If you want to know how variable cornerback performance can be from year to year, consider the case of Atlanta Falcons cornerback A.J. Terrell. In 2021, Terrell was one of the NFL’s best cornerbacks, allowing 29 catches on 66 targets for 200 yards, 93 yards after the catch, three touchdowns, three interceptions, 13 pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 47.5. One season later, Terrell gave up 39 catches on 68 targets for 430 yards, 142 yards after the catch, a league-high nine touchdowns, no interceptions, eight pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 115.8.
Or consider the case of J.C. Jackson. The former Patriots UDFA star never allowed an opponent passer rating lower than 62.7 over four seasons in New England. Then, he signed a five-year, $82.5 million contract with the Chargers, and between schematic issues and injuries, Jackson allowed 198 catches on 27 targets for 370 yards, 72 yards after the catch, four touchdowns, no interceptions, and an opponent passer rating of 152.4 — in just five games.
From year to year, cornerback performance can be as volatile as you can possibly imagine, for all kinds of reasons. The same cornerback on the same team in a system supposedly set up to help him succeed can see his performance fluctuate wildly from season to season.
For those cornerbacks who made this year’s list — Patrick Surtain II, Marlon Humphrey, Darius Slay, Jaire Alexander, and Jalen Ramsey — it’s a case of beating the odds. This means that there are seven new players on this year’s list, which is about par for the course.
The criteria for inclusion on this year’s list were…
- A majority of snaps at outside cornerback. If you’re primarily a slot defender, we have a separate list for you!
- A good balance between man and zone coverage performance. If you’re off-balance to one side, it’ll affect things here, just as it does on the field.
- Similarly, a good balance between the abilities in press and off coverage will serve you well here, as it does in the National Football League.
- If you are prone to following top receivers across the formation, as opposed to playing one side of the field no matter what, that’ll help your case a bit.
- Splash plays are great, but there are cornerbacks who get a lot of interceptions and give up even more big plays. Today’s NFL is about creating and preventing explosive plays, so how good are you at the latter?
This is the second in our positional rankings series, which concludes with our list of the 101 best players in the NFL today.
(All advanced metrics courtesy of Pro Football Focus and Sports Info Solutions unless otherwise indicated).
11. Jalen Ramsey, Miami Dolphins
One of the most fascinating topics for the 2023 season is how Jalen Ramsey will fit in Vic Fangio’s defense. The Dolphins acquired Ramsey from the Rams in March for a 2023 third-round pick and tight end Hunter Long, which seems like a light haul for a Los Angeles franchise in obvious rebuild mode — especially since Ramsey’s 2023 cap hit is less than $3 million. The numbers go up considerably in 2024 and beyond, but… well, here we are. That’s now Miami’s problem.
It’s a good short-term deal for a cornerback who will turn 29 on October 24, and had an up-and-down season in 2022. Ramsey allowed 56 catches on 86 targets for 712 yards, 234 yards after the catch, seven touchdowns, four interceptions, 11 pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 98.6. Good for body temperature, perhaps not so good for coverage. It was a down season after Ramsey’s 2021, in which he allowed 72 catches on 117 targets for 873 yards, 354 yards after the catch, five touchdowns, four interceptions, 15 pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 84.5. Ramsey, as on and off as his coverage style has always been, was a primary reason the Rams nabbed their second Lombardi Trophy as a franchise at the end of the 2021 season.
How will he fare in Miami’s quest for a Lombardi? Fangio tends to align his schemes for what best fits his players (what a concept), so you could see a lot of zone coverage. Last season, Ramsey allowed an opponent passer rating of 71.3 in zone, and 149.1 in man. This in a heavy two-high, light-box, low-blitz Rams defense, which mirrored a lot of the Fangio trademarks.
At this point in his career, Ramsey is ideally more of a “roamer” and overhang cornerback than a pure press-man or press-match defender. Like a lot of bigger cornerbacks, he can get turned around pretty easily against receivers with quick moves, and playing in off-coverage mitigates that to a degree. Only one of Ramsey’s interceptions in 2022 came when he was pressing the receiver, and that happened against the Seattle Seahawks in Week 18, when he got in front of D.K. Metcalf in Cover-3 on a crossing route.
If you want Ramsey to work press-man against the NFL’s better receivers, your best hope is to have him establish inside leverage to the boundary, with that boundary acting as an extra defender. In instances like this in Week 1 against Buffalo’s Stefon Diggs out of Cover-1, Ramsey’s just fine.
