2026 Defensive Back Prospects

Caleb Downs, S, Ohio State

Downs is the first prospect I’m breaking down this year, and he is also the easiest. He is, simply put, everything you could want from a safety, the sort of player who can fit into any scheme and do anything a defense could ask him to do. He has the range to play as a deep safety, the quickness to match up in man coverage in the slot, and the physicality to make plays in the box. He can cover, he can blitz, and he basically never misses a tackle. He’s a day one starter with the potential to be the best in the league at his position.

Downs isn’t the most explosive athlete, but he has plenty of speed when he needs it, and he combines this with rare fluidity. He is always under control and always in balance, able to react to what he sees in front of him at all times. And as good as he is as an athlete, what really sets him apart is his intelligence. He is always moving in the correct direction, typically a step or two ahead of anyone else, whether it’s anticipating a receiver’s break to jump a route or charging downhill to plug a gap in the running game. At times it seems like he knows what the offense is doing better than the offensive players themselves.

If there is a nit to pick with Downs, it’s his size. He measured at less than 6 feet tall and only 203 pounds, and this lack of size can sometimes cause issues on the field. He’s a sure tackler, but he always goes for the legs, meaning ball carriers can often fall forward for an extra yard or two. And while his intelligence means he can often react to the ball before a blocker can cut him off, when he does get caught in congestion he can get pushed around. It might make me a little reluctant to have him play in the box too often, but there are enough roles to fill on any defense that this doesn’t bother me too much.

The last thing to bring up about Downs is something I’ll be talking about a lot in this draft class, and that’s positional value. Typically safety isn’t considered that high-value a position. There are too many plays where the ball doesn’t come anywhere near a safety, and too many ways for an offense to play around them. With most safeties I would be reluctant to ever spend a top 10 pick on the position. But Downs isn’t most safeties. He’s a rare talent, and I might even be able to talk myself into selecting him in the top 5.

 

Jermod McCoy, CB, Tennessee

McCoy is a more complicated evaluation, though not because of anything he does on the field. His tape is comfortably the best of any cornerback in the class, and based on that alone I’d be willing to take him in the top 5. He is an elite coverage corner with special stop-start ability and explosive speed that allows him to take chances and then instantly erase almost any mistake he makes.

McCoy played primarily man coverage in college, typically on an island walked up in the receiver’s face with no help over the top. He has the strength to disrupt receivers with a jam and the quickness to turn and run with them if this isn’t enough. He uses the sideline to his advantage to eliminate throwing windows, and his ability to change direction on a dime makes him next to impossible to beat on comeback routes. He’s another player with extraordinary balance, and this allows him to keep up with just about anything a receiver throws at him. And when the ball does come his way, he has very good ball skills, able to go up to get an interception or play around a receiver to swat it away without getting a penalty.

There are things for him to clean up in his game. He can be a little too physical at times, which even if he doesn’t directly commit a penalty can make him vulnerable to some bad officiating luck. He doesn’t have a lot of experience in zone coverage, and at times it shows, as he can get caught on one receiver too long and let someone run into the space he’s supposed to be covering. And he needs to get better about recognizing when he can and cannot get away with gambling. In college he could erase his mistakes against all but a handful of receivers. But elite receivers were able to take advantage of him at times, and that level of competition will be more common in the NFL.

These are all things that are fairly common with young cornerbacks, and I expect he’ll clean them up with time and experience. And if he does so, he has the potential to be an All Pro. The issue that makes him a challenging evaluation is health. He tore his ACL last January and missed his entire final year in college. He skipped athletic testing at the Combine 13 months removed from an injury that normally takes 9 months, but then he ran a 4.38 forty at his Pro Day, which should put a lot of minds at ease. NFL teams have access to full medical testing of these players, and I’m just some dude in New Jersey sitting at a computer, so this is a place where I’m not really qualified to weigh in. But it’s a reason for concern, the only one I can find for an otherwise stellar prospect.

