The NFL's most improved position groups on defense (2024)

(Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports)

Last season, the Arizona Cardinals ranked dead last in Defensive DVOA, and only the Washington Commanders “led” by Jack Del Rio (until Del Rio was fired) and Ron Rivera were worse in DVOA against the pass. Head coach Jonathan Gannon didn’t have a lot to work with in the secondary — safety Jalen Thompson was the only Arizona defensive back in 2023 who allowed an opponent passer rating of less than 80.0, and only Thompson had more than one interception with his four.

So, general manager Monti Ossenfort, assistant GM Dave Sears, and Gannon had a lot they needed to accomplish in the draft. Certainly in terms of draft currency, they did all they could to improve things with the selections of Rutgers cornerback Max Melton with the 43rd overall pick in the second round, Boston College cornerback Elijah Jones with the 90th overall pick in the third round, and Texas Tech safety Dadrion Taylor-Demerson with the 104th overall pick in the fourth round.

Both Melton and Jones are true outside stopper cornerbacks, and Taylor-Demerson has the range to play the deep third, leaving Jalen Thompson to do his thing closer to the line of scrimmage. If all these guys pan out early, the Cardinals could have one of the NFL’s most obviously-transformed secondaries in the 2024 season.

“I had about 20 [minutes] with him,” Gannon said of Max Melton in the pre-draft process. “Just his seriousness and intensity, honestly. This guy’s a very serious person. The mentality that we’re looking for fits the price of admission and [after] having him talk through some things, I could tell he was very well-schooled, well-trained, well-coached, and he understood what they were trying to get done there. I really fell in love with his mindset, his attitude and his demeanor. He walked down and I was like that’s a serious person and I liked that.”.

Last season, Melton allowed 24 catches on 44 targets for 252 yards, 72 yards after the catch, three touchdowns, three interceptions, three pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 65.7.

As for Elijah Jones, he was one of the NCAA’s better true island cornerbacks in this class — he allowed 13 catches on 40 targets for 194 yards, 58 yards after the catch, one touchdown, five interceptions, six pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 18.1 — which means that opposing quarterbacks were better off throwing the ball into the stands than they were trying to get it past Jones.

Taylor-Demerson was one of my favorite defensive backs in this draft, and my favorite deep-third safety. I was happy to see that the Cardinals see him in a similar fashion.

“Absolutely, he’s played safety down there for them,” Ossenfort said of Taylor-Demerson as a deep-third defender. “Really his best attributes I’d say are his range and his ball skills. He really has a nose for the football. I think he’s going to be able to play the deep half of the field and then we’ll see what else he can do. Versatility will come after that, but we think he brings a versatile element and range to the back half of the defense.”

My scouting report agrees.

(Syndication: Detroit Free Press)

The 2023 Detroit Lions were perhaps the NFL’s most fun and fascinating team last season, and they very nearly made it to Super Bowl LVIII despite a cornerback group that allowed 172 completions in 291 targets for 2,583 yards, a league-high 24 touchdowns, eight interceptions, and an opponent passer rating of 104.4. Among cornerback groups last season, only the aforementioned Cardinals (107.8) were worse.

So, when general manager Brad Holmes and his crew went into the 2024 NFL draft, it was pretty clear what needed to happen. First, the Lions simply needed better cornerbacks. Secondly, they needed cornerbacks capable of playing press coverage and man coverage. Defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn, who was a cornerback in the league from 1994 through 2008 with three Pro Bowl nods, and spent his pre-Lions coaching tenure as a defensive backs coach with the Browns and Saints, would prefer that his secondary be more aggressive than it was in 2023. But when your cornerbacks allow 77 catches on 140 targets for 1,250 yards, 12 touchdowns, one interception, and an opponent passer rating of 110.7 in man coverage… well, let’s just say that Glenn’s options were limited in that regard.

Step 1 was to take Alabama cornerback Terrion Arnold with the 24th overall pick. Step 2 was to add to that with the second-round selection (69th overall) of Missouri cornerback Ennis Rakestraw, Jr.

