Pro Football Focus‘ position-by-position rankings from the offseason saw a New York Jets player land in a respectable position at outside cornerback.
In the head-to-head PFF list with other players from across the NFL, defensive back DJ Reed was slotted in at the No. 23 spot.
Overall, that landed Reed in their Tier 4 cornerback category, which translates to “good players with boom-or-bust tendencies.”
First, here’s the breakdown from the football analytics outlet:
Reed’s NFL career took off in Seattle at outside cornerback after he spent two years in San Francisco playing safety and nickel with limited reps. Since 2020, the 5-foot-9, 188-pounder ranks ninth in the NFL in outside coverage grade. Reed will now try to sustain that level of play in 2022 with the Jets, reuniting with former defensive coordinator Robert Saleh in a defense he has great familiarity with. While the 2018 fifth-rounder has the requisite length despite being on the shorter side, he still is scheme-limited and not a cornerback you want playing straight press-man. Reed will have to do a little bit more of that in New York, but it shouldn’t be too drastic to ruin his current trajectory.
Reed’s actually in some promising territory in Tier 4. Others in the same category include the Dallas Cowboys’ Trevon Diggs (21), Miami Dolphins’ Byron Jones (20) and Jacksonville Jaguars’ Shaquill Griffin (25).
If the Jets get 23rd best quality out of Reed, his three-year deal in New York could be a massive success. With the high expectations attached to rookie corner Sauce Gardner, the Jets might soon have one of the best young cornerback tandems roaming their secondary.
Reed, 25, played in Pete Carroll’s defense with the Seattle Seattle the past two seasons after starting his NFL career in Robert Saleh’s San Francisco 49ers unit from 2018-2019. The former fifth-round pick finished the 2021 season with the eighth-best PFF grade at 78.6.
Reed, 25, finished with two interceptions each of the past two seasons with 17 passes defended in that time frame.