The back of the end zone also works as an extra defender, as it did on this pass breakup against the Packers and receiver Christian Watson in Week 15. Ramsey can completely envelop receivers when he’s converging upon them with the right speed and leverage.
As Ramsey showed from the slot against Davante Adams of the Raiders in Week 13, he’s also great when he can come down and break things up.
Ramsey could propel himself up this list in 2023, or he could fall into the “Honorable Mention” category. It will be fascinating to see how it goes.
10. Patrick Peterson, Pittsburgh Steelers
The 33-year-old Peterson made the 10th panel on our best cornerbacks list with a renaissance season in which he allowed 48 catches on 80 targets for 584 yards, 198 yards after the catch, five touchdowns, five interceptions, nine pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 77.3 — the lowest passer rating he’s allowed in a season since the 65.5 he put up in 2015. In addition, Peterson did all this on a defense run by Ed Donatell that did very little to help its players with pressure schemes and coverage switches — Donatell was partying like it’s 1999, and in this case, that wasn’t a good thing.
Nonetheless, Peterson was great in both zone and man coverage (he had an opponent passer rating of 54.2 in zone coverage, and a 67.4 passer rating allowed in man), and he put on a series of clinics in the 2022 season regarding how to deal with some of the NFL’s best receivers.
This Cover-3 rep against Isaiah Hodgins of the Giants in Week 16 was teach tape in how to slow-roll a quarterback on a crosser, and then to get the ball at the ideal second.
And this red zone interception of Josh Allen in Week 10 shows how Peterson can break off his original assignment (erasing Isaiah McKenzie to the boundary), and then read Allen’s scramble drill to pick off the pass to tight end Dawson Knox.
A lot of older football players will tell you that they wish they could tie the wisdom of experience to the benefits of youthful athleticism. Peterson, who signed a two-year, $14 million contract with the Steelers this offseason, appears to be the rare athlete to bridge that gap.
9. Marlon Humphrey, Baltimore Ravens
Selected 16th overall in the 2017 draft by Baltimore out of Alabama, Humphrey had developed into one of the NFL’s best do-it-all cornerbacks with his ability to play both outside and in the slot, but the 2022 season is the one where the Ravens needed him outside more than he’d ever played before — 823 snaps, with just 168 inside. The transition was no problem, as Humphrey allowed 50 catches on 74 targets for 586 yards, 150 yards after the catch, no touchdowns, three interceptions, two pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 74.5.
One of Humphrey’s most valuable attributes — and it’s why he’s particularly great in man coverage — is his ability to blanket his receiver throughout the route with no safety help. It’s one of the things that separates good from great at the position, and Humphrey has it on lock both outside (as he proved against Amari Cooper of the Browns in Week 15 on this end zone breakup)…
…and in the slot (as he did on this interception of a Baker Mayfield attempt to Shi Smith of the Panthers in Week 11).
Humphrey may not receive the praise common to most cornerbacks at his level, but make no mistake — he’s one of the NFL’s best, wherever you line him up.
8. Tariq Woolen, Seattle Seahawks
In 2011, the Seahawks selected a cornerback in the fifth round who was a receiver convert from college, and had played two seasons at his new position. That guy was Richard Sherman, and things turned out pretty well.
In 2022, the Seahawks selected a cornerback in the fifth round who was a receiver convert from college, and had played two seasons at his new position. That guy was Tariq Woolen… and so far, so good.
Never let it be said that the Seahawks don’t have a type!
Woolen wasn’t going to win Defensive Rookie of the Year in a season where Sauce Gardner was doing everything he was doing, but for a lowball pick from the University of Texas at San Antonio, Woolen’s transition to the NFL was more seamless than just about anybody could have expected. In his rookie season, Woolen took his ungodly athleticism to the next level, becoming more and more of a complete cornerback. Overall, he allowed 42 completions on 76 targets for 637 yards, 233 yards after the catch, five touchdowns, six interceptions, 10 pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 72.1.
From his first regular-season game, Woolen proved to be every bit the lockdown press cornerback you’d expect from a 6-foot-4, 205-pound guy who can blaze a 4.26 40-yard dash. Denver’s Courtland Sutton, trying to hit Woolen on a vertical route outside the numbers to the end zone, found that out pretty quickly.
