Clemson cornerback Nate Wiggins is a consensus first-round pick for the 2024 NFL Draft. Sources from multiple team called Wiggins is the 2024 NFL Draft’s best pure cover cornerback. They said Wiggins is a lightning-fast and fluid athlete to run the route and prevent separation. At the 2024 NFL Scouting Combine, they shared they heard Wiggins is going to put up an extremely fast 40-yard dash time, with some saying they understood Wiggins could run in the 4.3-second range. While Wiggins is expected to work out well, his team interviews are crucially important for him because team sources said he has some minor character concerns.
Sources noted the character concerns are definitely minor and not something that they envision causing teams to remove Wiggins from their boards. It could impact, however, the order in which the corners are selected in the 2024 NFL Draft. Alabama’s Terrion Arnold could be the first cornerback taken in the 2024 NFL Draft even though teams see Wiggins as having more natural cover skills. Two knocks on Wiggins are a lack of physicality and concern about his tackling. Arnold is not as twitchy or fast as Wiggins, but the former is viewed as the cleanest and safest prospect to turn into a good pro starter.
In my latest 2024 NFL Mock Draft, I have Wiggins going in the top 20 to a team that sources say is interested in selecting a cornerback in the first round. If Wiggins can interview well with teams over the next weeks, that should solidify him ending up as a top-20 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.
