How cornerbacks are fighting back in AJ Brown and Justin Jefferson's world
EAGAN — What a wonderful time to be a wide receiver.
In Week 1 of the 2022 season, 11 receivers gained more than 100 yards, eight receivers who were targeted at least seven times averaged more than 15 yards per reception and Justin Jefferson set a team record for most receiving yards in a half.
In Week 2, Tyreek Hill topped Jefferson’s opening performance by going for 190 yards and his teammate Jaylen Waddle went for 171 yards. Amon-Ra St. Brown totaled 184 all-purpose yards in a Lions victory. Rookie Garrett Wilson picked up 102 yards and a game-winning touchdown.
Offenses have never been more creative. The rules have never been more protective. Recent draft classes have been chock full of receiving talent.
The battle has never been steeper uphill for cornerbacks.
No matchup this week is more emblematic of the challenges faced by corners than the Monday Night Football contest between the Minnesota Vikings and Philadelphia Eagles. The game expects to be a heavyweight bout between Justin Jefferson vs. AJ Brown, with even more hype added on top after they ranked No. 1 and 2 in receiving yards last week. Not to mention that Brown pulled in the highest guarantees ever handed out to a receiver this offseason — a number Jefferson may break next year.
But the game’s result, which could later have a big influence on eventual playoff seeding between two strong NFC squads, hinges as much on how the cornerbacks play against these elite receivers as it does how each team plans to get their guy the ball.
The difference is that cornerbacks get far less shine these days. Rare is the defensive back who wields the same star power as top receivers. Aside from L.A.’s Jalen Ramsey, the position isn’t in the spotlight like it once was with “island” corners like Darrelle Revis and Deion Sanders. As it becomes more and more of a wide receiver’s world, cornerback has become thankless, technical and heavily focused on communication and preparation.
So how are corners dealing with a universe that is increasingly treacherous by the day? How will each team’s cornerbacks try to slow Jefferson and Brown?
First, they have to avoid getting too grabby.
“Most corners want to get hands on receivers,” Vikings defensive backs coach Daronte Jones said after Friday’s walk-through.
There are two problems caused by trying too hard to be physical with wide receivers. One is obvious: Penalties. Per PFF, seven corners were flagged multiple times in the first week of the season and 19 corners were penalized once. ESPN’s Kevin Seifert reported that the NFL asked officials to pay closer attention to “illegal contact” fouls after illegal contact flags dropped from an average of 97 between 2002 and 2020 to just 36 in 2021.
The other problem is that, while it’s a natural reaction to reach out for the receiver when he gains separation, it actually makes it more difficult to stay in proper position. Jones advises his corners to remember all the workouts they do during the offseason focusing on the proper movements.
“When you’re training in the offseason you’re changing directions and there’s never another body around you so you’re obviously not grabbing,” Jones said. “The moves that you are training, coming out of your breaks, start and stop, it works faster on air for you because you’re not grabbing. So the teaching point for the corner is to do it just like it’s routes on air.”
Jones points out that staying at full speed requires the arms to be pumping. If they are reaching, the velocity slows down.
Vikings corners get to put this technical detail to work in practice on a daily basis against brilliant route runners Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen. With an emphasis on avoiding injuries, the coaches restrict playing physically, which in turn demands that the defensive backs stay in the proper position.
“It challenges our guys to get better,” Jones said. “We don’t have the physicality in terms of grabbing and holding in practice because that creates injuries but it actually helps our guys play with their feet and eyes. That can carry over when you have [an elite receiver] on the other side, you use those same techniques.”
Now about those techniques.
Footwork gets most of the attention when it comes to corners vs. receivers but it’s actually the cornerback’s eyes that drive success. Defensive back trainer and “DB Doctor” Mikhal Kornegay, who played at Florida State in the early 2000s and has since worked as a quality control coach at FSU and cornerbacks coach at Tennessee State, said he starts with the eyes when he’s working with corners. At the line of scrimmage he tells them to watch the receiver’s numbers because “the core don’t lie,” and then it’s onto the inside hip once they get off the line of scrimmage. The toughest part is not losing track of the receiver’s exact location during the route.
