NFL Stock Exchange: An NFL Draft Podcast - 226. 2024 NFL Draft CB Rankings

Episode Date: January 19, 2024

Hosts Trevor Sikkema and Connor Rogers give you their updated Top 12 cornerbacks (broken up into outside and slot) for the 2024 NFL draft

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It's awesome. Sign up now at youtube.com slash BS, device and content restrictions apply. Local and national games on YouTube TV. NFL Sunday ticket for out-of-market games excludes digital-only games. Welcome to the NFL Stock Exchange podcast. In this episode, we are talking early cornerback rankings for the 2024 NFL draft. Because corners are very different players, there's all sorts of different roles that they can play. We're breaking this up into two different lists, slot corners and outside corners. So we're giving you guys more players this episode,

and maybe we have this entire series. We'll see. I'm Trevor Sycamore. With me, as always, is Connor Rogers. Let's ring the bell. Welcome to the opening bell of the NFL Stock Exchange Podcast. I'm Trevor Sikama. That is Connor Rogers. Joining you guys for another position ranking episode of the show. Today we are doing cornerbacks. And as everybody knows, corners, they come in all different shapes, sizes, and even roles. So, just for you guys, because we love you so much, we are going to split up our rankings. We're going to give you our top eight outside cornerbacks

for the 2024 NFL Draft as it stands right now, mid-January. But then we're also going to give you our top four slot corners because it's tough to judge the really obvious slot corners against the outside guys. It's really tough to play someone one way or the other. So we felt like it would be true to the position to split them up a little bit so we're giving you guys a little bit of a bonus 12 total from both of us connor how you feeling my friend good man you and i were talking about how much of a grind this was because of the volume of lord when you look at the other positions we've

done and these are our middle point rankings and then after the combine we finalize the rankings and we give you guys sometimes 15 to 20 at the position. And it gets really crazy. And Trevor, I know you're, you're doing a ton of players this year. I always try to do 300 on the big board.

So some of our positional previews could get up to 20 this year, but our other ones, I mean, for edge, we always had, we had 10 wide receivers, 10, some position groups,

five wide receivers. We talked about like 25. Right. This one, because you have some guys that are slots, you and I were texting, wide receivers 10 some position groups five wide receivers we talked about like 25 right this one because you have some guys that are slots you and I were texting who do we save for the safety class you have a ton of outside corners I actually misread this class a lot of people when they've asked me for the last couple months at least before December they're like what about the corner class and I'm like kind of a drop off and I think that's the wrong way to phrase it because last year we were we

were spoiled with difference makers witherspoon was a significant difference maker i thought christian gonzalez was a top 10 player and before that sauce and stingley and mcduffie who have all had just massive right in the nfl yeah and just because this class might not have a guy like those classes had there's a lot of starters or potential starters in this class at the volume of getting through this class. I'm not even done. I just did enough for this show where I did a big baseline. And I feel like,

dude, it's just, it's wild. How many will be drafted in the top 100? Yeah, there were, I did, I did 22 corners for this show and I still didn't even get to some of the guys that I've really liked off of initial watches.

I didn't get to Nehemiah Pritchett from Auburn. Yes. Kalen Carson, my dude from Wake Forest. Yep, who we've watched and ranked on big boards and stuff, but not enough for this exercise. Josh Newton, I wasn't able to get to him so it's like there i will absolutely have over 35 probably 40 total corners when it comes to like slot guys and outside guys so um but these are the players that we know are getting that type of let's say top 100 hype you know top 75 hype the guys that we know have a good chance to go in that top 75, probably the first and second round.

We're giving you guys a good look at what these guys come with, their traits, their production, all that good stuff. And so we'll break it up into those categories to make it a little bit easier for you. But we'll start with the outside corner. I think we should start with the outside corners. And this is going to be a lot of really, really fun conversations because you mentioned, okay, I actually thought of this earlier today i would have devon witherspoon over all of the guys that i have watched so far and i've watched a lot of heavy hitters i would

have i would i my grade for devon witherspoon was better than all these guys but i'd have a couple of them at the top right there with christian g Like I would have Christian Gonzalez in the mix with some of these guys. So to your point, it is a fun class. Who do you have at eight though? I'm very curious because there's some, some corners. Okay. They're great athletes. They need to work on the fundamentals.

Some of them, oh, just technically sound studs, high football IQ, maybe a little bit limited athletically. So I'm curious to go through this, see what your preference is, your preferred flavor of corner, if you will. So who you got? Who you starting out with? So this one at eight tore me apart. I'll start.

I'll name who is at nine and ten really quick. I won't get too into them, but they just missed out. Kalen King and Max Melton were my nine and ten outside corner. Okay. And talk about two totally different players, which brings me to eight, a big riser this year, somebody that he made it on my top 75 big board.

I released for NBC about two weeks ago. And cause he really caught my eye and he's, he's going to be polarizing, but it's NS rake straw junior from Missouri. Because when you look at him and let me pull up my notes on him, I always say corner's a fascinating position because it's one that, one, I do feel stronger with evaluating. Like, I look at my last five years, and I'm like,

I feel good when I evaluate corner. I can't say that about every position. Quarterback's really tough. Offensive line can be really tough. No, we've never missed on a prospect. Well, we've never missed on a prospect. Right. But I also think it's a position that

it's a 90%, 10% evaluation. What I mean by that is 90% of the time, it's not very exciting to watch. And the 10% of the time, guys are just, there's something different about them, the way play they might take away the football they might play with an edge they might rake straw jr even being at number eight is in the 10 it's just you watch him play and there's just something different with what he brings to the field he plays with an edge in everything

he's asked to do and that absolutely starts with even coming up and getting involved in the run game he doesn't care that he's a little bit more of a slender guy he i'm sure for the combine he can get to 190 because he's probably pretty close to six feet tall yeah but he's a skinnier guy out there. Doesn't walk around the field like he is. He's a three-year starter, 2020, 2022, 2023. He tore his ACL in 2021, which is, that's tough. He had a groin injury this year. I believe it was a groin injury this year.

So he's had some injury questions. But really light feet, smooth back pedal. He only gave up one touchdown this year and when you go watch it it's on a screen it's like it's like whatever it's not really yeah he just happened to basically be like okay that's my guy but there's blockers in front exactly gave up the coverage he gave up five total first downs there just wasn't big plays against this guy yeah uh very consistently and he has i rank him as an outside corner in this exercise he has legitimate inside outside versatility because of the experience as a three

year starter where he can do both for you where you get to some of the negatives how he ends up at number eight only one interception his entire college career despite being a three-year starter i told you he plays with an edge and it it's really against the run, and it's really through routes, but he's not a ball-hawking kind of corner. When he gets into recovery, or I need to make up ground mode, he just grabs. He just grabs.

And there's enough tape that I think that's what it is. Some guys, I'm like, ah, you might be able to coach that and trust the speed or maybe it gets a little more explosive. I do worry a little bit about that. I'm beat.

Now I got to grab and I'm gay. I gave up a lot of ground. They're just they're going to call it at the next level. I thought he actually got away with it a lot at the college level, and I think it's going to be a little bit of an issue,

especially on in breaking routes. I just some lose ground on in breaking routes where I was like, maybe he's not comfortable seeing those develop or anticipating those. So the injuries and that, you know, habit of getting grabby is what concerned me because I haven't met eight and I like him and he's a top 75 pick. I think there will be people in this draft Trevor that have him as maybe a top 35 ish guy. And with the ability, I get it. I just also had hit,

hit to, had to hit the concern button on a couple of key things. Well, there are some people who might have them, you know, that high up there. And look, I like Greg Stroud jr.

A lot. I think that he is a really good football player. So I have him at number six. So we can talk about him now. He's not too far on my rankings, but I got him a little bit higher. I promised people in the comments section that we would do a better job of identifying where these guys went to school and a little bit of background information on them before we get into them.

It's crazy. I never – we're just – It's because we're doing so much of this and we talk about the draft so long. It's just – it's kind of like – I will change for the better. For the – He promises he's going to change, folks. We've got to hold him to it.