I’m a bit of two minds about Rakestraw, because I can’t get the image of Florida receiver Ricky Pearsall beating him badly in coverage more than once last season. But when you watch Terrion Arnold? That’s a different breed of cat, and his attributes should allow Glenn to better match his personnel to what he wants to call on the field.

“Yeah, he’s sticky,” Holmes said of Arnold. “He can play man coverage. The thing about Terrion, what’s great about him – some of these guys, they are what they are or you might say, ‘Well, the ceiling might not be as high.’ The thing about him is you go back to his ’22 film, you go back to earlier this season, and you saw an incremental improvement just every single game. So I think the first time I watched one of his games was I think it was the LSU game, that’s when I first kind of saw him and I was like, ‘OK, I see skillset.’ But then you start getting down – you start getting to those late games in the college football playoffs and you see him against Georgia and you’re like, ‘OK, it’s on the come.’ And that as well with the skillset. We feel really good about his floor, but we feel even better about his ceiling.”

He’ll get in your face. He’s got a challenge mentality. He will tackle. He’s got the right mindset that we’re looking for. He fits us like a glove. He fits us to a tee exactly how we want to play. We couldn’t be (more) thrilled. Like you guys know, it’s kind of a – when guys don’t play hard, when guys aren’t physical, it’s hard to play here when those guys aren’t wired that way, but he’s one of those guys that are wired that way.”

Arnold doesn’t have to be as wired that way as a lot of cornerbacks do, because when he’s pressed up on a receiver, that receiver is going to have a terrible time dealing with Arnold’s quickness, ability to match step for step, and scalding playing demeanor to the ball. Arnold’s closing speed was a primary ingredient in his five interceptions and 13 pass-breakups last season. Some of the NCAA’s best receivers found it too much to deal with.

And yes. if you catch a ball underneath, good for you, but Arnold will be on his way quickly to make you reconsider.

Every NFL team needs at least one cornerback who becomes frighteningly offended at the thought of any receiver daring to catch the ball against him. The Lions haven’t really had that guy since Darius Slay in 2019. But in Terrion Arnold, they might just have that guy who can make 2024 just a bit more Super Bowl-conversant.

In the most recent edition of “The Xs and Os with Greg Cosell,” Greg was more convinced of Rakestraw’s viability in that secondary, and that’s something to be taken seriously.

(Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

While some teams on this list chose to overhaul their cornerbacks this offseason, the Packers went safety first under new defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley. First, there was the signing of former Giants star Xavier McKinney to a four-year, $67 million contract with $23 million guaranteed. Then in the draft, the Packers got Georgia’s Javon Bullard with the 58th overall pick in the second round. Then, the addition of Oregon State’s Kitan Oladapo with the 169th pick in the fifth round.

Necessary changes for a defense that ranked 27th in 2023, and 25th the year before, under Joe Barry. Moreover, all three players are fairly interchangeable in the defense. This is especially true of Bullard, who transitioned from a slot/box defender in 2022 to a free safety in 2023, and did it all without a hitch. Last season, Bullard allowed 14 catches on 26 targets for 119 yards, 68 yards after the catch, no touchdowns, two interceptions, five pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of

“I think probably his ability to maybe play more nickel than some of those guys,” assistant director of college scouting Patrick Moore said of Bullard’s attributes. “We felt like him at the second level, playing that slot and playing a little bit more nickel, with the ability to play safety as well was probably a strength. Just really we have a good feel for him and who he is and what he’s going to bring to our defense intangible-wise, too. That’s just where we had him stacked.”

“As far as my role, man, just being — really doing whatever the team needed me to do, man,” Bullard told reporters after he was drafted. “It was some cases where as far as my sophom*ore year at nickel, there were some cases where I was more involved in the run game and more involved in blitz packages and things like that and also more involved in man to man coverage, being able to cover slot receivers and things like that. As far as safety, we lost a great player in Chris Smith to the NFL, as well, so like I said, just being that versatile Swiss Army knife that the team needs, whatever they ask me to do, I will definitely do that and I try to do it at a high level.”

