Best Slot Cornerbacks 2020
For Alexander, his 10-week stretch in 2018 made him one of the best slot cornerbacks in the NFL, but for whatever reason, that didn’t carry over to 2019. His 85.7 passer rating ranked 19th among qualifying cornerbacks in the slot and a pair of injuries raised questions about his durability, which let the Vikings feel comfortable about letting. Jul 10, 2020 Nickell Robey-Coleman No. 6 in ranking of NFL's 11 best slot. Doug Farrar and Touchdown Wire recently ranked the top-11 slot cornerbacks in the NFL. While Prince Tega Wanogho, a 2020 sixth.
Let’s say you’re an NFL team, and you need a bunch of really good cornerbacks. Step one, of course, is determining which characteristics define your version of that ideal. Last season, the Chargers led the NFL by playing 75% zone coverage, so their definitions are going to be different than the ones the Patriots come up with — because the Patriots played man coverage on 54% of their snaps. Only the Lions played more man coverage, and the extent to which the Lions failed to do so at a competent level implies that perhaps they weren’t exact enough with their definitions.
Add in the fact that teams are playing more dime than base defense these days (20.9% dime to 18% base), and it’s an NFL that demands more cornerbacks, and more of those cornerbacks, than ever before. It used to be enough to press up against your receiver and work him to the boundary; now, you may have to move from zone to man to combo with different numbers of defensive backs around you. And you’re doing that against offenses that present more receivers in more complex formations and route concepts than ever before.
Best Slot Cornerbacks 2020 Nfl
Best Slot Cornerbacks 2020 Draft
My latest 2020 NFL mock draft has five cornerbacks selected in Round 1 and there are 10 to 12 that could be off the board by the end of Round 2. Going back to 2014, Ohio State has had five first.
The outside cornerback position has never been more valuable than it is now as a result, and here are the 11 best at the position as we head into the 2020 season.
Other Top 11 Lists: Slot defenders Safeties
Honorable Mentions
Assembling a list of the NFL’s 11 best outside cornerbacks in 2020 is a brutal exercise, because there are so many good cornerbacks in the NFL out of necessity. There were instances in which the players fell just short of the 50-target limit — our apologies to Jason McCourty of the Patriots and Jimmy Smith of the Ravens, who each had 49 targets (including the postseason) and would have challenged for the top 11 with an extra rep or two. Sidney Jones of the Eagles and Jamel Dean of the Buccaneers are two younger players who also didn’t make the target limit, but are excellent talents on the rise. In other instances, overall coverage numbers represented a primary focus on the slot, and while guys like Brian Poole of the Jets, Marlon Humphrey of the Ravens, K’Waun Williams of the 49ers, and D.J. Hayden of the Jaguars also played well outside to a point, it wasn’t their primary focus. So, you’ll find all of those guys on our list of the NFL’s top 11 slot defenders.
There were other cases in which cornerbacks had high interception totals and good overall charting stats, but their touchdowns allowed (stats backed up by tape study) got in the way. So it was for Pittsburgh’s Joe Haden, who allowed 49 catches on 79 targets for 468 yards, 139 yards after the catch, had five interceptions, and allowed an opponent passer rating of 70.0… but also allowed six touchdowns. Marcus Peters of the Ravens barely made this list because of a similar touchdown problem, but the negative plays he did create for opposing offenses were frequent and important enough to be considered.
Bashaud Breeland Steven Nelson Troy Hill Marcus Peters Ross Cockrell Denzel Ward Quinton Dunbar J.C. Jackson Richard Sherman Tre’Davious White Stephon Gilmore
Recently, Mark Schofield and I compiled 14 different lists of the 11 best players at every position. From those names, we then compiled this list of the top 101 players in the NFL today. In this top 101, we forced ourselves to stick to players we had named in the positional lists, to avoid overdoing “skill position players” at the expense of slot cornerbacks, guards and interior defensive linemen. By drawing from a full list of positions as opposed to loading this with the most popular or highest-paid players, hopefully it gives a better and wider sense of the talent around the league than some other lists might.
The top 11 lists: Slot defenders Outside cornerbacks Safeties Linebackers Edge defenders Interior defensive linemen Offensive tackles Offensive guards Centers Outside Receivers Slot receivers Tight ends Running backs Quarterbacks
That said, this policy made for some weird decisions. Because when you limit yourself to the top 11 players at any position, you’re invariably going to leave some players out who deserve to be in. What if there are three or four really great slot cornerbacks, and 14 to 15 really great quarterbacks? You still have to leave Ryan Tannehill and Matthew Stafford off the list, which seems odd. Or, if Stefon Diggs doesn’t make your top 11 in a league where the group of outside receivers is absolutely stacked, you have to omit him, too. Not ideal.
Why 11 instead of 10? As the noted musical philosopher Nigel Tufnel once noted, it’s one louder.
But as they say, perfect is the enemy of good, and we wanted to stick with this particular paradigm. So, there are quite a few honorable mentions who didn’t make it, but certainly would have if the list were 10 to 20 players longer (and louder).
Chris Carson, Mark Ingram, Joe Mixon, Austin Hooper, Tyler Higbee, Dallas Goedert, Hunter Henry, Darren Waller, Jared Cook, Kenny Golladay, Joel Bitonio, Graham Glasgow, Richie Incognito, Brandon Scherff, Ryan Kelly, Jason Kelce, Alex Mack, Nickell Robey-Coleman, Jaylon Smith, Deion Jones, Cory Littleton, La’el Collins, Laremy Tunsil, and Taylor Lewan are among the players who just missed the cut. This should in no way be seen as us maligning their value as players… it’s just that there are only so many slots for any of these guys.
So, here are the ones who did make the cut. Here is Touchdown Wire’s list of the top 101 players heading into the 2020 NFL season.
The Top 101: 101-91 90-81 80-71 70-61 60-51 50-41 40-31 30-21 20-11 10-1