Thor Nystrom’s 2023 NFL Draft Primer: Cornerbacks

In addition to this article about cornerbacks, you can check out my deep dives on positions below, starting with quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, and offensive linemen. I’ll continue to provide 2023 NFL Draft coverage, culminating in my top-500 NFL Draft rankings and big board ahead of the first pick being announced later this month.

• Thor Nystrom’s 2023 NFL Draft Primer: Quarterbacks | Running Backs | Wide Receivers | Tight Ends | Inside Offensive Linemen | Offensive Tackles | Inside Defensive Linemen | Linebackers
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• Dynasty Rookie Primers: QB | RB | WR | TE
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• Latest Dynasty Rookie Mock Draft

Thor Nystrom’s 2023 NFL Draft Primer: Cornerbacks

1. Devon Witherspoon | Illinois | 5114/181 | RAS: N/A
Player comparison: Darius Slay

Witherspoon has one of the craziest recruiting stories in this class. He quit football to focus on basketball in the seventh grade. Witherspoon believed his athletic future was at point guard.

For the next four years, Witherspoon focused on that goal alone. But heading into his junior year of high school, Witherspoon’s mother asked him if he would give football one more shot – for her. A momma’s boy, Witherspoon did as he was asked.

Despite weighing only 140 pounds at the time, and despite his long layoff from the sport, Witherspoon won a starting safety job immediately, and went on to pick off four balls. As a senior, the staff moved Witherspoon to corner. They wanted him to shadow the opponent’s best receiver.

Witherspoon responded with seven interceptions. He took the attacking mentality he’d played with at safety to his new spot on the boundary. Witherspoon aggressively stepped up to stop the run, and laid out a procession of ball-carriers who outweighed him.

Witherspoon’s play in 2018 as a senior earned him the Pensacola News Journal Male Athlete of the Year award. But the accolades failed to impress recruiting services. Every single one graded Witherspoon as a zero-star recruit. Witherspoon’s size – 150 pounds – was a mitigating factor, as was initially not being academically eligible.

So Witherspoon enrolled at Hutchinson (Kansas) Community College and moved across the country in July 2019. Just one day after he arrived, Witherspoon was stunned to learn that the score of his last SAT test had risen enough to academically qualify him to play FBS football.

Zero-star recruit or not, Witherspoon’s play had gotten him onto the radar of several G5 programs. Academic uncertainty had muddled those plans. But news of the SAT results changed that. Nine G5 programs immediately sent Witherspoon scholarship offers, including Appy State, Troy and UAB.

As he was considering his options in late-July, Witherspoon got another shocking phone call. On the other end of the line was the Illinois Fighting Illini, coming off a brutal 4-8 campaign. They had an open scholarship left, and had been scouring the country for a developmental prospect who had slipped through the cracks to give it to.

The Illini, coached at the time by an old NFL defensive guru named Lovie Smith, wanted to know if Devon Witherspoon wanted it. He jumped on it. “I had to take my shot,” Witherspoon would later say.

Witherspoon packed up the belongings he had only just unpacked and made travel arrangements for Champaign. Witherspoon arrived on campus a few weeks later, in early-August. When Devon Witherspoon, 5-foot-11 and 150 pounds at the time, walked into the football facility, he was mistaken for a student manager.

Fall camp had already begun so Witherspoon got a late start. He had to pick up the scheme on the fly. The plan was to marinate him for a redshirt year while his body developed.

Witherspoon had other ideas. His teammates stopped cracking jokes about his size as soon as Witherspoon got on the practice field. He was utterly fearless – throwing his tiny frame around as if it was impossible to break.

Lovie Smith couldn’t reason a way to keep the kid off the active roster – he needed playmakers to turn the ship around, and Devon Witherspoon was very clearly one of those. Witherspoon forced his way onto the field as a true freshman as part of the DB rotation.

In October, the hapless Illini were 30.5-point underdogs to No. 6 Wisconsin. But Illinois was hanging tough into the early fourth quarter – only down by a touchdown – when Badgers WR Kendrick Pryor got behind the defense and raced towards the goal line.

But Witherspoon caught Pryor from behind and tackled him at the three. An energized Illini defense forced a field goal. Instead of extending its lead to 27-14, Wisconsin only led 23-14.

