Best Slot Cornerbacks 2020

admin  3/27/2022
47 Comments
Draft

The NFL has turned into the ultimate passing league and one way that some of the top offenses in the league manipulate coverage and matchups is by attacking via the slot receiver.

Best Slot Cornerbacks 2020 Draft

  • The Post’s Ryan Dunleavy gives his top 10 cornerbacks in the 2020 NFL Draft: 1. Jeff Okudah, Ohio State, 6-1, 205. Finding flaws here feels like nitpicking. Future All-Pro will shut down.
  • Williams has been a bargain: He has emerged as one of the NFL’s best slot cornerbacks since signing a modest three-year extension in 2017 that included just $5 million guaranteed.

So, without further ado, let’s look at the top cornerbacks in the NFL. Disclaimer: The list below is my opinion, based on the information I’ve gathered from the 2019 season. Top 25 cornerbacks in the NFL 25. Brian Poole, New York Jets.

Guys like Tyreek Hill, Adam Thielen, Keenan Allen, Julian Edelman, Cooper Kupp, and Larry Fitzgerald make a living at dominating mismatches in the slot against outmatched cornerbacks and safeties alike.

The remedy for the top NFL defenses lies with the slot or nickel cornerback, a guy capable of translating that outside cornerback production inside where there’s less room to utilize and less margin for error.

Doug Farrar and Touchdown Wire recently ranked the top-11 slot cornerbacks in the NFL and new Eagles defender, Nickell Robey-Coleman landed high on the list at No. 6.

Though he’s primarily known as the instigator on one of the most infamous non-calls in recent NFL history, Robey-Coleman has been one of the league’s better slot defenders for a while now — he’s one of just three-slot defenders (along with Chris Harris Jr. and Mackensie Alexander) to make this list in both 2019 and 2020. Last season, Robey-Coleman allowed 32 catches on 52 targets for 272 yards, 144 yards after the catch, one touchdown, and an opponent passer rating of 80.1.

Last season with the LA Rams, Robey-Coleman only allowed a passer rating of 80.1 — good for 13th among all CBs– and was sixth in yards per slot coverage snap (0.63), according to Pro Football Focus.

The move greatly improves the Eagles secondary tremendously and he should combine with Darius Slay to help the Birds have one of the secondary’s in the NFL.

Best Slot Cornerbacks 2020

Recently, Mark Schofield and I compiled 14 different lists of the 11 best players at every position. From those names, we then compiled this list of the top 101 players in the NFL today. In this top 101, we forced ourselves to stick to players we had named in the positional lists, to avoid overdoing “skill position players” at the expense of slot cornerbacks, guards and interior defensive linemen. By drawing from a full list of positions as opposed to loading this with the most popular or highest-paid players, hopefully it gives a better and wider sense of the talent around the league than some other lists might.

The top 11 lists: Slot defenders Outside cornerbacks Safeties Linebackers Edge defenders Interior defensive linemen Offensive tackles Offensive guards Centers Outside Receivers Slot receivers Tight ends Running backs Quarterbacks

That said, this policy made for some weird decisions. Because when you limit yourself to the top 11 players at any position, you’re invariably going to leave some players out who deserve to be in. What if there are three or four really great slot cornerbacks, and 14 to 15 really great quarterbacks? You still have to leave Ryan Tannehill and Matthew Stafford off the list, which seems odd. Or, if Stefon Diggs doesn’t make your top 11 in a league where the group of outside receivers is absolutely stacked, you have to omit him, too. Not ideal.

Why 11 instead of 10? As the noted musical philosopher Nigel Tufnel once noted, it’s one louder.

But as they say, perfect is the enemy of good, and we wanted to stick with this particular paradigm. So, there are quite a few honorable mentions who didn’t make it, but certainly would have if the list were 10 to 20 players longer (and louder).

Best Slot Cornerbacks 2020 2021

Chris Carson, Mark Ingram, Joe Mixon, Austin Hooper, Tyler Higbee, Dallas Goedert, Hunter Henry, Darren Waller, Jared Cook, Kenny Golladay, Joel Bitonio, Graham Glasgow, Richie Incognito, Brandon Scherff, Ryan Kelly, Jason Kelce, Alex Mack, Nickell Robey-Coleman, Jaylon Smith, Deion Jones, Cory Littleton, La’el Collins, Laremy Tunsil, and Taylor Lewan are among the players who just missed the cut. This should in no way be seen as us maligning their value as players… it’s just that there are only so many slots for any of these guys.

Best Slot Cornerbacks 2020 Draft

So, here are the ones who did make the cut. Here is Touchdown Wire’s list of the top 101 players heading into the 2020 NFL season.

Best Slot Cornerbacks 2020 Draft

The Top 101: 101-91 90-81 80-71 70-61 60-51 50-41 40-31 30-21 20-11 10-1