Bullard has already proven all of that.

“He’s a little different body type than the other two [McKinney and Bullard], said Jon-Eric Sullivan, vice president of player personnel, of Oladapo. “He’s a big, 6-2, 216-pound kid. Long arms. Aggressive — when he hits you, you go down. He’s a very good athlete at that size. He can pedal, he can flip, he can turn. He’s versatile, more of a true safety but he can play that big nickel or will linebacker if you need him too. The playstyle. Very smart. Captain as well. One, good football player, and two, the kind of person we want to infuse in this locker room.”

Hafley has already said that he wants his cornerbacks to play more aggressively than they did under Barry, which is a pretty low bar. One thing we know for sure is that Hafley’s safeties will be athletic, smart, versatile, and deployed in all kinds of places opponents may not expect.

[Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]

Remember when the Oakland A’s lost Johnny Damon,Jason Giambi, andJason Isringhausenin free agency, and general manager Billy Beane had to replace them in the aggregate? Beane’s successful path led to Moneyball, and now, Rams general manager Les Snead and his crew are having a bit of the same issue.

When Aaron Donald retires, you do not replace him with one human being, because Aaron Donald is not a human being — he is an alien from the planet Destructo. The Rams don’t have Beane’s financial limitations; it’s simply a matter of fact that you don’t ever get an Aaron Donald unless you’re exceedingly fortunate, and when you don’t have an Aaron Donald anymore, you have to replace him in the aggregate.

So in this draft, the Rams set out to do exactly that. They started out by selecting Florida State edge-rusher Jared Verse with their first first-round pick since 2016. Then, in the second round, they took Verse’s teammate, defensive lineman (and combine star) Braden Fiske. Then, with the 154th overall pick in the fifth round, they took Washington State edge-rusher Brennan Jackson, and rounded it all out with Clemson defensive tackle Tyler Davis, taken with the 196th overall pick in the sixth round.

“Yeah, I mean I think when you look at it, to be able to get two guys on the edge, two guys inside that we feel like can affect the game in a positive way, that was something that we had identified,” head coach Sean McVay said after the draft came down. “Obviously Aaron creates a big void. You’re never going to ask somebody to replace that void he created, but you can do that by the unit. So to be able to get Jared, to be able to get Brennan on the edges. The way that they play the game. Then to be able to add Braden and Tyler, we were really excited about that.”

Well, it’s easy to see why. These four players work well on their own, and have the potential to really ace it playing together.

Fiske and Verse already have a serious chemistry, as they showed throughout the 2023 season — especially against Louisville, when they were either stunting or collapsing the pocket together, and nobody had a solid idea of how to stop them from doing it.

“Yeah, if you’re ever bored go start to finish Florida State at Louisville, whatever ACC Championship game,” general manager Les Snead said. “Obviously, Florida State didn’t have a quarterback. They may have been down to their third and it was just pure defense to win the ACC Championship, get their ring, get their trophy because it could have easily gone the other way. It would’ve been a season for naught had they lost it. So, if you’re ever bored, watch those two players in that game. You’ll come back and do a rerun.”

“I think it was interesting because this was Braden’s first year at Florida State so it did take probably, let’s call it first four or five weeks for them to get in tandem, in sync,” Snead said of the on-field link between Verse and Fiske after Fiske transferred from Western Michigan. “And I know even Florida State adjusted a little bit their defensive scheme or what they allowed Braden to do and attack the line of scrimmage, attack some edges. What’s interesting as you watched that team evolve over the course of season and become… when they finished that night in Louisville, one of the really dominant defenses. But you saw that group get in tandem. That was a good defensive line.

“But those two doing their thing, again, with Florida State and allowing them and designing those stunts, twists, whatever we call them. It’s fun to watch.”