Illini’s defense went on to force turnovers on Wisconsin’s next two possessions – including a Jonathan Taylor fumble – and cashed those into 10 points, including the game-winning, walk-off field goal to stun the Badgers 24-23. By the point spread, it was one of the biggest college football upsets of the previous decade.

That was the day Devon Witherspoon became a legend on the Illinois campus. The next season, as a true sophomore, Witherspoon was named a starting cornerback. Lovie Smith said of Witherspoon that fall: “Probably the toughest guy on our team pound-for-pound. No one competes harder than him.”

Smith was fired at the completion of that year – his defense was showing signs of life, but the offense couldn’t get off the mat. So the Illini hired former-Wisconsin HC Bret Bielema to replace him. Witherspoon was an above-average starting Big 10 corner in 2021 under Bielema. It was in 2022 that Witherspoon, now up to 180 pounds, made his star turn.

Witherspoon’s coverage stats last year are legitimately incredible. On 62 targets, he allowed only 22 catches (35.5%) for 206 yards. His 25.3 NFL QB rating on targets is lower than an incompletion. Witherspoon picked off three balls and broke up 14 more.

He actually had one poor showing last year, in Week 2 against Indiana, allowing 103 receiving yards and a season-long 40-yard reception. Over the next 10 games, I can’t recall a more dominant run by a collegiate cornerback. In a freaky bit of symmetry, Witherspoon allowed exactly 103 yards in coverage over those final 10 games of his career – that’s 10.3 receiving yards per game allowed.

On the field, Witherspoon to this day carries the chip on his shoulder from being a zero-star recruit. He’s a bulldog. I wrote in my notes: “So dang competitive … has the Michael Jordan can’t-lose-at-ping-pong gene … takes receptions personally.”

Witherspoon is an instant processor after the ball is snapped. He seems to know what’s coming in advance. He triggers downhill immediately and aggressively on running plays. And he runs receiver’s routes for them in man.

There is no hiccup between the receiver’s route-break and Witherspoon’s movement to match it – a human shadow. Witherspoon is a fluid athlete with exceptional agility. But it goes beyond that: It appears as though receivers have handed him a map of the route they’re about to run before every snap.

Witherspoon always has coverage equilibrium for this reason. He rarely needs to battle back in a rep. He also has a PhD degree in leverage, never getting stacked. This explains why there were no explosive plays allowed on his ledger last year despite his thinner frame and lack of elite athleticism.

When the ball arrives, Witherspoon attacks it. Quarterbacks who had the temerity to challenge Witherspoon last year were statistically nearly as likely to hit Witherspoon’s hands as the intended target’s – in those last 10 games, in fact, it was the more likely outcome.

In the few instances receivers made a catch on him last season, Witherspoon was right there to wrestle them down to erase YAC opportunities before they started. After the Indiana game – over the last 10 games of the 2022 season – Witherspoon didn’t allow a single reception over 16 yards.

Witherspoon’s work in the run game endears himself to anyone who has ever watched him play. He still plays it like a safety, aggressively triggering downhill. Witherspoon is a hitman when he arrives, accelerating through the target at top speed while wrapping up.

Witherspoon’s athleticism was undersold earlier in the process. He has good play speed, and he backed that notion up with a 4.45 forty this spring. He isn’t an elite athlete, but Witherspoon’s processing has the effect of mitigating. If every snap was a foot race, Witherspoon’s football IQ gives him a step (or two or three) head-start.

Don’t make the mistake that the recruiting services did four years ago. Don’t let his frame fool you. Devon Witherspoon is one of the best defenders in this entire class.

2. Joey Porter Jr. | Penn State | 6024/193 | RAS: 9.71
Player comparison: Sauce Gardner

A three-year Big 10 starter like Witherspoon, but the similarities end there. Joey Porter Jr. didn’t sneak up on anyone. Being the namesake of a three-time NFL All-Pro guaranteed that.

Porter Jr. was a four-star recruit who chose Penn State over LSU, Miami, and Nebraska, amongst others. He made the leap to stardom last fall, allowing only 143 receiving yards over 10 games. His 40% forced incompletion rate led the Power 5.

