2025 Defensive Back Prospects

Travis Hunter, CB, Colorado

As with my wide receiver breakdown earlier this week, here I am evaluating Hunter only based on his performance on one side of the ball. Fortunately, this is easier when looking at him as a cornerback. Even if he never plays another snap on offense, his abilities at cornerback make him the best in the class, a clear top five selection with the upside to be the best in the league.

Hunter’s movement skills are evident on both sides of the ball, but cornerback is where he really shows what that can do. He is in supreme control of every movement he makes, able to stop and start without any wasted motion to mirror every break of the receiver in front of him. He sits in the receiver’s hip pocket for every step of his route, never off balance and never in position to be exploited by a sharp cut.

And even when the opposing receiver is able to create some separation, Hunter’s burst is enough to erase it in less than a second. He’s incredibly smooth in everything he does, whether it’s flipping his hips to run vertically or breaking on a quick route underneath or tracking a drag through traffic across the middle. And on the rare occasion when the ball is thrown his way, his skills at the catch point are rare for a cornerback. Not just leaping to make interceptions on jump balls, but understanding how to play around the receiver rather than through him to swat the ball down with his long arms.

Hunter isn’t a perfect cornerback prospect, but he’s one of the best I’ve ever scouted. The biggest concerns I have are physicality. He can occasionally disrupt a route with a jam, but that wasn’t something he was asked to do often in college, and it could limit him a little in the NFL. And as a run defender he is a genuine liability. Every now and then he makes a play that shows he is very capable of making good tackles, so I think this was an effort issue more than anything else, a choice he made to conserve energy so he could play his insane snap count. If he continues to play both ways, it might keep him from reaching his true potential as a cornerback. But even if that happens, I still think he settles in as a top ten player at the position in the NFL.

 

Jahdae Barron, CB, Texas

Barron bounced around between a few different positions in college, and you can see that versatility on the field. He is comfortable playing in a variety of alignments and schemes. Both zone and man, split outside and in the slot. He has good instincts in coverage and is willing to mix things up navigating in traffic in the box. He’s a willing tackler, if not always a successful one, and I think his best position is to spend most of his time playing out wide, with the option to rotate inside if the matchup dictates it.

The variety of things he was asked to do in college means there’s less tape of him locking receivers up one-on-one, and more moments where he looks a little less than comfortable doing so. He is a tremendous athlete, and he has the ability to rotate his hips and run vertically without fear of being beaten over the top, but he plays a bit more passive than I’d like, surrendering some space underneath. He has the quickness to match routes step-for-step, but sometimes leans a little too much on physicality to rescue him, in a way that will draw penalties in the NFL. When he trusts himself and attacks downhill he can close in an instant and erase any throwing windows. He just needs the comfort to do so more consistently.

There is some stuff to clean up, but Barron has all the makings of an elite cornerback. He’s a little on the small size, but he plays big at the catch point, and if properly harnessed his athletic ability can cover for any shortcomings in length. The risks would probably make me hesitant to call him a top ten prospect, but in the middle of the first round he’d be an excellent high-upside addition.

 

Will Johnson, CB, Michigan

Johnson is a bit unique as a cornerback prospect, and that limits his versatility in the NFL. His movement skills aren’t bad, but they aren’t what you’d typically expect from a first round cornerback. He doesn’t have the quick-twitch ability to stay with every break of the receiver in front of him, and he doesn’t have the pure speed to erase openings when he makes mistakes. He definitely can’t play in the slot, and his defense will have to be smart about building around his strengths and hiding his weaknesses, which drops his value outside the top twenty.

What Johnson does well though, he does very well. His downhill burst is genuinely elite, and it combines with excellent instincts to make him the ultimate big-play cornerback. Most of the time he prefers to sit about 5-10 yards off the ball, lurking and waiting to make a break on a pass in front of him. This means he surrenders some open opportunities underneath, but often quarterbacks are afraid to try it, as Johnson frequently anticipates and undercuts these passes for interceptions that often turn into touchdowns.