As the season progressed, Woolen became more nuanced in his coverage abilities, like when he followed Rams receiver Tutu Atwell on this outside vertical route out of motion. Most cornerbacks Woolen’s size can have issues working smaller receivers step-for-step, but Woolen showed here that it was no problem.
And on this Brock Purdy pass to Jauan Jennings in the wild-card round, Woolen showed exactly what recovery speed looks like.
Woolen has the capacity to outrun his occasional mistakes in coverage, but as his game continues to develop, he’ll simply be the fastest guy on the field, and the kind of cornerback no receiver wants to deal with.
7. D.J. Reed Jr., New York Jets
In 2021, the Jets ranked dead last in the NFL in Defensive DVOA, and dead last against the pass. They managed to engineer an uptick to fifth overall in 2022, third in Weighted DVOA (which means that they got better as the season went along), and fourth against the pass. Two transactions were key to this stunning improvement: The selection of Cincinnati cornerback Ahmad “Sauce” Gardner with the fourth overall pick in the 2022 draft (more on him in a minute), and the decision to sign former 49ers and Seahawks cornerback D.J. Reed Jr. to a three-year, $33 million deal with $18 million guaranteed in 2022.
Perhaps that was too rich for Seattle, but Reed had been very good for the Seahawks in 2021, allowing 35 catches on 68 targets for 383 yards, 114 yards after the catch, two touchdowns, two interceptions, six pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 66.0. As a pointman in that improved Jets defense in 2022, Reed allowed 47 catches on 83 targets for 467 yards, 120 yards after the catch, two touchdowns, one interception, 10 pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 75.7.
Reed was a bit more vulnerable in man coverage last season (a 99.3 passer rating allowed) than in zone (55.3), but he had enough quality reps in man and match to establish himself as a top-tier cornerback. On this rep against Justin Jefferson of the Vikings in Week 13, Reed followed Jefferson through his route in off-man in Cover-1, and that reception wasn’t happening.
And on this Josh Allen pass to Stefon Diggs in Week 9 against the Bills, Reed stayed with Diggs on one of those nasty vertical shake routes he runs, and broke the ball up 40 yards downfield out of Quarters coverage.
More Cover-4 here, as Reed tracked receiver Demarcus Robinson out of press-bail coverage, and used his match and ball skills to bring in his one interception last season.
6. Patrick Surtain II, Denver Broncos
A funny thing happened on the way to Surtain’s coronation as the NFL’s next great cornerback — the switch from Vic Fangio as the Broncos’ head coach and defensive shot-caller to Ejiro Evero as Denver’s defensive coordinator put a new schematic burden on the second-year man, and it didn’t always go as well as it could have. In 2021, the ninth overall pick from Alabama was in a defense that fit his strengths — it was a man-heavy set of coverages, and Surtain is a dead-red man cornerback above all. In his rookie season, Surtain had 230 coverage snaps in man, and 163 in zone. In 2022, he had 136 coverage snaps in man, and 391 in zone.
The difference was all the difference.
2021: 49 catches on 85 targets for 560 yards, 201 yards after the catch, three touchdowns, four interceptions, eight pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 69.7.
2022: 41 catches on 69 targets for 417 yards, 95 yards after the catch, four touchdowns, two interceptions, seven pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 84.0.
Not that his 2022 season was some sort of disaster — there are those in the NFL who will tell you that Surtain is the NFL’s best cornerback, and there are times when that level of play is very much on display. This Cover-3 rep against the Ravens in Week 13 had him chasing Demarcus Robinson all over the field for the deflection.
But when Surtain is in press-man, as he was against Mike Williams of the Chargers in Week 6, he’s just about impossible to shake through the route. It’s just that you’d like to see more of it from a player in Surtain who is so gifted and developed in press concepts.
Here’s Exhibit B: Surtain absolutely enveloping Davante Adams on a quick slant against the Raiders in Week 4, leaving Derek Carr’s first read in turmoil.
We’ll see if new defensive coordinator Vance Joseph has more aggressive man coverage in mind — he went back and forth with it during his four years as the Cardinals’ defensive coordinator from 2019 through 2022. It would certainly benefit the best player in Joseph’s new secondary.