So Missouri outside cornerback you mentioned. I thought he had a really great year, three-year starter. Some more advanced PFF statistics beyond just maybe the the regular coverage stats in single coverage assignments he had a 69.5 coverage grade which isn't the worst i know people hear like 69.5 which this is kind of a funny conversation given the jj watt stuff that happened with pff over the last couple of days i don't think enough people realize that when you get grades in like the 70s like that's pretty good especially like for a corner like you're you're a a 70s grade is generally like you're doing your job well and you're doing more good than right and

to play the cornerback position a lot of people like think of 70s and they go okay well players in madden that are 70s are bad and when i was in school if i got 70s that was a c so that was like also bad so i think that people have the wrong perception of what grades like that would be and so i say all that to say 69.5 of a single coverage grade when it's just you versus the dude in front of you that's pretty good from him um when you get to more i think like situational pff stats coverage grade versus a clean pocket so when there's not pressure that forces an early throw 87.4 so really good their coverage grade on time to throw above three seconds so when the quarterback has time to hold the ball a little bit longer still in the 80s 82.4 um and he had a win above the replacement average over the last two years of 0.16 so what i like a lot about rake straw is

kind of what you mentioned he's very patient love the footwork i think he's super controlled i think he could stop and start at any moment he can break on any route you mentioned that the long speed a little bit of concerns with the long speed i also wrote that down i also have those concerns with him but i think that's the reason why he's just not asked to press coverage a lot and he does a lot of his work as like an off coverage either like quarters or cover three sometimes it's just like off man coverage but a lot of times it's hey i'm gonna manipulate the space between me and you off the line of scrimmage and people can sometimes look three sometimes it's just like off man coverage but a lot of times it's hey i'm gonna manipulate the space between me and you off the line of scrimmage and people can sometimes look at that

and say okay well he's not good enough to play press man and i wouldn't go that far defense is really a cohesive unit you know if your coverage deployment of playing four guys deep you know having four deep zones or three deep zones or whatever it is playing off coverage not being on being on the line of scrimmage. If that's more advantageous to the rest of your defense, like what's going on in the front, what's going on with the safeties. Sometimes it's just how you get the most of the guys that you have. And I don't think it's a bad thing. Like a lot of people believe it is. So with rake straw, yeah, you don't want to put him in situations where he's impressed man coverage and you're asking him to flip the hips and run vertically with a guy a lot. But if you let him play off coverage, if you give him that five or six yards, he normally anticipates that pretty well.

So even though he might have some long speed concerns, you don't see it as much because he's really savvy with how he plays it off coverage. And he's just a really smart and physical corner. You mentioned what he does as a run defender. Where was it? Let me pull up the run defense grade because it was really good. It was 89.0 run defense grade this year. I mean, like this dude is a helper when it comes to bringing down the ball carrier. So that goes into the physical toughness,

the competitive toughness. And so you'd love to see that from a corner. I like him a lot, even though he's a little bit scheme limited because of what you mentioned, that long speed concern. I just think he's a damn good corner. He's just, he's got the footwork is so good.

It's so precise he can go exactly where he wants to go and even with the lack of ball production this year and some long speed concerns he is still somebody who i think could be a really nice cb2 in the nfl i mean no doubt i'm with you on that i think i want to see him stay healthy and find the ball a little more and just be careful with that contact deep into the route phase so definitely an interesting one so eight for me uh ns rake straw jr from missouri six for you yep i'll bounce seven to you then since i kicked this off well i got eight now i got eight oh you didn't even do eight correct that'd be uh that's i think that's what i meant in my brain i knew we had to go back to you i just i didn't i don't do the math

numbers are tough um are hard that's why i talk about scouting prospects instead so i since you since you did it i'll i'll name my my nine and ten really quick ten for me was Jabbar Muhammad from Washington who I liked his did he not go back oh did he go back I think it I know he was one of the literally last players in the country I believe that midnight 11 59 on Monday he visiting texas and okay all right so i i was gonna say no good player i like i like jabbar muhammad i did not like his oklahoma state tape when he was at oklahoma state better at washington still didn't love it i feel like he's he's got speaking of long speed concerns i think that he definitely has some but um so without him kaylin king would have been my cb10 okay and then chris abrams drain would have been my outside cb9 you see him as more of a slot yeah i'll talk about him during

our slot we'll get into we'll get into that a little bit later in the show so all that to say number eight for me is georgia cornerback kamari lassiter junior that's perfect is he seven for you he's seven for me there we go you love it when a plane comes you really just love to see it so kamari lassiter outside cornerback from georgia he's been a two-year starter six feet tall 180 pounds i feel he's a little bit bigger than that i feel like you're selling him short but i thought so too and with that georgia program yeah but colleges don't sell guys short you know i know that'd be stupid weird you're right they'd be dumb for them he does not

look 180 no he doesn't look 180 he doesn't play 180 and and i don't know why he's listed 180 because 180 is the eighth percentile of cornerbacks like you're you're you're if he's anything above 180 like even if he's one pound above 180 give it to him right it makes a difference so anyways lower weight profile for what we have right now very curious to see what that is when it comes to uh combine time it was actually a wide receiver prospect when he was coming into college from tuscaloosa alabama funny enough he was a multi-sport athlete played football basketball baseball and he ran track so i mean this dude was just playing every single sport under the sun we talked about this last year how pete carroll at the combine mentioned oh yeah in our scouting process we we look up when

guys have multi-sport backgrounds yep we love players that are natural athletes quarry laster natural athlete uh been starting for the last two years he started his sophomore season and he started what was this junior season this past year. Had a quote from Kirby Smart himself about Kamari Laster. He said, quote, he's been committed to excellence his entire life. Comes from a great family background, really tough, hardworking family. Kind of came up through the mud, man. He didn't get anything that was given, anything given to him. Was not a super highly recruited guy.

I mean, he was a four-star wide receiver, so I don't know about that, Kirby. He made himself into a really good player through work ethic. He is somebody who will not be outworked, will not be outcompeted. You love that about this kind of a football player. And that part of it, I definitely agree with when it comes to Kamari Laster because he is also somebody who, when he gets in those situations, he's got to make up ground, recover, play in trail, really recover on a guy who's getting vertical on him.

Sometimes he struggles to do that. His speed is much more buildup, and even the top speed's not elite, than it is like quick twitch, he's on his horse, he's immediately catching up to somebody like we're going to talk about with guys a little bit higher than him on this list. But if you are okay with that, Kamari does a lot of stuff. Well,

I mean, he is just a junior and he is such a fundamentally sound football player. His eyes are exactly where they need to be he's got a great feel for zone coverage even when guys are behind him he doesn't have eyes on him which isn't the case for all these guys that play a lot of off coverage he's comfortable when he is in press um he's very smart and sound when it comes to run defense funneling guys back towards where he has help although i do think he's a little too conservative sometimes in that regard sometimes he'll like purposefully sometimes if a ball carrier is going

to the sideline he'll like purposely just stand very close to the sideline or try to run by him at the sideline and like not even make a tackle on him so i was like okay yeah i want you to i want you to funnel in the ball carrier but i need you to make it right tempted to tackle here so there are some maniac corners against the run in this class i did not think he was one of them no but not bad not bad not a liability not bad just not like i want to be at play safety he's not going to mess up i don't know he's he's far too conservative in how he approaches it to mess up so he's not going to be somebody that's going to try to you know undercut a blocker to try to make a tackle

and then boom all of a sudden the outside angle to the sideline is wide open and it's running back you know 20 25 yards down the field he's not going to do that but you do want him to be a little bit more aggressive uh when it comes to that run defense but he just understands how you win at this position it's confidence it's anticipation it's technique outside of maybe some of his physical limitations he plays this position very very well he maximizes the talent that he has is that going to be a cb1 level player in the nfl no i i don't think it's going to be i'm very interested to see what he tests like what he shows up like weight wise and what he tests like number one thing for me but if whatever that is like i still think even if he tests the way that

i think he's going to a little bit slower not as explosive with the jumps he can still be be a CB2 just because of how reliable he is on your team. You're just probably going to want somebody more athletic for wide receiver ones as your cornerback one on your NFL team. So definitely a future with this dude. But he showed up at eight for me just because it's tough to get over the physical limitations of it, and I got to see what he tests with with a combine. Yeah, that's why he was seven for me.

I think that I liked his floor better than rake straws at eight, but I like rake straw ceiling a lot better than his. I would agree with that. Lassiter is the King of always being there, but never being able to grab the football. He, I mean, you watched his forcing completions this year.

There's not even a lot of lucky ones or situations where he needs to make up five yards and you're like, whoa, I didn't know he had that kind of burst or length. He's just right on the guy, hip to hip every time. Four of them out of the 10 I watched, he doesn't even know the ball is coming there but he's just in the way because he's right on and he's not there's no legal contact there's no pass interference he just constantly stays in the hip pocket of of his targets 30 39 completion

percentage given up all year dude i mean that's very good right he's always he is so sticky and i think it's more impressive that I agree with you, Trevor. I don't think he's like very sudden and twitchy and fast and explosive and leaping. He's just very smart. He sees routes before they develop. He gets it. He knows spacing as well as anybody probably in the class. Yep.

Because he has to. And I think that kind of is like really under the radar what Kirby was indicating at. Not that when, you know, he needs to earn everything and it's he has the scrappy reputation. You can you can you can kind of read between the lines a little bit, though, because you do see you see his success. And Kirby's basically saying he worked for it like he worked for that success. He's been in the film room. He's been he's's been getting to what the coaches have been teaching him because it's not just a similar type of scheme either zone man, press off.