In last year’s opener, Purdue attacked Porter Jr. It’s hard to blame them too much – the year before Porter Jr.’s aggressive nature had drawn 10 flags, and he was beatable in the intermediate area.

So the Boilermakers tried to do just that, throwing 14 balls in his direction. Porter Jr. batted away five of them, and in two other instances was credited with forcing the incompletion – his seven forced incompletions that day is a record for an FBS cornerback in PFF’s nine-year charting history.

The rest of the season, teams went to legitimately comical lengths to avoid Porter Jr. – he was targeted only 16 times over the final nine games of his career! He gave up only nine catches for 77 yards and zero TD over that dominant stretch.

Porter Jr. is the best press-man corner in this class. If that’s what your organization is in the market for, you’re going to prioritize Porter Jr. on the last Thursday night of April.

Porter Jr. didn’t acquire his father’s 248-pound thickness. But he measured into the NFL Combine only a half-inch shorter than pops – with arms a full inch-and-a-half longer! Joey Porter Sr., the Steelers legend, needn’t feel sheepish about his son’s reach advantage. Porter Jr.’s 80 ⅞” wingspan ranks No. 4 among all corners at the NFL Combine going back to 1999.

Interestingly, one of the three guys ahead of him is actually in this draft class – Kansas State’s Julius Brents. Brents has a quarter-inch on Porter in height, but Porter’s 34-inch arms were the exact-same length as Brents’. As with their wingspans, that’s a 99th-plus-percentile datapoint.

Off the snap, Porter Jr.’s length is the pulley that shifts locomotives between tracks. You don’t get to decide your initial path, Porter Jr. does that for you. And he has a sumo wrestler’s dogma for moving his man towards the (side)line.

Porter Jr. isn’t as explosive or agile as the four corners who join him among the consensus top-five corners in the class. And that stuff showed up on his 2021 film. Porter isn’t as effective over the middle in space as he is along the sideline.

But he did make a leap in that area last year. Porter Jr. throws violent hands – they’re like tasers attached to his Stretch Armstrong arms. Those startling punches hinder the momentum of receivers who try to avoid his sideline alley by jutting inside on him.

That still remains the most viable strategy to beating Porter Jr. – but as became clear last season, it has become far less so. And good luck trying to beat him downfield. When you’ve been funneled to the boundary and Porter Jr. has inside leverage, you’ve lost all element of surprise – there is no space for you to maneuver.

Porter Jr. ran a 72nd-percentile 4.46 forty during the pre-draft process. The film is finite on this matter: He has the juice to carry downfield. Porter Jr. is a long-strider who chews up ground quickly when he gears-up.

Even if you win a step or two on him on your fly route, Porter Jr.’s length can erase your advantage when he throws those long arms up like broomsticks, poking balls out of the sky. Porter Jr. slashes the offense’s odds on 50/50 balls, disincentivizing them from even trying.

When Porter Jr. is in good position at the catch point, he makes receiver-esque plays on the ball. He has a very good feel for reading the receiver’s eyes to snap his head around for the ball. One area in need of work: Catching the ball. Porter Jr. gets his hands on so many, but had several drops during his career. If he starts catching those, watch out.

I appreciate Porter Jr.’s instincts in recognizing offensive subterfuge. Notice how difficult Porter Jr. is to bait. Watch how quickly Porter Jr. smells a rat on screens. Watch every snap of his 2022 film and see how many times you can spot him out of position.

During Antoine Winfield Jr.’s process, he explained that his instincts came from watching film with his father as a child. Porter Jr.’s football IQ comes from a similar lifetime apprenticeship under a master craftsman.

Porter Jr. brings the lunch pail in run defense. When he arrives, he brings an enormous fisherman’s net of a tackling-radius with him and usually doesn’t miss, converting over 90% of his tackle chances in college.

On perimeter concepts with pulling blockers and on screen passes, if Porter Jr. doesn’t have a clear path to the solo tackle, he admirably uses his body as a human grenade to take out the front of the envoy. You can almost feel his father beaming when he does.

Porter Jr.’s weaknesses all tie back to the same aggressive nature most of his strengths flower out of. He plays with exemplary verve but needs to tighten up on the YOLO ball. In coverage, his physical nature can cross the demarcation point and draw flags.