This can be an effective strategy, but it relies on a couple of things that give me some concerns with Johnson. First, you have to be a good enough tackler to keep these underneath completions from turning into bigger plays. Johnson is not. Second, you can’t be fooled by double-moves. Johnson is usually pretty good at reading and knowing when to make his breaks, but every so often he does get tricked, and when this happens he doesn’t have the recovery speed to avoid being burned deep. His fallback plan is to just grab the opposing receiver, and he’s pretty good at this, at least managing to prevent a big play by just surrendering a first down on a penalty.

There are enough strengths in Johnson’s game that he could be solid even if he’s forced to play as a more passive traditional cornerback in the NFL. He wasn’t asked to play press much in college but showed some ability to disrupt receivers with his jam, though he needs more practice transitioning from this into a coverage position. And he’s not a bad athlete, just not good enough to be a cornerback who erases opposing receivers. In the right scheme he can perform at a Pro Bowl level, but in most systems I think he projects as just an average starter. 

 

Nick Emmanwori, S, South Carolina

Emmanwori is a special athlete. He’s 6-3 and 220 pounds, and he runs a 4.4 forty with an insane 43 inch vertical leap. And that athleticism has moments when it really shows up on the field, when he fires down aggressively into the box to make a play against the run or smoothly pivots to run stride-for-stride with receivers down the field. He’s the best athlete on the field at pretty much all times, and that can cover for a lot of other shortcomings.

As a football player, there are enough pieces there to make me think he can develop his athletic ability into something special. He’s generally pretty good in coverage, whether he’s dropping into a deep zone or settling underneath or matched up man-to-man in the slot. He’s still a little unrefined in this area. He can get out of position biting on play-action fakes, and his athleticism is only occasionally enough to make up for it. He shows moments of good anticipation on routes to jump underneath and cut them off, but also sometimes will play too hesitant and let passes be completed in front of him. Other times he can bite on fakes and let receivers run past him over the top. I think these issues are mostly mental, and with more experience he can grow into an above-average coverage safety.

His athletic profile and splash plays cover for the fact that he’s a pretty poor player against the run. He can flow through traffic and handle the physicality of playing in the box, but he struggles at the point of the tackle. He takes bad angles, and he doesn’t bring nearly as much physicality as you’d expect from someone his size, regularly being knocked backwards when trying to meet a runner in the hole.

The physical tools are there for Emmanwori to grow into a very good player, and he does enough good things right now that I’d probably be willing to gamble on that athletic upside at the end of the first round. My biggest concern is that right now there’s nothing he is great at, just a lot of okay to pretty good things that may or may not get better with time. This makes it hard to project a clear role for him in the NFL, and hard to believe he’ll fix everything and become a real elite player.

 

Malaki Starks, S, Georgia

Starks does his job. He doesn’t get out of position, and he doesn’t get fooled by fakes. When he needs to come downhill to support the run, he typically takes good angles, and most of the time he’s able to get the ball carrier to the ground (even if he does tend to get dragged for a couple extra yards). When the ball is thrown his way, he has tremendous ball skills, able to expand his undersized frame to close down throwing windows for deflections and interceptions.

As an athlete, Starks is underwhelming. He ran a 4.5 forty, and he can play that speed on the field, which is good but not great, particularly for someone under 200 pounds. And straight-line speed is actually his best attribute. He can run with receivers in man coverage when they go vertically, but he struggles to keep up when they change direction, which is backed up by his poor testing in the agility drills. He’s a very linear athlete, and he will struggle to keep up if asked to track most NFL receiver in man coverage.

Starks doesn’t play well through congestion and will get physically manhandled if you put a blocker in his way, so I would try to keep him as far from the box as possible. I think there’s a role for him as a safety who hovers back in a deep zone and occasionally comes down to fill lanes in the running game. He’s a fairly safe pick, and I think he’ll be a starter in the NFL for years to come. But for this position and with this limited ceiling, he’s not someone I’d want to spend a pick on until day 2.