Report: Ravens hosted South Carolina WR Xavier Legette for a pre-draft visit

The Ravens are among over a dozen teams interested in the fringe first rounder and potential second-round steal.

The incoming wide receiver class in the 2024 NFL Draft is being billed as one of the deepest in recent history where teams will be able to find prospects at the position of all sizes who can come in and contribute immediately in most modern passing attacks. In the Baltimore Ravens annual pre-draft press conference, general manager Eric DeCosta echoed similar sentiments to the consensus, calling this year’s crop “really deep.”

With the draft just a few days away, a wideout to keep an eye on who they might target in the early rounds is University of South Carolina standout Xavier Legette. According to a report from the Draft Network’s Justin Melo, the Ravens are among more than a dozen teams who hosted him for a top 30 pre-draft visit.

Legette has drawn a lot of comparisons to D.K. Metcalf of the Seattle Seahawks and AJ Brown of the Philadelphia Eagles based on his 6-foot-1 and 221-pound frame and rugged playing style. He fits the exact kind of role the Ravens are looking to add and currently don’t have at the position with how he can dominate on the boundary, be a dangerous red zone threat and contribute as an aggressive run blocker downfield.

The former Gamecock was primarily used as a return specialist for the first four seasons of his college career despite being built like an absolute tank but in 2023, he finally got an expanded role on offense and made the most of it.

In his breakout senior season, Legette dominated in the SEC, putting up monster numbers against NFL-bound cornerbacks. He set career highs across the board with 71 catches for 1,255 and seven touchdowns with an average of 17.7 yards per catch in 12 games. He was an excellent deep-ball and contested-catch specialist whose years of returning kicks helped him develop explosive run-after-the-catch ability.

Legette parlayed his dominant season into an invite to the 2024 Reese’s Senior Bowl where he performed well during the week of practice making great adjustments to pass, showing good spatial awareness on the sideline and even showing he can run an expanded route tree. He continued to impress during the pre-draft process a month later at the 2024 NFL Scouting Combine when he ran a 4.39 in the 40-yard dash and jumped 40 inches in the vertical and 10-foot-6 in the broad.

DeCosta has put a much higher premium on targeting the wide receiver position early in the draft compared to his longtime friend and mentor Ozzie Newsome since taking over the Ravens’ front office. He has used a first-round pick on one in three of the last five years and if they don’t feel like risking him getting taken before they’re on the clock in the second, they could very well take him at No. 30 overall. There’s a chance he might still fall in their laps on Day 2 in the bottom of the second round at No. 62 overall but the better option might be to trade back into the early second if they don’t believe his value merits using a Day 1.