Like he knows what to do in all of these situations. And that's what yields a, you know, completion percentage allowed as low as the one that he is, that he's given out. So I, even, even though again i think you're gonna want a player

who can get you more takeaways as your top corner on your nfl team he's got such a high floor i mean he's kamari laster's a cb3 at worst in the league at worst and i think that he could absolutely be a starting cb2 on the outside one last nugget on him before we move to your number seven because last year was my number seven his his passer rating when targeted in 2022 his first year as a full-time starter 94.4 this year his second year as a starter 48.7 he just got so much better with more playing time yep all right so my number seven i wonder if this is going to be your number six because i know you like this guy do you want to take a guess i know who it's going to be for you he's not six for me but he's close

so we could talk about him together is it tj tampa it is tj tampa okay is he higher for you is he five one spot higher he's five i love it i think i might be a coward i'm not gonna lie i you know when i when i looked at the rankings and you know i'm doing these guys individually and i come up with a film grade you know i break down what they do i've got the film notes and then i've got kind of a um a ranking a numerical ranking system and then i'll kind of spit out a film grade for for what i believe with this guy when it's when it comes to the traits of these shows all that kinds of stuff it spit it out and i was like all right that's good i thought i'd be a little bit higher on him given how much i liked his tape so you know you kind of go back you watch an extra game i wonder if he's going to end up a little bit higher when it's all said and done for me so

anyways well his combine is going to be stupid i mean and if it is it's gonna be but but i already but i kind of already have that built in right you have to it's like i already had for a dude who is six foot one 198 he's got a pretty high recovery speed score for me he's got a pretty high agility score for right though the arms are gonna be really long yeah i'm on like i i do think that so iowa state corner he's a senior uh they got him listed at six foot two i think he's six foot one probably yeah i think he's i think he's more like six foot one but you would believe he's six foot two because when you watch him out there on the field like you mentioned he's got pterodactyl arms he's got super long arms i don't know if

it's going to be as long as joey porter jr's wingspan was but probably not because joey porter jr's was like historically big and insane but it's going to be as long as Joey Porter Jr.'s wingspan was, but probably not because Joey Porter Jr.'s was like historically big. Insane. But it's going to be that same kind of mold. And normally when you get corners that are bigger and taller, you're sacrificing something, right? A lot of bigger, taller corners have clunkier footwork. They don't flip the hips as fluidly.

The agility, the stop and start, that's, you know, it takes them longer to do. They have more body mass to move. And so it is tougher to do that as fast as some of these smaller corners are. But for Tampa, I mean, he is a all-around athlete, used to be a wide receiver, was actually, I think he was recruited as a wide receiver. Yeah, I believe so too. He was. He played both sides of the ball in high school,

which is hilarious that his name is TJ Tampa, and he's from St. Petersburg, Florida. Anybody who's been to St. Petersburg, Florida, knows that it is right next to where Tampa, Florida is. So what I'm saying is this guy's a future. He's a basketball player too, right? Future Buccaneer, great. Yes, yes.

Very good basketball player. Comes from a basketball background. Very good basketball player too right future buccaneer great yes very good basketball player comes from a basketball background very good basketball player ends up going to uh iowa state and i think he chose iowa state over georgia when it was all said and done but this dude's got some really nice advanced pff metrics as well his win above replacement this past season actually this is from 2022 was 0.31 which is really high for a corner i mean that's one of the higher marks and that is forced incompletion percentage you want to talk about a guy who's able to get his hands on the football get passes broken up get interceptions

20.7 percent forced incompletion percentage that is in the 98th percentile of corners who are in this class and other recently drafted corners as well. So it's not just the guys in this class. It's also the corners who got drafted relatively high, who are kind of like sticking around the league. That's kind of the pool that we have it all in when we come up with these percentiles. So really good mark from him there. The strengths are pretty obvious from him, right? He's got the long arms. He's got the long legs. He can play in press, but he doesn't play as much press as you would expect. He's got the long arms. He's got the long legs. He can play in press, but he doesn't play as much press as you would expect. He's not just this exclusive press man type of corner. Like when people watch Kyrie Jackson, the corner from Oregon, he is, you know, six foot two,

205 pounds, right? It is very similar type of build to what TJ Tampa is, but Jackson is exclusively playing at the line of scrimmage. He's trying to get hands on you. He's trying to be physical with you. Tampa will be physical with you, but a lot of what Iowa State asked him to do actually comes from an off-coverage alignment. And you would think that that would get a bigger corner sort of stuck in a bad spot but that's when you see him shine that's when you see okay this bigger longer corner he can move a little bit here right he can turn and run the flips the hips are fluid he's able to put his foot in the ground and really go explode especially when it's downhill and he's got the long speed to be able to keep up with people. So outside of maybe wanting him to be more experienced in press,

and yeah, okay, the long speed's not as fast as some of the other guys at the top of this list. There's not a lot he does not do well, and I just feel as though he maximizes so much of his physical gifts in the ways that you would expect and in the ways that you don't, particularly in his footwork, how clean his footwork is, how precise it is, how controlled it is. That's what allows him to be a really high-impact corner with his size and then also being able to play off coverage.

So this is somebody that I really enjoyed. He's a top 100 lock for sure but i think that he is somebody who could certainly go a lot higher than that as well yeah i think with the testing he's he's gonna lock himself into the second round i think he'll so he's i'm pretty positive he's six one i agree with you he'll be 200 pounds maybe bigger i think he's gonna jump 40 inches in the vert and i think he's gonna hit 40 yeah i actually would be floored if he didn't and he's gonna run really well at that size so that you brought up the press it was a good sign that there was a jump from 2022

so 153 of his 384 coverage snaps in 2023 were impressed. That was a big jump. But because in 2022 is like, it wasn't much at all. You were right. So we got a little bit more. I just think the reach allows him to make some pretty rare pass breakups that guys in this class don't make where they're there. And maybe they get in the way or, but his arms just get involved in the catch point where like whoa he was a not a foot

behind the play but he wasn't on the guy to to your point about kamari where some of his past breakups are just him being there tampas are intentional like tampa's getting his hand in there to get this past breakup so i agree with you absolutely i think the only things i wrote down and some negatives is that um you want to keep seeing that pbu number go up to converted ints and it got a lot better this year 2022 when i liked him over the summer i was like man he just doesn't take away the football a lot he's just breaking up the ball and this year i thought it got better i want to see that continue to go up he lunges as a tackler rather than coming to balance and wrapping i think it's because he's bigger guy and he's like i could blow this guy up and there's some he has some big hits on tape but he has some big misses on tape uh he missed

seven tackles in 2023 and i do think he, he's a complete the assignment rather than change the game mindset right now. And that's what a lot of these guys are like, he's going to take away his guy rather than take a ton of risk. But with the kind of athlete he is and the kind of build he has, like this is, this is what the NFL looks for at corners right now. It's they,

they almost overdraft them. If you're big, long can, and you're smart and tough, you're going to go early. And TJ Tampa, because of that, is going to go early. He'll go in the second round. So definitely a guy that we've liked on this show for a bit. I feel as though he is the least talked about corner who deserves to be talked about more it's that phrase makes

sense at all it makes a ton of sense i i don't ever hear him in the conversation i hear kamari lasseter brought up a lot more than him right and that's and that's the thing like it i'm not i'm not even talking about at the top with wiggins and and dejein like I'm not I'm not talking about that it's Kamari Laster's kind of had his time in the draft space like people have talked about him Queen on Mitchell who will get to and it's rake straw I think has had his time like popping up very popular name that we'll see like on social media or draft circles whatever not enough people are talking about TJ Tampa I I think you're obviously even a little bit higher on him than I am, and I might get to exactly where you're at with him because you watch his tape

and it's hard to find stuff that you would say is like a deal breaker for him. Because I even have written in my notes verbatim when I talked about the long speed. Long speed can appear to be an issue at times, but it's plenty adequate and not nearly as bad as you might expect with a player of his size. In fact, it's actually more impressive. So compared to his peers, compared to how fast you might need to be to be a successful NFL corner, I don't know, maybe there are times where he's turning and running and flipping the hips where he's a step or two behind but normally with guys who are built like him they get burned a lot worse than that so maybe it isn't as bad as as i originally thought so so i had him at five you had him at six seven seven and then i had ennis r Raikstra at six. Okay. So does that bring you, where are we?

Five for me. Have you named anybody outside of your top five yet? I didn't name number six. It was Quinion Mitchell. Okay, I had Mitchell at five. All right, this is easy then. All right, go ahead. Tell me about Mitchell.

So we have flipped Lasseter and Raikstra and flipped Mitchell and Tampa. That's all the rankings so far. You know, it is funny though. This is, these are the tiers though, right? Yes. Like when you break up, honestly, now I haven't watched Pritchett.

I haven't watched Carson. I haven't watched Josh Newton. And those are guys that I want to get to as soon as possible but there was a clear ending of the tier of corners after Laster for who was 9 10 11 12 for me so it it does make sense that these guys are all in the same bucket we just might prefer them a little different right so quinion mitchell toledo somebody we did talk about over the summer he because in 2022 he had five picks and 20 pass breakups which is insane now let me let me caveat and i've done this before four of those five interceptions were in one game against niu where i think trevor

or i were under centered lobbing the ball to this man i not to take away from the young fella but there is context needed for that four interception game and if you don't know what i'm talking about find a way to watch it the best part about it is that i'm sure you can find it on youtube by the way right the best part about it is the first interception is the one that should have told this quarterback i'm not throwing this way again because the first interception is one where mitchell plays a lot of off coverage right and so there's there there's basically exclusively so he's he's eight to ten yards off the line of scrimmage basically every time so when this NIU wide receiver was getting into his route it was just a comeback route like he was just running a very quick curl it was I

don't know five yards out like it wasn't really this big pass but because of all the space that Mitchell gave the wide receiver, the quarterback was like, Oh, easy five yards, easy completion. So he drops back, you know, little three-step drop,

whatever it was, looks to his left, saw the space pre-snap. He's already into his motion. He's firing that bad boy off. And Mitchell just like way better than he should is kind of what I'm saying here. And that quarterback should have

been like oh bad idea okay i don't have the arm strength to challenge this that was it he did not have the arm to throw outside the number and then he threw three more to mitchell it's that should have been the moment it's one of the most ridiculous prospect games i've seen in the last two years it actually annoyed me this summer when i watched it i was just like and i i regret that it did because mitchell's a really good prospect i wish i could have told that quarterback uh you don't have the facilities for this big right exactly you got a little too much dip on your chip way too much dip on the chip for that one. So you nailed it, Trevor. Only 101 of his 1,157 coverage snaps in the last three years are impressed. Crazy. He just sits off almost every single play.

