2021 Cornerback Prospects

We’re on to the second of my eight (or potentially nine?) part positional breakdown posts. Earlier this week I looked at some of the dynamic wide receivers that are going to be entering the league this year, and now I will be looking at the cornerbacks who are going to have the misfortune of having to cover them for the rest of their careers.

Last season was a rough year for rookie cornerbacks, always the toughest position to translate to the NFL. Professional coverage schemes are a different world from the college level, and trying to predict who will be successful at this position is probably the hardest thing I do each year. So if you want to take these rankings with a grain of salt, go ahead. I feel pretty confident that of the seven cornerbacks I looked at there is a top tier of three, then a second tier of one, then a lower tier of three. Within these tiers, I could be argued into putting them in just about any order.

Caleb Farley, CB, Virginia Tech

This entire position group is difficult to scout, and Farley throws an extra complication on top of it. He looks great when he’s on the field, but that last part is a pretty big stumbling block. He missed his first season at Virginia Tech due to a knee injury, and he wasn’t able to participate at his Pro Day due to a back surgery. These medical red flags may be enough to drop him to the end of the first round, which is a shame, because on pure ability he is comfortably the best cornerback in the draft and worth a top ten pick.

Farley is a special athlete with an almost limitless ceiling. He played quarterback in high school then entered college as a wide receiver, before switching to cornerback following his knee injury. He’s only played two years at the position, and already he is one of the best coverage men in this year’s draft. He is impossible to beat deep, and he is almost always balanced underneath, able to flip his hips around in an instant and drive on the ball with lightning closing speed. His ball skills are excellent as well, as one would expect from someone who was briefly a wide receiver.

His lack of experience shows up every now and then as he plays the position. He will occasionally bite on double moves, and when he does lose track of what is happening around him, his first instinct is to grab the opposing wide receiver. He likely won’t be ready to start right away, and it might take a year or two for him to get comfortable in the NFL. That’s the biggest concern about these injuries, that they could keep him from the proper development track. But if he can stay healthy, and if he can develop the skills to match his athletic ability, he has all the tools to be a true shutdown cornerback.

Patrick Surtain Jr, CB, Alabama

Surtain is a good athlete himself, even if he isn’t as naturally smooth as Farley. He is always balanced as he’s dropping back, and he transitions smoothly through his turn into a run so he is almost never beaten by a straight go route. He’s a little more vulnerable underneath, where he allows receivers too easy access across his face on slant routes. He makes up for it some with impressive closing speed and long arms that can reach around the receiver to swat the ball away, but it is still possible to complete plays in front of him.

I think Surtain is a fairly safe thing as a cornerback prospect, but I think there are enough holes in his game to prevent him from ever being truly elite. His athleticism is merely good compared to some of the other elite players in this category, as evidenced by his solid but unspectacular 4.46 forty time. He has a long frame that can close down windows over the top, but the true freaks of the NFL may be able to run by him. He also sometimes struggles to pick up the ball on these vertical routes and can be left looking foolish while a receiver goes up over top of him to make an uncontested grab.

The one thing I’m curious about with Surtain is physicality. He played a lot of tight man coverage at Alabama, but he never really engaged the receivers at the line. This isn’t a purely schematic thing, as other Alabama cornerbacks regularly try to stuff opposing receivers off the snap. Surtain seems to have the physical tools to be a dangerous press cornerback, but he never took advantage of them in college. If he can add this to his game, he has the potential to grow into more than he is now, but until I see it I’m hard pressed to project that in his career path.

Jaycee Horn, CB, South Carolina

Horn is a bit challenging to place among the other top cornerbacks because he is very different stylistically from the rest. He is a special athlete as well but in a much more linear way. Where the others are smooth and flexible and master the art of coverage by changing direction in an instant, Horn’s game is all about single-direction explosiveness. At his Pro Day he put up freakish numbers in the vertical leap and broad jump but elected not to run any of the agility drills, likely because those wouldn’t have helped his cause.

This isn’t to say that Horn is out there stumbling all over himself when he tries to change direction. It’s more that he does everything in his power not to have to change direction. He holds off from committing in any single direction until he absolutely has to, and trusts that he has the burst to make up for whatever small advantage this gives the opposing receiver. Once he starts backpedaling he has trouble reacting sharply downhill, but his speed and explosiveness means that he can hold off on moving backwards until he absolutely has to without fear of being beaten deep. He can make some impressive plays coming downhill on routes where the opposing receiver thinks he’s sold a move down the field, and if he stays in balance Horn’s closing speed is truly special.

Physicality is an essential part of Horn’s game, with all the pros and cons this entails. He can stack receivers up off the line of scrimmage and stop them from even getting out on their route. He uses the sideline to great advantage, squeezing the receiver to the boundary to eliminate a throwing window. If he can make this style work in the NFL, he can shut receivers down in a way none of these other cornerbacks can.

But it’s always a bumpy transition for physical cornerbacks from college to pros, and I think this will likely be even more the case for Horn. He will draw a lot of defensive holding penalties, and he’s going to have to back off some from the contact he made in college that was often more than five yards down the field. He played almost exclusively on the boundary side of the field in college, and he’ll have to adjust to having more space around him in the NFL. And when he’s playing aggressive press coverage, he has a tendency to get locked up on his man, missing necessary coverage switches and occasionally leaving receivers running wide open down the field behind him.

