*Walt taking 2014 and 2018 |
Charlie Campbell, Senior Draft Analyst |
Several Teams Have Graded Just One First-Round Cornerback
Updated March 3, 2019By Charlie Campbell. Follow Charlie on Twitter @draftcampbell.
Outside of the defensive line, there are several positions in the 2019 NFL Draft that are not as talented as typical years, and one of those positions is cornerback. Some teams only have one cornerback with a first-round grade, and that can vary as to which cornerback. However, across a handful of teams, the top consensus cornerback was DeAndre Baker from Georgia, and others like LSU’s Greedy Williams and Washington’s Byron Murphy were getting a lot of second-round grades.
“We only had one corner get a first-round grade. That was Baker from Georgia,” said a NFC general manager. “We have Greedy [Williams], Byron [Murphy], and Rock [Ya-Sin] graded in round two.”
An AFC general manager said he had the players graded the same. He felt that Williams was graded in the second for them, and he said he was one of the most overrated players in the draft. Another top scout from an AFC team said they had Williams in the second frame as well because he lacks strength, gets bumped and out-physicaled, can’t play inside, lacks instincts and awareness, doesn’t have feel or make plays in off man coverage, and lacks the speed a team would want for a 180-pounder.
An AFC director of college scouting said something similar: “Baker is the only corner we have graded in the first, but I think Greedy could slip into the first round.”
Another AFC director of college scouting texted, “Yes there is only one first-round corner for us on an evaluation perspective, but I think three will go in the first round: Baker, Williams, Murphy.”
There are lots of teams that need help at cornerback, so even though teams may only have one first-round-graded cornerback, there could easily be more than one gets selected in the opening frame.
