The Baltimore Ravens scored a hit with Marlon Humphrey in the first round of the 2017 NFL Draft. When healthy, he is a consistent Pro Bowl cornerback and has been for most of his career. While he doesn’t put up huge interception numbers, he is a tough cover and an all-around football player.
And he could find himself looking for a new job in 2025 if he doesn’t turn things back around. That’s what The Athletic’s Jeff Zrebiec suggests, given his recent injury history and his ballooning cap hit. Humphrey has missed five or more games twice in the past three seasons, limited to just 10 in 2023. Zrebiec writes:
Humphrey still has three years remaining on the extension he signed with the Ravens during the 2020 season. However, this fall could significantly impact his future in Baltimore. The 27-year-old is a three-time Pro Bowl selection, but he’s struggled to stay healthy in two of the past three years, and he’s not consistently making the impactful plays he did earlier in his career. With his cap number rising north of $25 million next season, Humphrey probably needs a strong bounce-back season to remain with the Ravens in 2025 and beyond.
Humphrey only posted seven passes defensed in 2022 despite making the Pro Bowl that year without missing a game. He also tied his career high with three interceptions, granted, with 71 tackles and three sacks. But he is not making as many plays on the ball as he had in the earlier portions of his career.
That’s not entirely consistent, though. Humphrey did record a 20-percent forced incompletion rate last season, according to Pro Football Focus, albeit on a smaller sample size due to the games missed from injury. In 2022, however, he posted just and five percent forced incompletion rate, and 12 percent the year before. In each of his first two seasons, he posted marks comfortably north of 20 percent.
The Ravens signed Marlon Humphrey to a five-year extension worth close to $100 million in 2020. He still has four years remaining on that extension, including the 2024 season. They will owe him $21 million in cash if he is on the team in 2025. The numbers are slightly lower but in the same zip code in the final two years of his current contract.
In other words, Baltimore needs Humphrey to prove that he is still an elite player. Even he knows that he fell short of that last year, saying recently that he needs to “get daggum healthy and lock some people up”. He has watched this Ravens team allow major contributors walk in free agency, so he knows they can move on from anybody.
After all, the Ravens used their first-round pick this year on Nate Wiggins, and added another cornerback in T.J. Tampa. They are also among the teams most willing to make bold moves via trade or free agency, so they will not bind themselves to Humphrey. Alternatively, Humphrey could do what Ronnie Stanley did and take a sizeable pay cut to remain with the team.