5. Jaycee Horn, Carolina Panthers
At 6-foot-1 and 200 pounds, with a 77th percentile wingspan and a 93rd percentile arm length, Horn would seem to be a natural in press man coverage. The interesting thing about his 2022 tape, therefore, is how well he played in soft and off coverage, which he did most of the time, and certainly on most of the plays he prevented.
Horn’s overall numbers were great — 28 catches allowed on 47 targets for 310 yards, 83 yards after the catch, no touchdowns, three interceptions, three pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 52.6 — but when you watch his 2022 tape, it’s really his growth and development in all schemes and concepts that stood out — and made him one of the NFL’s best overall cornerbacks.
Off-coverage defenders need to do more than just stay attached to their first assignments, and on this interception against the Seahawks in Week 14, Horn showed no issue with that idea as he followed D.K. Metcalf on his quick out, and then tore upfield to take Tyler Lockett on his deeper fade. When you can cover the outside and the slot receiver to one side in the same rep, that’s good football.
Of course, Horn can play press just fine — against the Broncos in Week 12, Horn took Courtland Sutton through the Velcro Machine all the way though his route, to Russell Wilson’s extreme consternation.
There’s also the matter of Horn as a blitzer and pass-tipping artist; it’s all part of the skill set that has Horn as one of the best at his position, with nothing but upside on the way.
4. Jaire Alexander, Green Bay Packers
The Packers ranked 18th overall in defensive DVOA in 2022, ninth against the pass, and first overall against No. 1 receivers. What should that tell you? That in a defense that didn’t always make sense under Joe Barry, Jaire Alexander was his usual outstanding self, allowing 43 catches on 71 targets for 572 yards, 188 yards after the catch, two touchdowns, five interceptions, eight pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 66.2. And there was no doubt as to who was going to carry every opponent’s best receiver — that is, when Barry would let that happen.
When Alexander was on Jefferson in Week 17, the Packers were more in lockdown mode — go figure. That included this pass deflection on this fade ball from Kirk Cousins that Alexander helped keep out of the NFL’s best hands.
Against the Eagles in Week 12, Alexander turned this Jalen Hurts pass to DeVonta Smith into a no-go by draping himself all over Hurts’ receiver.
And on this Week 9 interception against the Lions, Alexander broke off his assignment covering receiver Kalif Raymond on a deep vertical route to take Amon-Ra St. Brown on the deep over.
Alexander would still be one of the NFL’s better cornerbacks if he wasn’t tasked so often to cover the best receivers of his opponents; that’s just a value add that catapults him into the top five.
3. Darius Slay, Philadelphia Eagles
In the 2022 season, Slay allowed 47 catches on 83 targets for 559 yards, 162 yards after the catch, five touchdowns, three interceptions, nine pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 82.4.
Slay is heading into his 11th NFL season, and that level of experience is something you just have to acquire over time. Slay’s ability to shut down Justin Jefferson of the Minnesota Vikings, probably the NFL’s best receiver, in Week 2 of the 2022 season, stands as a prime example of what happens when a cornerback has the athleticism of youth, and the acumen only a veteran can acquire.
Slay had two interceptions and three pass breakups in that game with Jefferson as the target, and all were based on Slay’s understanding of not only his position, but also his understanding of Jefferson’s.
“When you’re a young and talented guy, man, you think everything works,” Slay later explained on the “All Things Covered” podcast with Bryant McFadden and Patrick Peterson. “I’ve played this game so long — I know what you’re gonna do. I know your tendencies, I know what you like the most,” Slay said. “He had a lot of tales for me to steal on film. Young guys don’t see, but I see that because I like to watch film a lot. Every tale I did was truthful.
“The first pass breakup I had, it made me confirm that’s what he does. That early? It’s gonna be a long night for anybody. No matter what type of talent you have or how much better you feel like you are than me, that means I really got your tale on what you do.
“What I watched on film and what I watch how his release is… that’s why I made the plays I did.”
Slay’s first deflection of a Jefferson target came with 7:48 left in the first quarter, and you can see that as soon as Jefferson established his intent to go to the boundary with his release, Slay countered with sticky inside leverage that wasn’t affected by Jefferson’s quick comeback — even when Slay stumbled at the top of the route for a millisecond.
“I’m a guy that just needs to determine whether a guy does an outside release or inside release,” Slay concluded. “From what I watched from Jefferson, he had certain releases that he liked to do. I just knew for a fact that most likely a lot of his routes were inside breaking routes — just because the team does inside breaking routes.