As for Brennan Jackson, the Washington State alum had nine sacks and 40 total pressures last season, and while he needs to refine his handwork as most collegiate defensive lineman do, he already brings an inside counter, a formidable bull-rush, and a snatch-and-shed move than can be lethal.

Finally, there’s Tyler Davis, the 6-foot-2, 301-pound fire hydrant who amassed two sacks and 22 total pressures in just 277 pass-rushing reps last season, and did it everywhere from head-over nose tackle to the edge.

And when you add these four gentlemen to last year’s draft picks Byron Young (who had eight sacks and 51 total pressures last season) and Kobie Turner (who was my choice for Defensive Rookie of the Year with his 12 sacks and 50 total pressures), new defensive coordinator Chris Shula has a lot of options in his rotations.

So yes, the Rams’ defensive line has the potential for overall improvement even without the greatest defensive player of his generation. Not a bad outcome, really.

(Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports)

It should surprise no one familiar with Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores’ body of work that Minnesota ranked first in the NFL last season in blitz rate — at 51.5%, they were the only NFL team to bring the house in a relative sense on more than half their defensive snaps. However, their 43 sacks and 21.9% pressure rate were decidedly middle of the pack.

That boom-and-bust problem came from the field to a large degree. In 2023, Danielle Hunter led the Vikings with 18 sacks and 80 total pressures. After that, it was D.J. Wonnum with nine sacks and 38 total pressures. After that? Well, safety Harrison Phillips ranked third on the team with four sacks, and with no disrespect to Mr. Philips, that’s not what you want out of your defense. The Vikings lost Hunter in the offseason to the Houston Texans, so general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah had some work to do, and that would have been the case had he been able to keep Hunter on the roster.

The path started with a switch, as the Vikings signed former Texans edge-rusher Jonathan Greenard to a four-year, $76 million contract with $42 million guaranteed. The former third-round pick out of Florida had a career in 2023 with 14 sacks and 53 total pressures. Greenard doesn’t have Hunter’s explosiveness off the snap, but he does bring a nice combination of power, speed, and pass-rush moves.

Step 2 was the addition of ex-Dolphins defender Andrew Van Ginkel with a two-year, $20 million contractwith $13 million guaranteed. Last season, Van Ginkel had his own career year with eight sacks and 53 total pressures, and he did that at the line and as an off-ball linebacker — which makes his place in Flores’ multiple blitz packages especially interesting.

Then, the Vikings took Alabama edge-rusher Dallas Turner with the 17th overall pick in the draft. Turner has yet to fully develop his pass-rush arsenal, but his skill set is reminiscent of a young Danielle Hunter, and Turner said after he was drafted that he models his game after Hunter’s.

“Because of the body type,” Turner said of Hunter. “He’s not that big. He’s definitely swole, but the body type, he’s not the most fast or athletic dude, but he gets it done every time, so I really see that a lot and watched his film a lot. Some of the moves that he did, I kind of did, too.”

Ideally, this acquisition of riches will make Flores’ defense everything he wants it to be with his aggressive playbook.

(Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports)

The 2023 Eagles allowed 447 completions on 688 attempts for 4,927 yards, 38 touchdowns, just nine interceptions, and an opponent passer rating of 99.0 — third-worst in the league behind the Commanders and Cardinals. That played out in their 32-9 wild-card demolition at the hands of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, when Baker Mayfield lit that defense up like the proverbial pinball machine.

Darius Slay was still solid in coverage last season at age 32, but James Bradberry allowed 10 touchdowns in 2023, the most by any player in the NFL. And there was nobody to pick up the slack. So, as is is wont, general manager Howie Roseman attacked the most prevalent need with the selection of Toledo cornerback and Senior Bowl superstar Quinyon Mitchell 22nd overall in the first round. Then, the Eagles doubled down with Iowa defensive back Cooper DeJean as their second-round pick, 40th overall.

This was the first time the Eagles had selected a cornerback in the first round since they did so with Lito Sheppard out of Florida in 2002. And in Mitchell’s case, it really is most about what he adds as a suffocating outside cornerback.