In the right scheme and for the right team I can see some having Horn as the top cornerback in the draft and potentially grabbing him with a top ten selection. But he is less versatile than the other top cornerbacks available, and if he doesn’t match what a team wants to do, I could see him sliding to the second half of the first round.

Greg Newsome, CB, Northwestern

Newsome combines pieces from each of the three cornerbacks above him, both the good and the bad. He has the fluidity of Farley as well as the shaky injury history, though he is at least healthy now. He has the inconsistent ball skills of Surtain, alternating sharp drives on the ball underneath with plays where he struggles to track it over the top. He has the ability to physically dominate a receiver like Horn, and even more trouble avoiding drawing penalties for being too physical.

Newsome plays very aggressively because he can play very aggressively. His recovery ability is elite, combining remarkable change of direction ability with the speed of a 4.31 forty yard dash to make him almost impossible to beat on double moves. He’s especially effective closing on routes over the middle of the field, where his positioning allows him to react downhill and play the ball at the catch point. There’s a decent chance he’s asked to play differently in the pros, but he has the athletic ability and the skill to be versatile in any number of schemes. He never really played in the slot in college, but I expect he could even transition to a full time slot defender as well.

Newsome is just a little less explosive in general than the other cornerbacks, and in a strong cornerback class I can see that being enough to push him outside the top twenty. As good as he is breaking on inside routes, he usually allows decent space on routes towards the sideline. Scheme could change how he lines up and flip his strength, but I don’t think he has the pure downhill closing ability of players like Horn or Farley to take away everything in front of him. Combine this with his tendency to rely on grabbing hold of opposing receivers, and I think he’s a clear notch below the three I have listed above him, while still being well ahead of every other cornerback in the class.

Asante Samuel Jr, CB, Florida State

Samuel is a very smart, technically sound cornerback who is held back by being a clear step behind athletically from the top cornerbacks in this draft. He tested out about average athletically in everything at his Pro Day, while also being only 5-10 and 180 pounds (the top four cornerbacks all have two inches and at least 10 pounds on him, in addition to testing as better athletes). Many cornerbacks with his limited profile end up being moved into the slot in the NFL, and I think that will likely be the destination for Samuel as well, though he is going to have to get much better as a tackler before I’m really comfortable moving him closer to the middle of the field.

Samuel’s athletic limitations show up in how he plays on every snap. His lack of height and middle of the pack speed means that he’s vulnerable over the top, and he clearly knows this. He plays much more conservatively than the other cornerbacks in this class, often turning his hips to start his backpedal when the receiver is still five yards away. This, combined with shaky closing speed, means that he surrenders 10 yard stop routes without much contest whenever they are run towards him.

As limited as he is, Samuel will still likely become an average starting NFL cornerback, and that’s worth a second round selection. He’s a very smart player, reacting to opposing route combinations so fast it almost seems like he was in the offensive huddle. He will snag a couple interceptions every year by anticipating a throw before it leaves the opposing quarterback’s hand, and if he keeps developing this anticipation he can close down some of the opportunities he currently allows on the field.

Tyson Campbell, CB, Georgia

The story of Campbell is one of the whole being far less than the sum of the pieces. If you step back and look at him from a distance, he seems like he should be an elite cornerback. He has good size, and he tested very well at his Pro Day, but this athleticism doesn’t always show up on the field. He can be outrun over the top, and while he can make sharp change of direction plays, there always seems to be a lot of wasted movement that prevents him from getting exactly where he needs to go.

It’s a similar case at the catch point. Campbell can be in excellent position, and he does a good job getting his head around to find the football, but he never seems to make the play he needs to make to knock it out of a receiver’s hands. He surrenders a lot of catches where it looks like he has the receiver covered, and this is absolutely something NFL quarterbacks will pick up on and attack.

I’m not sure what sort of cornerback Campbell will become in the NFL. He could be a genuine liability for a defense, his inconsistency in coverage partnering with his inability to win at the catch point to make him a regular target for opposing quarterbacks. Or he could iron out these issues and become an elite man-to-man coverage specialist. He certainly has the tools of a first round pick, but I’d probably prefer waiting for the second round to grab someone with this much potential downside.

Eric Stokes, CB, Georgia

Stokes made headlines by running a 4.25 forty yard dash at his Pro Day, and may have pushed himself into the first round conversation as well. Not that this was a particularly surprising outcome. Speed is his number one asset on the field, as he’s basically impossible to beat with a vertical route. He turns smoothly, and he’s able to stay in phase with any receiver who is put out against him.

There are a few other things to like with Stokes’s game as well. He isn’t going to stuff a receiver at the line, but he’s able to disrupt the timing of their route some with physicality. He plays tough when he’s in position at the catch point and does a good job locating the ball when it’s in the air. His speed makes him a dangerous blitzer, and he’s overall solid tackling opposing ball carriers.

His biggest issue is that he’s a bit stiff changing directions, especially once he’s opened his hips to run deep. In-breaking routes can leave him in the dust, as he doesn’t have the single-step burst to break downhill and close to the football. This isn’t something that can be erased, but it can be accounted for if he learns to trust his speed better. If he can learn to be more patient, he can wait longer than almost any other cornerback before turning to run with a vertical route, trusting his speed to erase any gaps that open up. This won’t solve all his issues, but it will limit their impact and let him develop into an above average cornerback.