“If you watch the Rams, they do a lot of inside breaking routes. When he takes an inside release, there’s a good chance he’s going to do an inside route. I just knew that off the splits, so I kind of got a little ahead of the game.”
That understanding of tendencies allowed Slay to run Jefferson’s route better than Jefferson did on Slay’s first interception with 10:01 left in the third quarter. Slay basically put himself where Kirk Cousins thought his receiver would be, and Jefferson was the odd man out — quite literally.
Slay’s second interception of the day, which came with 7:16 left in the fourth quarter, came from a similar construct — when Jefferson made it clear he was going outside on the fade ball, Slay knew exactly where he was supposed to be.
So, while Slay’s physical attributes are part of what makes him a special defender, it’s really his football intelligence, clearly based on thousands of reps and hours of tape study, that sets him apart.
2. Ahmad "Sauce" Gardner, New York Jets
The 2022 Defensive Rookie of the Year in a landslide, Sauce was the boss from his first regular-season game, when he allowed one catch on three targets against the Ravens, and had this deflection in Cover-3 against tight end Mark Andrews on an over route.
In Week 3, Gardner bombed Ja’Marr Chase on this vertical route with no safety help in Quarters coverage. The Bengals did a nice job of affecting the safety strength away from Chase with their route concepts, but it didn’t matter, because Gardner was already playing like the top-tier pass defender he was.
By Week 17, Gardner was drawing a bead on Seattle’s D.K/ Metcalf, and he probably would have had two more interceptions on the season were it not for his own safeties bumping into him in coverage. That happened on this fade ball…
…and this rep in the end zone.
Overall, Gardner allowed 34 catches on 74 targets for 361 yards, 105 yards after the catch, one touchdowns, two interceptions, 10 pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 53.9. He was equally devastating in man and zone coverage, and if he’s No. 1 on next year’s cornerback list, it should not surprise anybody at all.
1. James Bradberry, Philadelphia Eagles
They say that you’re remembered for the last thing you did. James Bradberry probably wishes that wasn’t the case, and in his case, it would be unfair. The holding penalty Bradberry drew with 1:54 in Super Bowl LVII set the Chiefs up to win the game with no response time for Bradberry’s Eagles, and that was unfortunate. It also eclipsed a season that was Bradberry’s best by far. From a coverage standpoint, it’s actually easy to argue that Bradberry was the NFL’s best cornerback in the 2022 season, and that’s pretty much what we’re doing here.
Last season, Bradberry allowed 46 catches on 98 targets for 489 yards, 159 yards after the catch, two touchdowns, four interceptions, 12 pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 51.8 — the lowest among any NFL cornerback who played at least 50% of his team’s snaps in 2022.
Moreover, Bradberry was scheme-agnostic. In man coverage, he gave up 14 catches on 40 targets for 150 yards, 50 yards after the catch, no touchdowns, no interceptions, three pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 46.9. In zone coverage, he allowed 27 catches on 49 targets for 326 yards, 97 yards after the catch, all four of his interceptions, six pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 41.7.
The former Giants cornerback, who was sloughed off in a salary-cap move, really loved to torment his former team in 2022. There was this on-the-spot interception of a Daniel Jones pass to Darius Slayton in the divisional round out of Cover-4…
…and this deflection of a Jones crosser to Kenny Golladay out of Cover-1 in Week 18.
Bradberry wasn’t just into beating up on the Giants, though — in his fourth game with the Eagles after signing a one-year, $7.25 million contract, he was already jumping routes out of Cover-3, as he did on this interception of a Trevor Lawrence pass to Christian Kirk. Here, you see Bradberry’s understanding of the entire route palette.
This offseason, Bradberry signed a three-year, $38 million contract with $20 million guaranteed to stay with the Eagles, and he should be able to keep up all that great coverage.
Just maybe let his last game go… if you can.
Honorable mentions
Trevon Diggs, Dallas Cowboys
Stephon Gilmore, Dallas Cowboys
Jamel Dean, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Chidobe Awuzie, Cincinnati Bengals
Stephon Gilmore, Dallas Cowboys
Asante Samuel Jr., Los Angeles Chargers
Jonathan Jones, New England Patriots
Alontae Taylor, New Orleans Saints
Denzel Ward, Cleveland Browns
Tre’Davious White, Buffalo Bills