Now, the good, great understanding of routes and how to break on them to play the ball. He just has these plus eyes, plus awareness and plus instincts that he knows when the ball is coming out. He knows where it's going in front of him and how he's going to go try to make a play on it. And he's got good play strength that he can come be a disruptor as well. I mean, this is a guy that's six feet tall, 200 pounds. So the really good play strength, uh, good feel for spacing.

When quarterbacks test them on fades and back shoulder balls, he knows how to kind of box out the receiver to take away a lot of room. They'd have in bounds, very competitive at the catch point, no matter where he is on the field. And my favorite thing about him is he improves throughout the game where I didn't get, see him get beat the same way twice I'd see him get beat. And they try the same thing and he go no I learned from that and I think that's a player with a high IQ and it kind of speaks to that eyes awareness and instincts

there's a lot above the shoulders with Quinion Mitchell for a player at Toledo where I mean obviously under recruited not a big spotlight like a lot of the guys we're talking about today. I see a lot of pro aspects of his mindset and how he plays. Now, the things I have questions on, I know he's going to run well, but the on-field deep recovery speed I have questions about. And the way they play him makes me question it even more because this dude's a difference

maker so why don't you have him mix in some press and play tight man at the line and run with these guys and make the quarterback challenge over the top a little bit rather than giving them some of those yards i think he's i think he's his own corner and it's funny because for in the system he graded out well in man but when i watch him everything he does well screams's a zone corner. And it's funny because in the system, he graded out well in man. But when I watch him, everything he does well screams NFL zone corner to me. It's because he graded out well in literally everything. Yeah, he did. And then 2023, he dropped two layups that I saw him get in 2022.

Where I was like, man, I've seen you make plays on those gimmies before. And he dropped them this year. And that's why I only had one interception this year. So I'm curious what you thought of them, because I know there's some big projections on this guy. I thought you highlighted him. Well, um, Toledo outside corner, you mentioned if we didn't mention the measurable six foot one, 200 pounds. So even though him and TJ Tampa are built very differently, they have sort of the same measurables,

which is kind of weird when you kind of like stack them up back to back. A little bit of background on this dude. So he's a three-star athlete recruit. Got the ATH label out of high school. He's from Florida, Williston, Florida. In high school, he played football, he played basketball, and he ran track. In track, he ran the 100-meter dash in 10.6, which is just freaking flying, people. I mean, that is stupid speed.

In basketball, he played small forward and he played shooting guard. And in football, his senior year, he played corner, but he also played running back, and he averaged 9.5 yards per carry his senior season. I found that out, and I thought that was a great nugget. He was a back-to-back All-American in 2022 and then 2023. This year, he was a first-team All-American. For some PFF statistics that will knock your socks off, folks. This dude, remember I mentioned that if you've got a coverage grade that's like in the 70s,

that's not too shabby. You get a coverage grade in the 80s, that's pretty dang good. You get an elite coverage grade, we're talking about something special. No matter how you slice it, over the last two years combined, Kunyan Mitchell's PFF stats are crazy in his outside corner coverage role he had a 95.0 coverage grade in single coverage he had a 92.8 coverage grade when there was a clean pocket and no pressure, 92.5 coverage grade. When the quarterback had more than three seconds to throw the football, 94.8 coverage grade. No corner in the country had more forced incompletions than he did over the last two years.

And his forced incompletion percentage of 24.6 is in the 99th percentile. All of that wrapped with a bow that he had a 0.61 win above average metric in 2022. That is wild that a top corner would have more than a half a win above average. Just shows you how good and how impactful this guy has been. I think that you hit the nail on the head. He does a lot of work in off coverage, but it is how he plays that that makes him so special. He is fantastic at knowing exactly what his athleticism is capable of.

I agree with you. He is much more comfortable showing you how much speed and explosiveness he has when he is going downhill than what he is when he is in trail technique and when he is just chasing wide receivers down the field. And to me, that goes into another negative that I wrote about him, which is just when he plays press, the strike timing is off.

It's hesitant. He's just not comfortable. And I don't know if it's because he, he has not been asked to do it or if it's, he's just super uncomfortable with it. Because I think that goes exactly into why he is also hesitant and not nearly as confident when he is turning to run down the field

and chasing guys in trail technique. So that's something that I think is an issue. I also felt like there were a couple of times where he was a little bit too overaggressive to go downhill. And when I saw him get hit with double moves, he normally bit on them pretty badly. Like he was normally getting beat with double moves on the, I think I probably saw four or five throughout the two years of tape that I had watched on him. Not that I watched every game, but you know, I'm watching five or six games of these guys. And I think I saw four or five double moves. and i think he got beat on almost all of them so

a little over aggressive to trigger downhill which makes sense for an off coverage corner you know that's the thing that you're watching for a lot he's just susceptible to it and then i did feel as though when he could not have his eyes on the players in his zone sometimes he panicked a little bit you could see like his head's going like left and right like he's trying to find where these guys are at and i think that's just more of a experience and comfortability thing but there's so much to love about this player ultimately this was my bottom line part of my scouting report that i have for him mitchell has some of the best p mitch Mitchell has some of the best advanced coverage metrics that PFF has ever recorded in a two-year sample size. He has all the ability in the world to be a CB1

at the next level, but his lack of experience in press could limit him from being a unanimous first-round pick on every single team's board. There's going to be some teams that look at Quinn Young Mitchell and say, I take this guy in the top 15. There will be teams in the NFL that would take Quinn Young Mitchell in the top 15. And there's others who are maybe much more press reliant in their scheme who would think, okay, late first, early second, something like that. But the dude is extremely talented and really is just, I think, experience and press away from being a really, really damn good all-around football player at the next level.

I definitely agree with you. I think he's going to be that guy that prepare for him to go off the board early, for better or for worse. Yeah, because it only takes one, right? Right. And he just has traits and aspects that coaches will want to see. Well, what if we do unlock the rest with him?

Then we have a number one corner. Yeah. I know they're going through a coaching change, but like Vegas at 13? Probably where it starts. Right, right. The problem is where it starts right right i feel the problem is where it starts and so you had him at five right i mean we still got four more corners to go we do we do and they're fun players we're so we're gonna get into that top five we're obviously gonna get into some slot guys as well before we do that if you got a family then you got then you need to get

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Policies issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company, not available in certain states. Prices subject to underwriting and health questions. We got a five kool-aid mckinstry all right so do i okay that's no fun i mean i don't know how much of this is gonna be fun different well hold on we don't we always have fun we always have fun we're gonna have fun mysterious there's gonna be a pizza party at the end you guys gotta yeah you gotta stay i don't know how much variance we're gonna get in the corners here with uh both of us having kool-aid here number four you know what it is a kool-aid

if you watch the summer scouting he's probably the only guy i'll say this about and this is not an insult he's the same exact guy trevor he's the same exact guy which is which is uh you know i had him in the first round back in the first round player yes yes 6-1-195 if you are a team that likes to play press this is your guy yes right here yes i mean 299 snaps in press in 2022 237 in 2000 2023 and it's one thing to talk about a guy having experience it's another to just say he's flat out good at it he's flat out good at it i see straight line speed to run vertically with wide receivers when he needs to open up. It's a two-year starter. This year, broke up seven passes.

Didn't have an interception, but here's the reality. Nobody had any interest in going after him. I mean, really. It's probably part of the reason a guy like Teron Arnold, who we're going to get to in a second, had such a big year because Kool-Aid wasn't really challenged. He wasn't thrown at. He had 84 passes thrown at him in 2022, 43 this past year.

Dude, it's insane. He just did not throw. They didn't throw at him. He just didn't throw it his way. Yeah. Right, and some of those throws at him were not real challenges. It was like, yeah, I got to get the ball out,

but the initial jam at the line of scrimmage is effective he knows where to throw his hands how to use them when to throw them but that hand placement is very very important he's got long enough arms that when he gets challenged underneath or on those slants crossers umbacks. He chops the ball over the top. I wrote this over summer, and I see it again. He is so competitive in the red zone. There's a notch that goes up. It's like a 7 to a 9.5 when they get in the red area where it's like,

okay, I'm not going to be on the highlight reel on social media. That's what it looks like with him. And I love that attitude. You don't want to be the dude giving up touchdowns he takes that personal against screens and those little dump offs to the running backs like he's coming downhill like a safety I mean he's looking to knock your head off I thought the tape against the LSU wide receivers was really competitive he knew that it's it's Malik neighbors it's Brian Thomas Jr. they got all this talent. I'm going to bring my A game today. And we talked about this over summer in 2022.