 

Mansoor Delane, CB, LSU

Delane is another cornerback with an elite combination of quickness and top-end speed that makes him a challenge to beat both over the top and underneath. He ran a 4.38 forty at his Pro Day, and that speed shows up on the field, as he regularly erases anyone who tries to run past him deep. He can be a little passive at times allowing space underneath, but when he tries to clamp down he has the ability to make hard breaks downhill without sacrificing the flexibility to flip his hips and open things up over the top.

Delane has experience in both man and zone coverage, and he’s capable in both, though he still has some occasional lapses in the latter to iron out. He’s less versatile when asked to play with physicality. He doesn’t get much disruption when he tries to jam opposing receivers, and he often settles for just grabbing hold. His issues with physicality occasionally show up at the catch point, where he has the balance and skill to make plays on the ball but can still sometimes be bullied away from the catch point.

I think Delane is a bit farther from a complete player than McCoy, but he has most of the tools needed to be a top-tier cornerback in the right scheme. He has all the speed and quickness in the world, and he just needs to get better at harnessing the latter and playing under control to keep sharp-breaking routes from opening separation. He’s good enough right now to be worthy of a selection in the top half of the first round, and he has enough upside that I’d be willing to gamble in the top 10. 

 

Dillon Thieneman, S, Oregon

Thieneman is explosive. It shows up on tape, where he covers ground in a hurry flying back and forth across the field. It shows up in testing, where he ran a 4.35 forty and had a 41 inch vertical leap, insane numbers for any player at any position but particularly for a safety. He is one of the best athletes in the class, and he is well-rounded enough as a player that I wouldn’t categorize him as a pure project.

Thieneman isn’t on Downs’s level mentally, but he’s pretty advanced for a college player. You can generally count on him making the right decision and being in the right position, especially when he has the chance to sit back and read the field from the back end of the defense. He’s at his best in a deep zone, where he can anticipate routes and use his speed to close off a massive chunk of the field. When matched up in man coverage his speed allows him to turn and run with receivers on vertical routes, but he struggles some with change of direction, so I would be reluctant to ask him to do too much covering players in the slot. He’s good at filling lanes downhill in the running game but can get a bit caught up in traffic if asked to scrape laterally through the box.

There is one major problem with Thieneman’s game, and it’s a big enough problem that I would be reluctant to take him until the tail end of the first round. Simply put, he’s a terrible tackler. And it isn’t just one thing that holds him back here. The lack of lateral quickness I mentioned above means he can be broken down in open space. His small stature means he can get blasted backwards on contact. And he consistently takes awful angles, letting ball carriers beat him to the edge and on at least one occasion I saw race past him for a touchdown.

There are some things Thieneman can do to get better here, and he showed enough progress between his last two years of college that I think there’s a chance he can figure it out, in which case his tools could make him one of the best safeties in the league if placed in the correct scheme. But if he can’t figure it out, he’s borderline unplayable. Safety is the number one position where you need to be able to count on someone making a tackle, a position where one tackle can be a difference between an eight yard gain and a seventy yard touchdown.

 

Colton Hood, CB, Tennessee

Hood is a very good athlete who knows how to make use of his 4.44 speed on the field. He can turn and run with any receiver, and he has no trouble sticking in man coverage on crossing routes across the field. He isn’t quite as fluid an athlete as the top cornerbacks in this class, and it can sometimes take him an extra step to change direction, but his closing speed is often enough to erase the small windows this opens up.

There are the makings of a very good cornerback here, but he has a lot to clean up on the next level. He played very little zone coverage at Tennessee and appeared lost when he was asked to do so, either late to rotate in coverage or often just drifting in the middle of two receivers covering neither of them. He has the physicality to be very good in press coverage, but he doesn’t utilize these skills in the right way. Sometimes he gets too physical and draws a penalty, others he doesn’t use his physicality at all and lets the receiver get down the field too freely.