“He’s obviously got good movement,” new Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio said of his new top man. “He’s got good size for a corner. He’s going to have to adapt to the NFL game, covering NFL receivers, NFL schemes in the passing game. There’s a lot to learn. We think he’s the right guy emotionally and mentally to do that. Hopefully he’ll pay dividends quickly rather than later. But he’s going to be one of the many competing.”

With the Rockets, Mitchell played more off than press reps, and he would occasionally be waylaid by receivers running angular stuff under his position. But as he showed at Toledo and in the Senior Bowl, he’s more than capable of locking guys down when he’s pressing and moving upfield. Last season, he allowed 27 catches on 62 targets for 290 yards, 67 yards after the catch, no touchdowns, one interception, 14 pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 51.1. In Mobile, he answered any questions anybody might have had about strength of competition.

But DeJean is where it gets interesting, and Fangio brought that up both with DeJean’s position versatility, and how he prefers to add those kinds of players to his defense.

“We have a system that is versatile, we like to think. It needs to be versatile because every week you’re facing different strengths of an offense, different schemes. So, what you play in one week 10, 15 times, you may not play at all the next week. You have to have a versatile system for the offenses today in the NFL. What we’ll eventually do is learn what our guys are best at.

“I like to throw a lot at them early because I think one of the worst things you can do is come Week 3, Week 5, ‘Man, we could really use this scheme,’ but it hadn’t been introduced to the players yet. Whereas if you introduced it to them in training camp and worked on it, when you pull it back out three, four weeks later, there’s recall. We’ll throw a lot at them in training camp to see what best fits for them, what they’re good at, and then try and whittle it down, but always keeping some stuff in the bank in case we need it at some point during the season.

Fangio doesn’t seem to see those growing pains as an issue for DeJean.

“You start them out at a primary position, and then you start giving them the secondary position, and you go from there. There’s a lot of players that physically are capable of being versatile. Where a lot of them get eliminated from being versatile is they struggle to learn the assignments and the techniques and the execution at a couple different positions.

“There’s a lot of guys that are versatile physically, but can’t do it mentally. And I don’t mean that — they’re not going to get — your reps are watered down the more you’re moving around — and other guys it comes easier for them than others, if that makes sense.”

DeJean can play everywhere from outside cornerback to slot to box to hybrid safety, and the play he detailed for me when I asked him at the scouting combine for his favorite NCAA rep showed his vision and range… which will place him in good stead wherever he lines up.

“I think a play that comes to mind is my first pick-six against Rutgers [in 2022]. Caught a ball over my shoulder, and took it back for six. I feel like that showed by ball skills and athleticism and all that.”

The Hawkeyes were in 2-Man coverage. Pressure caused quarterback Evan Simon to make an abbreviated throw on the play, and DeJean broke off underneath coverage to go up and take receiver Joshua Youngblood on the deep over. One acrobatic interception later, DeJean had his first pick-six.

Ideally, I could see Fangio running more man coverage with Mitchell and Slay as his boundary cornerbacks — it’s what he did in Denver when he had Patrick Surtain II as his primary. Perhaps DeJean’s starting spot is as a slot/hybrid guy, and Fangio can work it out from the

(Robert Kupbens-USA TODAY Sports)

The 49ers’ change in defensive shot-caller from Steve Wilks to Brandon Staley might not be too different from a coverage perspective. Last season, Staley’s Chargers led with Cover-3, followed by Cover-4. Staley ran far more of his preferred Cover-6 than the 49ers did; Wilks was more about Cover-1. Yes, Nick Sorenson is the team’s new defensive coordinator, but we’re assuming that Staley will have a lot to say about the coverages as assistant head coach.

No matter how things change in the secondary, one key addition will be Florida State cornerback Renardo Green, selected by the 49ers with the 64th overall pick in the second round. Green’s potential is important to this defense no matter who’s running it, because outside of Charvarius Ward, it got pretty dicey back there at times. Deommodore Lenior is better in the slot, and both Ambry Thomas and Isaiah Oliver struggled more than anyone would have preferred.