He averaged almost 16 yards per punt return. So there's special teams versatility here. Some questions or negatives. He's another guy. He gets grabby in the intermediate. He lunges a little bit. He's got that Joey Porter Jr. in him, right? And this happened to Porter Jr. his final year of college.

After that first game where he was targeted 12 times or whatever it was, nobody really challenged him the rest of the way. Very grabby, very physical on film. The one guy that I saw gave him a problem, and I think it was the long speed, was A.D. Mitchell. A.D. Mitchell was Kool-Aid's kryptonite. And some are worthy, too, in 2022. What do they have in common?

Those guys can run like the wind. Right, correct, correct. So that will be a question with Kool-Aid. And it's honestly why Kool-Aid is sitting here at four as a first round prospect and not in the top three for me. I think his floor as a player is so high. I do too. Man, how good does that feel to say about a corner? Dude, so look, the first sentence of kind of like my summary of him is, McKinstry plays one of the most difficult positions in the game

with so much poison production. Like, there's no panic. He plays press, man, coverage, and the dude never panics. He's Mr. Do-Your-Job in this group. Correct. I also have this in his scouting report that I wrote. To give you a glimpse of how talented and smart McKinstry is, he started as a true freshman in a Nick Saban defense. He started as a true freshman for Nick Saban in the era where Nick Saban could basically get whatever corner he wanted in the country.

And Lord knows there were upperclassmen that had probably been there a couple of years that probably earned those spots from all the reps that they had put in and he had to put mckintry in the game because he was he's that cool calm and confident he does it unlike some of the other corners that we have talked about who are a lot of who do a lot of off coverage stuff mckintry to your point press man type of corner he is somebody who will play up at the line of scrimmage and what i love about him is he is so comfortable with his back to the ball. A lot of these guys panic, you know, when they get beat, which happens, you know, like there's, there's, there's a reason why trail technique is a thing because when you are on the line of scrimmage wide receivers, they're going to hit you with a nice relief. Sometimes they're going

to get even with you. You don't want them to gain too much ground on you. But if you stay a step behind them, that doesn't necessarily mean you are beat. You are keeping even with them. You are keeping in phase, if you will. And then you are trying to watch their body language. You're trying to watch their eyes, their arms, their hands, everything to when you have to understand when the ball is coming in. And even if you can't see it behind you,

that's when you get your hand in there. That's when you break things up. And it is such an art form to not panic when a guy has a step on you and is running vertical up the field. Because you know if you give up that catch, what happens? There's a touchdown. It's six. Like you said, you can put in a highlight reel.

McKintry just never panics in those situations no i am worried about overall elite athleticism i think he is plenty adequate of an athlete to be a cb2 at worst at the nfl level i think that is that that we could check those boxes but the other three guys that we're going to talk about a little bit higher, they have higher athletic scores. And I think that long speed can sometimes be an issue for McKinstry. I think sometimes quickness can be as well, although he mitigates that a little bit better with how he's able to be subtly physical with them, how he can anticipate.

So you don't see that exposed as much. But the long speed I think is an issue at times against some of those elite speed players which look who are you going to face in the nfl you're going to face guys who are fast and i think the other thing about him is camera if you mention this he does not attack the ball as much as i would want him to do. He seems very comfortable breaking up the pass. And obviously breaking up the pass is great. But there were times when I watched him over the last couple of years where I said, you could get your head around here. And he just, he doesn't, he doesn't want to do it.

I would love to see him be a little bit more aggressive for turnovers because I think he has the ability to do so to just wrap it wrap it up with with more of kind of what i said uh mckintry plays one of the most difficult positions in the game with so much poison production he might not be an elite athlete but he is one of the smartest cornerback prospects you will find he is the type of player that you draft in the first round who could play any type of defensive scheme and i really believe that he's got great coverage scores across the board in those advanced pff metrics that i mentioned he had a 90.4 outside coverage grade uh over the last two years and then when it comes to single

coverage clean pocket long time to throw all of that is in the 80s his forced incompletion percentage was right there with quinion mitchell's in fact quinion mitchell was the only corner in the country over the last two years who had more uh forced incompletions than mckinstry did that's just because he's always there he is always in the wide receivers hip pocket so the athleticism like how he tested the combine could be what holds the key to him going top 15 being in that mix with some of these other greater athletes that we're going to talk about here. But overall, it is so hard to find a corner that you say has a high floor. And McKinstry has an extremely high floor.

That's the thing with him. He's a comfortable starter to me. And I mean, you can't say that about a lot of corners. The potential for miss rate is just so. Yes. Wildly high at this position. And I'm not worried about this dude. I'm not worried about him either.

All right. So number three for me is Terry on Arnold, his teammate. Same. Yeah, we have the same top four. We do. We do. We do. You know what?

I'll say this. I think that won't be consensus. I think you and i just view this class the same i don't i think a lot of people will have different thoughts we'll get it we'll get we'll get there do you see uh do you see jeremiah on twitter said that he thinks he has arnold number like it seemed like he confidently has him number one he said he i don't know if he said for sure he was a top corner but he said a top 10 pick i mean if there's two corners that are projected to go in the top 10 in this draft i've missed the boat on that maybe nothing should shock us anymore this time last year not everybody thought witherspoon would go top 10 so that's why they got to listen to the pod

that's a good point that's why I guess you're here. You know what I'm saying? So, so Terry on Arnold, who is clearly very well liked by the NFL, right? I think we could say that. I love his potential, which you should. You should. I mean, this is a red shirt sophomore that just had a magnificent year in Alabama's defense. Six feet tall, 196.

Finished the year with five picks and 12 pass breakups on 79 catchable targets. So all those targets that went Kool-Aid's way in 2022 shifted to Arnold this year. Yep. He started seven games in 2022, then all of 2023. Trevor, he turns 21 just five weeks before the draft. Very young talent right here hasn't even had a beer yet imagine has never tasted a beer damn I could not imagine big time safety recruit coming out of high school smooth moving athlete adequate size to play outside but has inside

versatility over 400 total snaps in the slot, but played over 1000 outside in 2023, over 300 snaps and press coverage over the last two seasons. I think he looks comfortable lining up in man and utilizing that athleticism and physicality. Although he did great out higher in zone, uh, aggressive and fast when coming downhill. Yes.

Right. If the, if he needs to come up and make a tackle or he needs to come up and make a play on the ball or the ball is coming to a receiver, he's just aggressive and lightning quick heading downhill. This guy should be a really good tester. In my opinion, I think he's going to be a really good tester.

I like his vision against crossing routes at times. I saw some times where he saw it before the play and picked it up or passed it off the right way. Some negatives. The interceptions in 2023, he had some good luck to get to five. One was off a tip pass. Two were off of Hail Mary end-of-quarter situations. So it's nice that he had five picks. I thought two of them were real ball-hawking plays.

I thought the other ones were a little bit of luck that went his way that's okay i think he's more of an athlete in coverage right now than a guy anticipating throws and route combinations consistently i would agree so almost picture everything we said about kamari laster the other way it's it's really fascinating to watch how guys play this position yeah he's out there right go ahead sorry well no i was just about to say but that's why dj has him cb1 because you can see because the raw ability for this dude is nuts different it's you talked about the click and close ability how he can turn and run i mean the he is so explosive. He is so smooth. He can keep up with anybody deep down the field. He can close so quickly on you. And when he plays in the slot, he shows that, all

right, I'm going to be patient. I'm going to be patient. Okay. You're going to left. Boom. I'm going to left with you. I'm in your hip pocket. Like there's just not a lot of corners who move the way that he does now. Yep. I don't think the footwork is perfect. No. Right. Like I think that sometimes he'll like stumble or get off balance. He's not as controlled as he needs to be there. But again, control of the footwork, recognition. Sometimes when he gets foody, he gets a little too grabby. That's when we saw the penalty show up with him.

But all of that shit is teachable. All that is extremely correctable, especially for a redshirt sophomore 20- 20 year old. That's right. Yes. So if you believe in the best of Terry on Arnold, if you put him at CB one and you tell me he's going to get better at all this stuff, I'm going to go.

Okay, sure. CB one. Yeah. What am I going to say? What am I going to say? So I, yeah,

I just wanted to kind of piggyback off that. Cause I agree with your assessment completely well this is a good time to remind our audience that the nfl in this process probably even more than you and i although we've probably grown this way over the years but not we're not there yet is a projection business like no other they will swing big and be willing to miss big when the potential end results are special. And there is no denying that the potential end results with Teron Arnold are special. I agree completely. The NFL loves the what if. They love to be able to say what if.