Hood is a work in progress, and I think even if he develops he will ultimately top out as a pretty good, not great cornerback. He is an explosive athlete but has just average size and average quickness, and his technique is far enough from a finished product that I’d be reluctant to take a chance on his development until the end of the first round.

Emmanuel McNeil-Warren

McNeil-Warren is more of the project of this safety class. He is a long, lanky athlete (he weighs about the same as Downs and Thieneman despite being 3 inches taller than them) who flies all over the field, arriving with violence and making splash plays at every level. He is a strong tackler who can stop ball carriers dead in their tracks or cut their legs out from under them, and his best plays are up there with the best plays of the two safeties I have ranked above him.

In the mental part of the game he’s a bit farther from being ready to be on an NFL field. He generally makes the right reads in coverage, but in the running game he too often winds up out of position. He has a tendency to bite hard on fakes, and at times this can pull him too far out of position to be able to make a play on where the ball actually goes.

McNeil-Warren is a good athlete, but not a great one. His 4.52 time in the forty is perfectly fine for a safety, and he plays faster than that on the field, but he definitely isn’t elite in that aspect like Thieneman. He struggles some in man coverage too, which limits him schematically. With time I think he will probably develop into an above average starter, and I might be willing to justify grabbing him at the end of the first round, but would be more comfortable waiting until the second.

 

Avieon Terrell, CB, Clemson

Terrell isn’t the most physically impressive cornerback you’ll see. He’s only 5-10 and 186 pounds, and he doesn’t explode on the field, but he makes up for it with impressive quickness and intelligence. He changes direction with ease, and he has a tendency to anticipate the route the opposing receiver is running, breaking before he does to beat him to the spot where the ball is supposed to be. At that point he can have some issues, often being boxed out or outmuscled by bigger and stronger receivers, but just as often the quarterback refuses to throw the ball to a receiver who appears blanketed.

Terrell’s strengths profile as someone who would be great as a slot cornerback, but I have some concerns there too. Playing in the slot places a heavier burden on a cornerback in run support, a part of the game where Terrell is very boom or bust. His effort is inconsistent—alternating aggressive attacks with plays where he looks almost afraid of contact—and his lack of play-strength is an issue here as well, as he can be bowled over by ball carriers as if he isn’t there. He makes up for this somewhat with a knack for being able to knock the ball free, forcing five fumbles in his last year in college. Though at times this seems to make him even worse as a tackler, as he’ll jump out of the path of a ball carrier to try to get a better angle to punch the ball free.

There is a way to make it work as a player with these limitations, and Terrell seems pretty far along towards figuring it out. Finding the right fit for him will be tricky, but once that happens I think he’ll settle in as a solid, if unspectacular starter for a while. I don’t think there’s a lot of downside here, but not a lot of upside either. He’s the sort of player I’d be happy to get in the second round, but a little disappointed if he was the best I could find with my first pick.

 

Brandon Cisse, CB, South Carolina

Cisse is the project of this year’s cornerback class. He has decent size to go along with tremendous explosiveness, a 41 inch vertical leap combined with a 4.40 forty that both show up on the field. He flies all over the place and makes some really good plays on the ball in the air, and at times shows flashes of physicality that could turn him into a lockdown cornerback someday.

Unfortunately, that day is a long way away. His technique in coverage is somewhat baffling, which I think is mostly due to some strange coaching, but also means he will need to make a major adjustment to play in the NFL. He tends to just sit back and watch as guys make breaks away from his leverage, then hoping he has the speed to erase the easy separation he’s given them. He rarely engages with physicality, and he often doesn’t even try to match or anticipate a receiver’s breaks.

If he can figure this out, the sky is the limit for him. But the infrequent occasions he tried this in college were enough to raise concerns. He seems somewhat linear as an athlete, struggling to change direction when he needs to. There were times where he made sharp breaks in a way suggested this might be an issue of technique more than physical tools. But at this point it’s mostly an unknown whether or not he can ever figure this out. And if he doesn’t, he’s the sort of player who could struggle to make it onto the field.