Something else we can assume? The 49ers will be a press-heavy team in 2024, because they were in 2023. Ward had 231 snaps in press coverage last season, 10th-highest in the league. Lenior had 257, which ranked sixth. Green had 264 snaps in press coverage last season, and when targeted in press, he allowed eight catches on 23 targets for 80 yards, three touchdowns, one interception, and an opponent passer rating of 67.0.

Green, who last season allowed 31 receptions on 60 targets for 290 yards, 103 yards after the catch, three touchdowns, one interception, 13 pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 75.0, did his thing in the Seminoles’ press-heavy, man-heavy schemes, which led to some instances in which he got beaten on an island, but also some spectacular plays that showed all of his attributes — particularly a knack for clamping down in more press reps than most NCAA cornerbacks have to deal with.

If you don’t have time to watch all of Green’s reps from the 2023 season, all you need to study is his game against LSU receiver Malik Nabers — my WR1 in this class, who was selected by the Giants with the sixth overall pick. Green’s line against Nabers? Two catches for 20 yards, and an interception caused by Green eclipsing Nabers down the boundary.

“He’s got a heck of a mentality, Renardo,” general manager John Lynch said. “I mean, that’s the thing we really loved about him. 186 pounds, but he wants to hit you. And everyone correlates, I think interceptions to ball production. We look at it, PBUs, and he had 13 PBUs, one of the tops in the nation last year, had one interception, one forced fumble, really good tackler, plays a tough physical game. He told us 15 times when we called him, you got a dog, you got a dog. And that’s exactly what we thought when we drafted him. He can play man-to-man, he’ll get up, challenge receivers, has done it against some really top-level players and fired up to have him as well.”

When John Lynch is impressed with the amount of pure dog in a defensive back, that’s noteworthy. And fortunately for the 49ers, the tape matches it over and over again. That’s something every defensive coordinator would like, no matter what coverage he’s calling.

As for Mustapha, we can go back to Week 11 of the 2023 season, when 49ers safety Talanoa Hufanga suffered a torn ACL and was lost for the rest of the season. The team did its best to get past that, primarily with Ji’Ayir Brown and Logan Ryan as replacements, but Hufanga’s dynamic, top-down style is tough to replace.

Unless you look for another Hufanga in the draft, which the 49ers seem to have done with Wake Forest safety Malik Mustapha with the 124th overall pick in the fourth round. Last season for the Demon Deacons, Mustapha allowed 15 catches on 29 targets for 175 yards, 131 yards after the catch, two touchdowns, one interception, three pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 79.0. Add in Mustapha’s 62 tackles, 26 stops, and six tackles for loss, and you get a better sense of Mustapha’s well-versed skill set. Especially the six tackles for loss, because that’s where the “hair on fire” plays come from. As Hufanga can, Mustapha will scream down from the second and third levels to blot out run plays and throwing attempts.

Mustapha primarily did his thing in the deep third last season; he’s not the simple box safety some think he is. Again like Hufanga, he’s outstanding when it comes to covering everything in front of him, and he’s also good for the occasional post and seam coverage. You just don’t want to make a meal out of it. Mustapha also played an overhang/hybrid role, and the 49ers have been all about those multi-position guys for a while now.

“He called that position the Panther position at Wake. And I mean, one thing with him, it was clear right away, all his testing indicated it, but when you talked with the young man, he understands football at a high level. He’s built like an Adonis and he just plays football the right way in my mind and in our mind. And really cool to make him part of our team. He was a team captain at Wake Forest and we liked everything he brought to the table.”

(Syndication: The Montgomery Advertiser)

The Seahawks obviously re-tooled a lot of stuff with their defense over the offseason. Gone was Pete Carroll, and the fumes of the Legion of Boom. In came former Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald, who got career years out of more than half of his players last season. Seattle could certainly use some of that; their ranking of 28th in Defensive DVOA in 2023 after ranking 22nd in 2022 might have been more than team ownership was willing to accept.