I don't want to say they hate this, but we have this we have this conversation with quarterbacks all the time i don't think michael pennix is going to get picked nearly as highly as maybe he should and it doesn't have anything to do with his ability it's the fact that you basically have to look at him and go okay what you see is what you get and what we've seen is good right the fact that we say that out loud what we see is what we get the nfl kind of views that as like hey you know i don't want to use that can happen to pennix like it happened to bo nicks well like a guy like mccarthy could go ahead of them for the opposite reasons and that's and that's exactly my point yes mccarthy who has objectively worse tape than michael pennix and Bo Nix could get drafted ahead of them because he is younger.

He still has those tools and the NFL can tell themselves, oh, but what if, like he's so young, like look at what he could develop into. And I think that gets a little overblown for a lot of this stuff, but getting back to the Terry on Arnold conversation, redshirt sophomore, 20 years old, crazy athlete. He is actually, he actually originally wanted to play both basketball and football at Alabama. When he came, when he came to Alabama,

he, he tried to play on the basketball team. I think he had talked with them about it and he talked with NATO. It's their, their, their basketball coach. And it was kind of like a, yeah.

I mean, if you can swing it and he ended up not being able to do that. So he committed to football. But him, like Keon Coleman, he was good enough to be able to play D1 in both sports, which just goes to show you kind of a nuts athlete. I mean, that's insane when you think about that. Yeah. At a program like Alabama.

I mean, it's crazy. I mean, look, I was a dual athlete in both beer pong and beer die when I was at Florida. And it's hard to keep up with both. And, you know, that's the thing. Practicing both, going to class. Eventually, I did. I had to give one up.

And it was tough, man. It was tough. But I still play, you know, I still play pick up beer die all the time. I can go down to the Y and do that. Doing two things at once in college is hard. I used get hammered on friday and then try to wake up before one o'clock to play volleyball so and you didn't even have public chicken tender subs to revive you no i'd have to go get some shitty sandwich and then grab the wake up the rest of the dudes and be like all right we gotta go play volleyball we gotta do something today or pick up basketball or

whatever we get our hands on it albany if it wasn't zero degrees bill sport athleting folks it's hard here for us yeah uh before we move off of arnold just the the summary of my low scouting report that i have for him right now arnold isn't the most polished cornerback in this class but he is a high percentile athletic but he has high percentile athletic abilities and that means he has a high ceiling as any corner in this draft in in a man or zone system so that's what we're talking about here some people are going to believe in the ceiling of this dude and that could be as high as top 10 overall that's what it comes down to i i think oh i'll put you on the spot here okay you think he's the first corner taken

i do maybe i love i love when you have a hard stance on something yeah i love uh i love when conviction shows up in the show it's either him i think it was the delay that made that that much better. I think it's either him or the guy that we're about to talk about that I think you have at CB2. Nate Wiggins? Nate Wiggins.

I'll let you take this one away because I sucked up all the breadcrumbs on Arnold. So I think that one of these two guys is going to be the top cornerback off the board. Even though you and I don't have them as CB1. I think the allurement of these players and kind of just like the crazy twitchy athletes that they are, somebody's going to absolutely love it. And somebody could absolutely love the guy who we have at number one. We'll get into that in a second. So Nate Wiggins, Clemson junior, two junior, six foot two, 185 pounds. So he's got the length, he's got the size, he's got those long arms, but he is a little bit slender.

And that kind of plays into his strengths and weaknesses, right? The slender build, it'll show up in how he takes on blocks. It shows up in his effectiveness in run defense, in how he's able to tackle, like all of that. I think those things definitely play into who he is overall as a prospect, ultimately why he is below the guy that I have at CB1. But when it comes to, and I've said this before, one cornerback in this class who you want to say,

go make sure that guy does not catch the football. He might be the most ideal player in this class. He really might. When it comes to just like coverage potential, the fluidity, the length, the overall explosiveness, I mean, this dude really does have it all. So he was a four-star wide receiver prospect from Atlanta, Georgia,

played both wide receiver and corner, but he was primarily recruited as a cornerback. He saw some playing time his freshman year, but I read about this. He kind of had some struggles with playing time where when he was out there, he looked really good. And I genuinely remember seeing him his true freshman season. And I always have my mind towards an NFL draft focus.

And so I remember watching him three years ago, and I'm like, okay, who is number 20? Who is this? Is he draft eligible? Who is this person? I need to get him on my radar immediately and it was wiggins he wasn't obviously he was just a true freshman at the time but he was on and off the field didn't get a ton of playing time dabble sweeney himself said that there was some immaturity i believe was the word that he used when wiggins was not really getting the playoff time, sorry, playing time that his talent deserved.

And he has since praised how Wiggins has grown as a player, as a person, as a man, as somebody who handles their business on and off the field, his dedication to his craft, all of that, which has turned him into just a fantastic corner man. I think that he has a true rare combination of smooth yet explosive movements normally you got to sacrifice one or the other right normally you got to be either you're twitchy or you're somebody who's got great smooth build-up speed it's very rare that you can have a combination of both he has the former wide receiver background so he's got those ball skills the feet are super light quick controlled especially for a player who is more high-waisted, who is 6'2". The PFF coverage stats, basically 80s across the board. Coverage rolls and outside corner, single coverage assignments, clean pocket, time to throw,

all of that is in the 80s. The forced incompletion percentage, 15.7, that's in the 82nd percentile. This dude is just a perfect blend of what you want from a movement perspective to mirror any type of wide receiver running any route in press or off coverage. I just think he is the total package. He's a first-round pick. There's no question about it. not CB1 on this list is because that lower weight profile, that more slender build does show up when he is getting hands on receivers, when he's hand fighting, but most importantly, getting off blocks and being more reliable when it comes to run defense. He got better this year, but still you can see this physical limitation.

So that's what I think overall of Nate Wiggins. Man, I'm with you. I mean, there is so much to love about his game he's gonna I mean I'm assuming he's gonna test well because he plays like a high-end athlete on the field he's tall I I've heard a little that his arms won't be amongst the higher end guys in this class in terms of arm length but I think he plays with good length. So even if the arm length isn't on the higher end, I think he plays with good length, and that's an important distinction to make.

This is someone that has put back-to-back seasons of really high-end tape in the ACC. He's found the ball. He brought an interception back for a touchdown this year. He forced two fumbles. That play, Trevor, that we've talked about of him chasing the guy all the way down and stripping the ball at the one yard line is one of the best prospect plays of the year Omarian Hampton and I think he did it twice I think he's done that twice before so I I read that he reached because you know how they have

those those speed tracking things on these dudes now he reached 22.6 miles an hour on that chase down from behind to force that fumble of uh omari and hampton the unc the running back just wild effort wild athletic ability to be able to make that play and i think that's something that teams are going to point to time and time again when justifying him as a top 15 pick did you get into the age thing with him i might have missed that no he doesn't turn 21 until the end of his first nfl training camp oh yeah he's super young end of august so this is a true 21 20 year old prospect all the way throughout his first training camp so he he's a Taurus. There you go. I have no idea. I actually have zero idea.

I'm going to start doing that every time you name a birthday. I'm just going to be like, oh, he's a Leo. And just be like, oh, I could have seen that coming. Taurus or April 20th to May 20th. So really close. We really do need. Horoscope scouting. We do need horoscope scouting.

It makes you think. Like, what is the highest hit rate? Maybe our job is way easier than we're making it. That would be something. This whole time, this whole time, Scorpios are the best players in the NFL.

What if we just, no, no, no, no. It's like positions. Like, Aries are the best running backs, you know what I'm saying? Or like, whatever it is. Quarterback, this will go into quarterback evaluation before.

If we figure this out, if we crack this code, we're not telling a soul. No, we tell our scouting services. We don't tell people, hey, here's our highest graded guys. And they're like, why do you have this guy graded so high? I'm like, we run data differently than a lot of other companies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we're cashing out when every prospect hits. It's to be honest with you. I'm glad that you and I, yeah. And then we're cashing out when every prospect hits. Insane.

Could be onto something here. I'm glad that you and I are talking about this idea on a forum where no one will hear it. Yes, on a private phone call that's not wiretapped. Oh, man. He picked off Drake May because he has explosive acceleration and can jump throws with explosive acceleration.

And that was how he had a pick against May. 44.1 passer rating when targeted this year. I mean, all the way down from 74.8 the previous year. He plays big in big games. You see the performances against UNC. He's a really big-time player. And he's still learning how to press. I think sometimes his run defense lacks urgency and aggressiveness.

But 20, I thought 2022 for sure. I thought it was right. I think it grew. I think it grew. He's a really good player. He's a top 20 pick for me and legitimate corner one upside. Yeah. Yeah.

No, he's he is. I think he's he's an absolute stud. All right. So that leaves us with our unanimous. Did not think that this was going to be the case. But, I mean, unanimous CB1 here for the early corner rankings here on NFLSC. It is Iowa's Cooper DeJean. Junior cornerback, 6'1", 207 pounds, healthy young man,

to quote Benjamin Solak. there's a lot to like about this dude connor you tell me why you got him a cv1 well he was my number one corner over summer and so you're stubborn so i'm stubborn yeah that's number one yeah but everything with cooper dejean from summer for people that liked him or didn't like him, whatever it may be was, well, is he really a corner? And the answer is yes, he's really a corner. He's 612 hundred seven pounds. He I mean, we'll do the background again because it's really important. It's a two year starter at corner with seven picks over his last two seasons and 13 more past breakups. When he was in

high school, he threw for over 3,400 yards and 35 touchdowns while rushing for over 1,200 yards and 24 touchdowns his senior year at quarterback. Okay. Long jump and a hundred meter state champion in high school. Yeah. Basketball highlights are just insane. This is a super freak show. Super freak show.