That was the big problem in 2021. But last year, he made enormous strides in this area, slashing the penalties from 10 to three. He is beginning to learn how to play bully-ball within the framework of the rules. And I’m betting the improvement has only just begun.

3. Christian Gonzalez | Oregon | 6013/197 | 9.95
Player comparison: Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie

Gonzalez is another press-man corner. But he’s on the opposite end of the play-style spectrum from Joey Porter Jr. Porter’s game is length and physicality. Gonzalez’s game is finesse and movement.

Gonzalez made the interesting decision to sign with Colorado in 2019 as a four-star recruit out of Texas. He started immediately. Gonzalez’s game took a step forward in 2021, with his PFF grade of 57.5 as a true freshman spiking to 71.2.

When Colorado CB coach Demetrice Martin left for Oregon last offseason, Gonzalez hitched a ride to Eugene along with him. This was an inspired decision. Surrounded by a superior supporting cast, Gonzalez’s game made the leap. His decision to declare early for the NFL Draft was a no-brainer.

Gonzalez is one of the most impressive athletes in this entire draft class. The former track star has a high-octane combination of size, athleticism, and fluidity. Gonzalez is an effortless mover who wastes zero motion, a residual benefit of his track background.

You aren’t going to get one over on his feet or wheels. Fly routes against Joey Porter Jr. are a one-way ticket into deep waters. Fly routes against Gonzalez are like trying to drag race a fighter jet.

Gonzalez’ best trait is his ability to limit explosive plays. He only gave up one reception over 40 yards in his entire career. Gonzalez swivels seamlessly from backpedal to top-gear-the-other-way, and lets his athleticism take over from there.

Very good understanding of leverage down the sideline. He crowds the receiver towards the boundary and stays in his pocket. And when he needs it, Gonzalez has breathtaking recovery speed.

Gonzalez doesn’t shirk his run responsibilities. One subtle nuance I appreciate up in this area is Gonzalez takes direct paths. He’s willing to engage with blockers. Gonzalez has also shown the ability to weave through traffic to the target, a skill perhaps honed through his special teams work.

I love everything about his profile up until this point. But I had enough reservations about the rest of it that I had no choice but to rank him slightly below Porter Jr.

Gonzalez has looser hips than Porter Jr., as well as the agility edge. But Gonzalez isn’t a joystick side-to-side mover, and he struggles with the same sort of routes in the intermediate area that Porter Jr. did in the past.

Gonzalez’ acceleration rallies him back into more reps, but Porter Jr.’s off-the-line game finds him in defecits less often. Gonzalez and Porter Jr. both skipped the agility drills, and were correct in doing so.

Gonzalez is several levels below Porter Jr. in play strength. Gonzalez isn’t soft – but his lack of muscle can get him bullied at the catch-point by bigger, stronger receivers. Gonzalez has that wiry lower-half of the star sprinter he once was. He’s built for speed, not power.

That mitigates Gonzalez’ impact at the contact point, which is how some of his tackle attempts were sloughed in college. There’s a clearer path to fixing the other reason accounting for Gonzalez’ 10.6% career missed tackle rate – refining his technique in that beat or two before the collision.

In those final beats before contact, Gonzalez needs to start eschewing his upright, thin runner’s stance. Instead, he needs to widen, unlock the power in his hips, and lower his pad level.

Too many of his attempts aim high and rely on the strength of his arms. That’s a losing bet. He also doesn’t have the tackling radius of guys like Porter Jr. or Brents. Gonzalez’ wingspan is only a quarter-inch longer than the group average of my top-15 CBs in this class (the rest of that list is below).

Gonzalez showed significant improvement in this area last season, with only three missed attempts. But another technical leap is going to be required to sustain that progress at the next level if Gonazlez’s play strength is indeed capped.

Gonzalez is slick at diving low to swipe the legs of ball-carriers like Daniel LaRussa. But for all the attempts where it isn’t feasible or advisable to leave his feet, Gonzalez needs to fine-tune the approach.