“I work eye transition drills where it’s them transitioning their eyes to a certain cone and moving to their eyes on me as if I was the quarterback then back to where the wide receiver is,” Kornegay said over the phone. “A lot of times on a break you will see a defensive back make a perfect break but because his eyes didn’t see the receiver and he just knows the vicinity of where the receiver is.”
Kornegay has his corners study tape of corners who properly “drop and drive” and has them work on different angles over and over.
“Everything has to move at the same time,” Kornegay said. “My feet are going to propel me but my eyes have to move me.”
The technical parts of covering top receivers are only a portion of the job. There’s also a lot of information to process at once.
“Long gone are the days where you can just play ‘cat ball,’ where you got this cat and you got this cat and I got this cat,” Kornegay said.
Each situation asks for different techniques. Is it man or zone coverage? Is he pressing the receiver or playing off? Is there help over the top or to the inside? And who are you facing?
“When I think of a corner that’s really difficult to go against, I think of a guy that’s patient, a guy that understands route concepts, a guy that understands leverage and I think [the Eagles’ corners] do that really well,” receiver Adam Thielen said.
Jones assigns each of his corners with an opposing wide receiver to study. They have a sheet where they fill out different questions and then present their findings to the other corners.
“Does he have any tells? Is he touching his hands before he gets the ball, anything like that?” Jones explained. “What are his favorite routes based off where he’s aligned? That’s part of those guys’ studying the opponent and then they share the information. If Pat is studying Opponent A and Cam is studying Opponent B, they are sharing information so Pat knows what Opponent B is doing and Cam knows what Opponent A is doing.”
Data also plays into the observations. Coaches have access to player alignments and all of the routes they have run in every situation and their statistics. How has AJ Brown done on slant routes out of the slot?
Speaking of which, offenses are now making elite wide receivers very difficult to find with pre-snap motions and different alignments on nearly every play. It’s one of the reasons that the “island corner” basically doesn’t exist anymore. It has to be a group effort.
“If you just put [an elite receiver] out wide it’s fair game, you can press him, you can get hands on him, you have a safety over the top,” Jones said. “When you put him in different spots and bunches and move him around in stacks and motion it’s hard to lock in on him. It’s a way for those guys to create separation and create that brief moment where that wide receiver is open.”
In Week 1, AJ Brown lined up 21 times as the left wide out, 18 times as the right wide out, 17 times in the slot to the left side and 10 times in the slot to the right (per PFF).
“It’s challenging because you’re trying to create matchups,” Jones said. “We want our guy on that guy. But if that guy starts to move around and line up in 100 different positions, our guy can’t get on that guy.”
Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts adds an extra dimension to that chess match with his mobility. The cornerbacks could do everything right and still end up in a tricky position.
“We just have to have an internal clock in our head and understand how to read the receiver’s hands, his eyes, giving us an indication that the ball is on its way to a certain guy,” veteran corner Patrick Peterson said. “It’s tough being a DB in this league…most guys panic in that situation.”
With all of the things that are up against a corner, it takes a special kind of personality to want to take on the freakishly talented receivers and clever offensive minds of the NFL.
“I think it’s way more of a challenge than any other position,” said defensive back Cam Bynum, who switched from corner to safety after college. “We have to be reactive and I think that’s more of a challenge. I always gravitated toward doing the harder thing and also I’d rather be the one hitting somebody versus getting hit so that’s another big reason. It’s more of a dog mentality.”
Cameron Dantzler played quarterback and receiver growing up and was moved to cornerback in college, where he worked with former NFL corner Terrell Buckley. He had to learn how to backpedal and get comfortable in his stance. Dantzler says consistently mastering techniques is still the toughest part. But he enjoys playing spoiler.
“Ruining their joy of scoring touchdowns,” Dantzler said when asked of his favorite part of playing corner.
Jones loves teaching corners because of their personalities.
“It takes a unique mindset, mentally tough person,” Jones said. “Our mistakes are seen by thousands. You have to have a short memory, you need to bounce back from that. There is going to be some resilience and perseverance.”
When AJ Brown and Justin Jefferson take the field on Monday night, the cornerback group that doesn’t get grabby, has the best eyes, adjusts best to the receivers moving around and has the best resilience may very well decide the game.
“It’s part of that chess match,” Jones said.
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