This is not. Did you say it's a hundred meter dash time? I didn't say the time. I just said he was a super freak show super freak show this is not did you say it's 100 meter dash time i didn't say the time i just said he was a state champion 11 16 i mean stupid so not as stupid as queen john mitchell but still no but still for you to be a high schooler and be running near 11 flat 100 meter dash ridiculous absolutely insane i mean this man he's a corner he's every bit of the size and athlete of a corner and snap count changed this year so 2022 he was mr you know versatility 29 on the line of scrimmage 89 89 in the box, 137 in the slot, 543 outside. Special teams demon. He played over 150 special team snaps that year.

This year, only 27 on the line of scrimmage, 22 in the box, 23 in the slot, over 600 at outside corner. He was a true outside corner this year. He was making a statement. Making a statement that, hey, I'm a corner. Yeah, they saw the Rashad Bennett Hall tweet, and they're like, yeah, we need somebody out here. I mean, we're starving.

We're starving. You got a job. You get drafted in the NFL. You're the number one guy. There's no one else. You and Riley. And Riley Moss. They were teammates.

Yeah, and the corpse of Jason Sehorne. That's all we got. We don't got anything else oh man that that's too much disrespect to jason seahorn he's only 52 but 52 year old jason seahorn is the best he's our still he's our slot corner oh man so that's a really good uh good headline did rashad mendon hall's tweet inspire higher outside corner snap count for cooper dejean click all right three pick sixes in 2022 trevor the body control and receiver level hands of Cooper Dijon is insane. Some of the picks you watch, you're like, was he the receiver toe tapping? Yep.

And they play him on offense. They've played him on offense before. So keep that in mind as well. Incredible eyes, quick trigger in zone. He just reads everything, jumps everything, anticip anticipates routes when he comes to the catch point it's a war it's not ah maybe i'll grab the ball or maybe i'll dislodge the ball it's i'm i'm gonna try to punch the ball punch you like clean timing everything is just physical it is a safety mindset at corner uh he could peel off an assignment in zone and play another guy

that's what the great ones really do in zone yep he's got eight tfls in the last two years big time run defender he brought a punt for it back for a touchdown this year this dude's he's he is freakish you put him in the secondary with the dc that wants to run a lot of different coverages and have our DBs be stout against the run and honestly take away the like that take away the football mindset. I fall in love with and Cooper Dijon has mastered that. He he's he is such a incredible all around athlete. I mean, you talked about some of it with his background, and we mentioned NFL teams love when guys are multi-sport athletes. But it's not just that this guy is a multi-sport athlete.

Like, he's an extremely successful multi-sport athlete. You mentioned the state championship in both the long jump and the 100-meter dash. He did not just participate in track, right? Sometimes when you go to guys' bios on the school website, you'll see like, oh, what did they do in high school like oh also ran track this guy didn't also run track this guy was a state champion long jumper and 100 meter dash run so this dude was a state championship caliber track and field player um he has two state championships in in football and you mentioned he played wide receiver he played defensive defensive back, he played quarterback, he did it all. In basketball, his 1,832 career points are 55 more than Sacramento Kings Harrison Barnes on the all-time scoring list, on the state's all-time

scoring list. So again, this dude didn't just like, oh, he dabbled in basketball. He's on the state record list. Oh, by the way, he also played't just, like, oh, he dabbled in basketball. He's on the state record list. Oh, oh, by the way, he also played three years of varsity baseball, probably just because, because he wanted to do it. Probably throws 98 miles an hour. Yeah, dude. Guy probably throws gas, like, left hand. He's probably, it's, yeah, whatever.

So, this is all what makes him just such a natural athlete. And all of these things matter, not just because we want to gas up his high school accomplishments, but because of what Connor said. You literally see all this natural athleticism on the football field. He is one of the most natural athletes that you're going to find in this entire class. Not just at corner, not just in the secondary. He's one of the most natural football players that you're going to find.

Iowa plays him in off coverage a lot. And for a guy who's 6 foot one, 207 pounds, I wish he had more snaps in press. He's only played 199 snaps in press over the last two years. That's less than 25% of his total coverage snaps, but they play him in off coverage. And it's almost like, okay, can you blame him? It's kind of like the Quinn Young Mitchell thing, but with even more success when it comes to interceptions, this guy's plays off coverage. He reads where wide receivers are going to go. Cause he's played wide receiver before. He knows how to break on it. He's got a phenomenal footwork.

I mean, the footwork for being six foot one, 207 pounds is wild. How he flips his hips, how controlled he is because that you look, you're going to hear people have the conversation. Okay. What is Cooper Dejean

is he a safety is he a corner is he a slot player what is he I think I am firmly in the camp that this dude's a corner he's gonna be a damn good one and what tells me that above the other positions is because one if you're a shutdown corner you're more valuable than you are at those other positions so you're gonna play him at corner anyways because if he hits it's better it's more advantageous for your team two he has the footwork to be able to play corner he's controlled he's fluid he knows how to stop on a dime like why wouldn't you want him at corner correct if you could see if you can succeed there you got to play him there it's almost like the offensive tackle offensive guard thing if this guy can succeed at tackle play him a tackle it's more advantageous for you if he hits so that's sort of the conversation that we have about him he's just he's so smart at how he goes about things

the high football iq the instincts the ball skills and then on top of all of that he is without question the best run defending corner in this class. Best run defending corner. I mean, Witherspoon was pretty silly. And Witherspoon was great. But when you think of Dejean, like Witherspoon had to overcome some size deficiencies, right? Like Witherspoon was, now pound for pound, Witherspoon was strong.

But he still kind of had to put everything into it to come down with, you know, wrap up tackles. Dejean's 0-7. Yeah yeah Dajin's getting off blocks Dajin's wrapping you up he's not missing tackles his arms aren't too short he doesn't he's not lacking in power he's not lacking in density just he across the board man there's not much else that you could ask from this guy my bottom line scouting report form is the the talk of the gene playing corner or safety or slot at the next level is not due to a lack of home position like it can be for other players. It is because he could truly be an impact player at all of them. His footwork and his ball skills and his explosive athleticism are good enough to yield an impact outside cornerback and one

that has all pro potential. So i gave him the potential all pro label because that's big time i couldn't not special teams experience wide receiver experience quarterback experience slot experience linebacker experience safety experience and then outside cornerback experience the only thing this dude's really lacking is he just doesn't play a lot of press and then you know you can certainly point to reps where he flips his hips a little bit slower than guys who are 5 foot 10 190 right he's big dude because he's 6 1 207 and you got to go okay if i love the run defense stuff i'm gonna live with that and i think that I'm more than okay living with that. So I got him.

That's why I got him a CB one. I'm with you all the way. Great player. All right. So we're going to run through our slot corners before we get to that. I got to tell you guys about our friends over at price picks, the largest daily fan support platform in North America, easily the most exciting way to play DFS.

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you can tweet at him and make him feel bad about it. All right. A slot. Let's, let's list off our four slot players. Yeah. Because we're running kind of long in this episode now. And then we could talk about it. We could just kind of give some points on all four of them. So give me your four to one. We got a slot. All right. Number four, somebody that could be evaluated as an outside corner i have him playing slot chris abrams drain okay very interesting player jarian jones from florida state at number three nice high key smith from georgia at number two nice and mike san rostil from michigan at number no question number whoa whoa whoa mikey can play mikey mikey and that is how he i'm pretty sure that's what he goes by right does he go by mikey michigan's michigan's player profile page shout out to michigan who has

elevated the game they have a soundCloud click for pronunciations. Oh, thank you. Yes. And he introduces himself as Mikey Sanderson. All right. There we go. I didn't even know that. I mean, do you want to start?

Well, I want to hear yours, and then we can talk about all these guys as a group. Okay. So the guy I had at five, he was right outside of this list. Four. One that I really like. Oh, and outside of. Okay.

So I want to do the same. Right outside the list, I had Shaw Smith Wade from wade from washington okay okay yeah yeah yeah i got him a little bit further down he's just a little bit smaller but dude he's super feisty that's a lot dude right right right so i got max melton my boy somebody who has very high on going into the season and i still really like him you know he is okay what is he is he an outside corner is he inside corner right sometimes i think he struggles a little bit with the vertical long speed. So I wonder if you're going to want him on the outside a lot, where I think he's very controlled.

I think he's very savvy. He's not super quick twitch, but I think he could be really smart in the slot facing those two-way goes. So I got him at five. He just missed the list. Johnny Dixon from Penn State. He's another dude who played on the outside who I just think, because of his size.