My biggest issue with Gonzalez’s game is that he’s a mediocre processor. I have no issues with his pursuit energy. But he’s far slower to trigger downhill into it than the two prospects I list above him.

Gonzalez appears to have horse-blinders on at the line, locked onto his man. His tape offered too many occurrences of the receiver having to physically engage for Gonzalez to realize it was a run play.

In coverage, Gonzalez is slow to recognize route patterns. That’s a skill Witherspoon needed to develop over the years to overcome his thin frame. Gonzalez leaned hard on his athleticism in college to make up for the steps he lost not anticipating.

Gonzalez has an energetic back-pedal. But he continues for a revolution longer than necessary when the receiver makes his break. Gonzalez reacts when receivers give him irrefutable evidence. That delays his transition, ultimately opening up a pocket of separation.

As mentioned earlier, Gonzalez’s acceleration can help him erase the deficit. But not when the ball is out quick enough. That’s another scouting point the NFL will zero in on until it’s corrected.

Collegiate receivers could get into his head with eye-candy head and shoulder deeks. Pro receivers are going to throw false tells at him like poker sharks. This is why Gonzalez gets beat in the intermediate area despite his elite athleticism.

Gonzalez is so often around the ball when it arrives. But in 30 career games over three seasons as a starter, he coughed up a receiving line of 89-1054-7 with a modest 14 breakups on 155 targets. He allowed an NFL QB rating against under 85.3 in only one season, last season’s 74.7. That was still 11.1 points higher than Porter Jr.’s tally, and multipliers above Witherspoon’s.

That’s a lot of production against a corner like Gonzalez who doesn’t give up explosive receptions. Last year, only three eligible corners from the FBS or FCS in this entire draft class who out-snapped Gonzalez had a lower aDOT on targets. He wasn’t getting attacked deep.

But offenses weren’t scared of challenging him in the intermediate area because of inefficiencies at the route-break. Gonzalez was targeted at least four times in 10-of-12 games, at least five times in 7-of-12, and at least seven times in 4-of-12.

The bugaboo that hurts him at all depths is locating the ball in the air when it’s heading his way. Gonzalez makes flash plays on the ball when he’s squared to the LOS and can break downhill on it. He’s a pick-6 threat in these instances, when he’s already near top speed when the ball hits his hands.

But Gonzalez is very little threat to flip the field when he’s trailing on a route, or in a footrace downfield. For the same reason we mentioned before – he’s tunnel-visioned on the receiver.

In so many instances in college, Gonzalez was right there to bat a pass away or make a legitimate field-flipping attempt. But in many cases, he didn’t get his hands up. In some, he failed to so much as turn his head to find the ball.

Gonzalez won’t turn 21 until late-June. He’s not a finished product. His body isn’t done developing, and NFL coaching should help in the effort to smooth his rough edges. His ceiling is very high. But he’s got work to do to get there, and there’s no guarantee he does.

Best of the rest…

4. Deonte Banks | Maryland | 6000/197 | RAS: 10 | Comp: Eli Apple
5. Cam Smith | South Carolina | 6006/180 | RAS: 9.68 | Comp: Alterraun Verner
6. Emmanuel Forbes | Mississippi State | 6006/166 | RAS: 9.26 | Comp: Jack Jones
7. Julius Brents | Kansas State | 6026/198 | RAS: 9.99 | Comp: Joshua Williams
8. Clark Phillips III | Utah | 5090/184 | RAS: 5.6 | Comp: Mike Hilton
9. DJ Turner | Michigan | 5110/178 | RAS: N/A | Comp: Johnathan Joseph
10. Darius Rush | South Carolina | 6020/198 | RAS: 9.81 | Comp: Alontae Taylor
11. Terell Smith | Minnesota | 6004/204 | RAS: 8.67 | Comp: Sam Webb
12. Riley Moss | Iowa | 6010/193 | RAS: 9.68 | Comp: Coby Bryant
13. Kelee Ringo | Georgia | 6016/207 | RAS: 8.3 | Comp: Trayvon Mullen
14. Cory Trice | Purdue | 6030/206 | RAS: 9.65 | Comp: Brandon Facyson
15. Tyrique Stevenson | Miami | 6000/198 | RAS: 8.94 | Comp: Rock Ya-Sin

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