missed almost two months while rehabilitating a foot injury, was not all the way back.
And then more misfortune found Humphrey, as it so often did last season. Late in the fourth quarter, with the Ravens clinging to a 14-10 lead, he allowed a decisive 41-yard touchdown pass to Steelers wide receiver George Pickens. It was, in retrospect, an omen for the year to come, a season in which injuries and ill-timed plays overshadowed everything else he contributed, big and small.
“I was hurt last year,” Humphrey said last month on his podcast, reflecting on a season in which he finished with career lows in games played (10) and takeaways (one). “I didn’t really lock up anybody last year, honestly.”
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Well, not exactly. Humphrey did have stretches of high-level play; he just couldn’t sustain them. He would get over one injury, flash his talents, then go down with another injury. It was an uneven 2023. Now comes a potentially precarious 2024.
As Humphrey returns to Owings Mills this week for the start of training camp Sunday, there’s fresh intrigue over just where this season might take him. After a wave of offseason departures hit the Ravens, Humphrey is considered a foundational piece in first-year coordinator Zach Orr’s defense — but not so foundational that the secondary collapsed in his absence last year.
And with the arrival of first-round pick Nate Wiggins; the development of fellow corner Brandon Stephens, now in the final year of his rookie deal; and the mounting cost of Humphrey’s own contract — he has a $22.9 million cap hit this season and a $25.1 million hit in 2025 — the three-time Pro Bowl selection’s value to the franchise and fit in its defense have come under new scrutiny.
After seven years in Baltimore, is this the beginning of the end for the 28-year-old Humphrey? Probably not. According to Pro Football Focus, only two cornerbacks in the NFL last season allowed targets to open receivers at a better rate than Humphrey (24.4%). A review of his 554 defensive snaps found that he was still capable of shutdown play — and, maybe just as important, still capable of playing almost anywhere in the Ravens’ back end.
His challenge this year will be moving past the injuries that proved so frustrating, and consequential. Here are three takeaways from that 2023 season.
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1. Humphrey’s worst games came just as he returned from injuries

Maybe Humphrey just needed time getting up to speed. After giving him 37 defensive snaps in his shaky debut in Pittsburgh, Ravens coaches increased Humphrey’s workload each of the next four weeks. He played all 77 defensive snaps in a Week 8 win over the Arizona Cardinals and all 49 in a Week 9 rout of the Seattle Seahawks.
But, after entering Week 10 with concerns about a hamstring injury, Humphrey left the Ravens’ loss to the Cleveland Browns with a third-quarter calf injury. He was sidelined for the next two games, and not even a Week 13 bye seemed to get him right for his return.
Against the Los Angeles Rams, Humphrey struggled. Really, really struggled. In the loss to the Steelers, he was responsible for just two conspicuously poor plays: a bad read on an end around to Pickens, plus the late bomb to Pickens, for which he at least had a plausible excuse. Two plays earlier, on another vertical route, Humphrey had watched Pittsburgh quarterback Kenny Pickett find Pickens on a back-shoulder throw. On the touchdown, a few steps before the ball arrived, Humphrey slowed his pace and turned his head, as if half-expecting another back-shoulder throw. Instead, Pickens separated and reached out for the touchdown grab.
Two months later, in Week 14, Humphrey’s problems started early. On Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford’s first drop-back of the game, Humphrey couldn’t stay attached to wide receiver Puka Nacua. The rookie’s route didn’t get Stafford’s attention, however, and Humphrey wasn’t targeted until early in the second quarter, when wide receiver Demarcus Robinson couldn’t separate from his former Ravens teammate but somehow came down with a full-extension grab for a 22-yard gain.
On the very next play, a simple presnap motion seemed to bamboozle Humphrey and safety Geno Stone, who left star wideout Cooper Kupp uncovered in the flat on a 27-yard catch and run.
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Later, Humphrey was called for a questionable pass interference penalty against Nacua, one of a team-high five coverage flags in 2023, according to PFF.
Humphrey’s worst stretch of the season came late in the fourth quarter, when the Ravens were trying to preserve a 31-28 lead. Over a four-play sequence, Humphrey had three costly errors. He allowed a 19-yard completion to Robinson after stumbling in coverage. Then he gave up a 34-yard completion to Kupp after biting on a double move. Finally, he dropped a would-be interception in the end zone.