I mean, he's six foot 195, but I think he's a little bit lighter than 195. I just love his movement skills. Like when I see him, he's more twitchy than he has that long speed. So he's quicker than he is fast. I think that translates a little bit better more towards the inside. I got Tykee Smith from Georgia at three. I got Jerrion Jones at two. And then, of course, Mikey Samberstill,

the GOAT slot at number one. So, yeah, where do you want to start? I'll go through them quickly. Well, Abrams Drain, over three seasons, he's got 484 snaps in the slot, and then over 1,300 at outside corner. He's played a little box safety and free safety and every form of special teams.

I mean, the dude just, he just constantly plays. Full-time, I like him in the slot at the NFL level. 5'11", 178, a smaller guy, twitchy, competitive, good return man. He's returned both a kick and a punt for a touchdown, plus acceleration, smart and sound wrap-up tackler. He's given up a lot of touchdowns over the last two years teams just go after his lack of size in the end zone he's a smaller player that can get bumped

around uh he loses at the catch point when he's even in really good position on the outside so i think a lot of his issues can be corrected by moving into the slot with that twitch and competitive nature and playing special teams and then jerry and jones and tykee smith are just man they are sticky they are physical they are obnoxious they are constantly on you jones yeah go ahead smart man jones has maybe the most statistically impressive season for a corner this season dude he is awesome i didn't really he was not really high on my radar i mean even even like a month ago and then it was like okay people were like you gotta watch sherry and jones i'm like all right so redshirt senior from florida state yeah he's got good size for a slot corner he's all 190 he also has a little bit of some long speed concerns but the thing i loved about jones is

he constantly put himself between his man and the ball always constantly he just he played with such great leverage and even if you're not the greatest athlete in the slot like if you can consistently play with great leverage and take things away and stay between where the ball is and your guy is, man, that's very valuable. And he did that so successfully. That's that's why I had him at number two. Yeah. Twenty five point three passer rating when targeted this year. It's silly, like insanity.

And then Tykee Smith, another guy that just he I'm pulling up my notes on him. Go ahead. I was going to say I like Tykee Smith, another guy that just, he, I'm pulling up my notes on him. Go ahead. I was going to say, I like Tykee a lot. He is, he is like a, he's like a power slot defender. He's like a fire hydrant. Yeah. So he's one of those like safety nickel corner kind of hybrid players. I see him more of a nickel at the next level than I do as a safety because Georgia opted to play Javon Bullard at safety instead of Tykee Smith.

And I think there's just some overall athletic concerns with him where he's not the most top tier athlete. But Smith for Georgia specifically plays that star linebacker position where you're a hybrid between the will linebacker and also a nickel defender. So they play him near the line of scrimmage a lot and he can take on tight ends. I saw him, I saw him bull rush a Vanderbilt offensive tackle on his ass. And I'm like, okay, we got something here. So if you want a, if a if if if you creep your slot defenders more towards the line of scrimmage which they did if you want i'm saying in the nfl if you want your slot guy to be more of a we live in base or we live in we live in nickel as our base and we want to make sure that the guy who is playing nickel can almost be a pseudo will linebacker for us.

Tykee Smith to me is the player in this class that you would want to be able to do that. He plays with that kind of strength. I totally agree. The final one in Sanders still so fascinating converted wide receiver. He moved a corner in 2022. He started eight games for Michigan at wide receiver from 2021 to 2022. Yep.

And or maybe the two years before that. I want to make sure I have that right. Six picks this year. I wrote game changing ball hawk where the former wide receiver ability. I mean, the tracking of the football. He tracks the deep ball better than the guys he's covering half the time. It's wild. The vision and instincts as things develop are so, so good.

When you look at the bad of him on film, it's when he's asked to play on the outside. He's a menace inside. Takes away the football, runs the routes for wide receivers. He's only getting better. This is a new position to him. Trevor, he's a true slot this is a new position to him he trevor he's a true slot that's a top 75 pick i agree 100 he is look this is this is what i had to say about him in the uh

bottom line part of his scouting report san ristillo is a player that every nfl team would love to have he has a great skill set and mentality to be a starting slot cornerback in the NFL or a safety because he has a special team's versatility as well to boot. He should be viewed as one of the top quote unquote football players in this draft, regardless of position. My comp for him is Kenny Moore. I would take him in the second round. Like there are not many.

I like that comp. There are not many slot corners, slot-only corners, that I would tell you are worth second-round picks. Mike Sammer still is. He is. He'll be a stud for you on special teams. He can play safety. He can drop back and play safety for you. Like I mentioned, he'll be a stud in the slot because I think he reminds me a lot of Kenny Moore.

And here's the thing, folks. If we had a little bit of a longer time to be able to dig into this which i think we will in future episodes playing in the slot is not just about being more quick twitch like not having long speed that is part of it because you have to be able to defend wide receivers that have two-way goes you're not sure where they're going you're on the sideline to help you so you've got to be able to have very quick feet you got to be able to click and close you got to be able to react the hips have. You've got to be able to click and close. You've got to be able to react. The hips have to flip.

That's why a lot of smaller players play at slot corner. Yeah, they have to be tiny. They just got less body to move, so they can stick with these wide receivers. But you've got to be able to help and run defense. Yep. And that's sort of where some of these guys a little bit lower on the list for me did not climb above certainly tykee smith he was that floor of okay like this dude's a phenomenal run defender so you got to

be as good as him well i don't know about as good as him but you've just got to be able to tackle you got to have long enough arms you got to be strong enough you got to be dense enough you got to be reliable in that area mike samver still is he moves he catches like a wide receiver he moves like a corner and he tackles like a safety it doesn't get better than that as a slot it just doesn't so i i don't think well brian branch was kind of like a slot player and i had him as a first rounder so i guess i'm lying when i say it doesn't get much better than this because brian branch is kind of that label and i thought brian branch is a top 20 player look at what mcduffie's done too but sam ristell to me is a second round worthy type of player for what he could do for an nfl

team everything that he could do the goal is to draft good football players and like i said i don't know how many better football players there are going to be in this draft class than mikey sanders still he's awesome what a great story if you see anybody that go why he's 23 we can't take him early like you just missed the entire story so all right there we go that's our cornerback rankings early cornerback rankings let us know what you thought of the guys run a four seven they they're done they're out or if they're not a leo or whatever our horoscope really good stuff oh he's a sagittarius not here he's not let us know what you thought of our horoscope scouting with these cornerbacks the slot corners the outside corners everybody we would love to hear from you best way to do that

is in the YouTube comment section, youtube.com backslash at NFL Stock Exchange. If you're on audio only, X or Instagram at Tampa Bay Trey, at Connor J. Rogers is a great way to be able to get into that. We'll probably have a handful more. Is it a handful? I mean, Shrine Bowl is coming up quick, man. We are traveling a lot after next week.

So, Connor, do we only have one fixture franchise left? Probably. I know that hurts to hear for a lot of people. I know. Y'all have been incredible with the suggestions and watching and listening to all those shows. Unless you want to do two next week. That's up to you. We could do two next week, but that'll be... Because then, if you haven't heard by now,

Trevor and I are at... Trevor's at Shrine. We're both at Senior Bowl. We're both at Super Bowl. We're both at Combine. It's going to be a little fast and loose around here. I will let the people decide. And here's what we're going to do, okay?

If we do two, which I think the people are going to tell us that we're going to do okay if if we do two which i think the people are going to tell us that they want us to do two then if we do two one of them will be a team like normal that is kind of like a losing record team a high draft pick type of a team the other one we will do a winning team we will do the cow team. We will do the Cowboys or we will do the Eagles or we will do something like that. Like, I have had so many people message us about taking a success. They're like, you always do the bad teams.

They're like, you got to fix the good, like the good teams got to get over the hump. Like we got to, we didn't help. That's the whole point of the series. But I get it. I really do get it. I get at least a fix the jets or fix, uh, at Cowboys and jets.

I get at least two or three tweets a week about those two. And then obviously the losing teams, man, this is, we might have to do two. It's either that or what quarterback or quarterback, which is always a whopper. The only thing I'll say about quarterback is an absolute coward. I would really like to see some guys at the senior bowl. You are a coward,

but I'm terrified, but you said it, not me. So I'm great. I'm great piggybacking off of that. So we get it. So we can do quarterbacks after senior and triangle. Okay right because i know people are gonna want 10 like yeah we could sit here right now and record the show of the top five right right right right right

yeah i don't think there's going to be another position you guys can just suggest like you can either vote and say we want another fixture franchise we want to fix your franchises next week or we can do running back interior offensive line interior defensive line linebacker or safety those are the ones that we probably be running back probably i agree that's probably the one that i would want to do me too but if you know if if the masses are like you better give us off ball linebacker brother i have no idea why you guys sound like that nobody sounds like that anymore that's not a thing i did a little cleanse after this cornerback week don't get me wrong there was a lot of good in this group but man i need some i need touchdowns i do i hate it's such a childish thing to say but but hey we let

the people decide the show around here we are absolutely a democracy of a podcast yeah yeah we are a dictatorship that fronts as a democracy so you guys get to vote unfortunately how the world works uh but enough about the political system i'm trevor sycamore that is connor rogers thank you guys so much for watching and listening to the nfl stock exchange podcast we will see you guys with whatever topic you come up with sometime next week. Bye.