The Rams ultimately settled for a game-tying field goal, and the Ravens won in overtime, thanks to Tylan Wallace’s 76-yard punt return.
2. Humphrey’s best games came just before he was injured
If Week 5 and Week 14 were low points for Humphrey last season, they at least offered clear paths to self-improvement.
In the Ravens’ five-game stretch from Week 6 to Week 10, Humphrey was tested just 11 times in coverage, according to PFF, and gave up just five completions for 24 yards. That included impressive showings against a wide range of top targets, from Tennessee Titans wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, one of the NFL’s best contested-catch winners …
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… to Detroit Lions tight end Sam LaPorta and wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown, both of whom excel over the middle of the field …
... to Seahawks wide receivers DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett, one of the league’s top deep-threat duos …
... to Browns wide receiver Amari Cooper, who had a career-high 1,250 receiving yards last season.
After allowing 92 yards in coverage against the Rams, Humphrey quickly sharpened his game. A week later, he gave up just three catches for 23 yards despite being targeted eight times in a win over the Jacksonville Jaguars, helping to quiet top receiver Calvin Ridley.
The week after that, Humphrey had his most impactful game of the season. In the Ravens’ Week 16 showdown against the San Francisco 49ers, he stood out against the run and against the pass, in settled situations and in more chaotic ones. His presnap communication on a fourth-and-1 play helped produce a first-quarter sack that was nullified by a penalty in the secondary. He came up with an interception off a Stephens deflection. He helped create another pick with his sticky coverage on tight end George Kittle.
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His one-on-one work against star 49ers wide receivers Brandon Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel wasn’t perfect, but it was more than enough in a 33-19 win.
One week later, early in a blowout of the Miami Dolphins, Humphrey got hurt again. Another calf injury sidelined him until the AFC championship game against the Chiefs, where he appeared in just one drive. He missed an open-field tackle on wide receiver Rashee Rice, returned to the bench and watched from the sideline as Kansas City scored its second touchdown in a 17-10 upset win.
Humphrey did not speak to reporters after the game and hasn’t since. But, on his podcast recapping the season-ending loss, he called 2023 a “weird” and painful year.
“It was just pain going into every game, and it was like, ‘This was hurt, this was hurt. Then you’re sick. Then this is hurt, and then you’re sick again. And then this new injury is just, like, freak.’ So it was a long season, literally, due to our season being the longest it’s ever been. ... But it was literally a long season as well because you can’t make the club in the tub, and when you’re in the tub, you’re the first one in the building getting treatment, daggum. ...
“So it was a great season, obviously, a great season. But for me, like, literally, physically, it was just going into every game, like, feeling kind of like crap.”
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3. Humphrey can play wherever he’s needed

With Humphrey missing most of the Ravens’ open offseason practices, limited by what coach John Harbaugh said were “nagging things,” it was difficult to project how his role might change, if at all, in the 2024 defense.
But if All-Pro safety Kyle Hamilton is the Ravens’ “ultimate chess piece,” as Orr has called him, Humphrey is not far behind. He lined up as an outside cornerback on both sides of the field last season, and after Hamilton was knocked out of the game against San Francisco, Humphrey slid comfortably into his role in the slot.
That might be Humphrey’s optimal position. From 2021 to 2023, he had a slightly-above-average coverage success rate of 53.7% and allowed 1.2 yards per coverage snap when lined up as an outside cornerback, according to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats. But, as a slot corner, Humphrey’s coverage success rate was 63.4%, one of the league’s best marks in that span, and he allowed just 0.9 yards per coverage snap.
With Stephens establishing himself as an outside corner, Wiggins better suited to play out wide and little proven safety depth beyond Marcus Williams and Hamilton, Humphrey’s versatility could help the Ravens’ secondary unlock its best lineups.
“Marlon’s going to be able to slide in there and play inside,” Harbaugh said after the Ravens drafted Wiggins in April. “Brandon can slide in and play inside. You have Kyle coming down. … We’re just going to have a lot of options.”
When mandatory minicamp wrapped up in June, Harbaugh said he expected Humphrey to be ready for training camp. On his podcast a week later, as he shrugged off a Bleacher Report story that called him “overrated,” Humphrey was already looking ahead.
“Just get daggum healthy,” he said. “Lock some people up.”
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