So, onto Macdonald’s defense, which doesn’t really have an established type, and comes at you from everywhere. First-round defensive tackle Byron Murphy II from Texas might have the tools to be for the Seahawks what Justin Madubuike was for Macdonald’s Ravens last year, but as far as the new guys with interesting profiles and potential, there are two cornerbacks from Auburn ready to write their names in something — Nehemiah Pritchett with the 136th overall pick in the fifth round, and D.J. James with the 192nd pick in the sixth. These gentlemen are added to a cornerback group that already includes 2022 rookie Pro Bowler Riq Woolen and 2023 fifth-overall pick Devon Witherspoon.

As Macdonald said after both players were selected, the 6′ 0⅛”, 190-pound Pritchett projects more as an outside cornerback, which would allow Macdonald to keep Witherspoon as an inside/outside guy, if that’s what he wants to do. In terms of sticky coverage style and aggressive mentality, Pritchett does hearken back to the LOB.

Moreover (and as the Rams deduced with Jared Verse and Braden Fiske), there’s an advantage to selecting two players who played on the same collegiate defense — Pritchett and James are already used to working together. With Pritchett and James, it got to the point where they would decide which side of the field they were covering pre-snap.

“It was really between us,” James said. “It was just deciding what side we wanted to go to because we could both cover the No 1 guy. It was just deciding what side we wanted to be on at the time.”

At 5′ 11⅝” and 175 pounds, James is more of that inside/outside player. Most of his 10 pass deflections last season came outside, and he was particularly ridiculous when defending fade balls. But the speed to match routes and the ease of transitions does make you think that a fuller-time switch might not be too tough.

“Come in and compete, that’s the theme for the whole draft class,” Macdonald said of the plan for the new cornerbacks. “Nehemiah is probably more of an outside guy. Definitely early both guys on special teams we anticipate to come in, make a huge impact for us. DJ probably both inside and outside, but, come in, compete, we’ll figure it out. Kind of like the offensive line, defensive line. We got a lot of reps to be had out there, so it’ll hash itself out.”

Asked about the scheme fit for Pritchett and James, Schneider deferred to the overall athletic traits as opposed to how somebody attacks in Cover-1. Which, as malleable as Macdonald’s coverage concepts can be, makes a lot of sense.

“It wasn’t necessarily scheme, quite honestly. It was just the skill set with Pritchett, the speed. D.J., he can play nickel, he can play outside, too, so it wasn’t necessarily a scheme evaluation. They’re both talented cover guys. There’s things both of them need to clean up and once they get here, they’ll understand that and they’ll have a clear vision for where they’re headed.”

It wasn’t necessarily scheme, but the new guys are still good scheme fits.

(Syndication: The Tennessean)

“Confidence, resiliency, relentless. I am a hell of a player. I love my game. I don’t fear anything. I am not afraid to lose, but I am going to win most of my reps.”

That’s what former Chiefs and new Titans cornerback L’Jarius Sneed said in his first press conference in Tennessee after the March 22 trade that sent Sneed to his second NFL team. And it doesn’t take a football expert to realize that Sneed is exactly all that. Last season for the Super Bowl champs, Sneed allowed 53 catches on 102 targets for 545 yards, 216 yards after the catch, two touchdowns, two interceptions, 12 pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 66.0. It was his best season in a remarkable four-year career, and Sneed was rewarded after the trade with a four-year, $76.4 million contract with $55 million.

This, or something like this, needed to happen.

Last season, the Titans’ cornerbacks allowed 141 completions on 235 attempts for 1,805 yards, 12 touchdowns, four interceptions, and an opponent passer rating of 94.0, eighth-worst in the NFL.

The Titans also signed former Bengals cornerback Chidobie Awuzie to a three-year deal, and this is where it gets interesting for new defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson. During his appearance with Buck Reising and Greg Cosell on a post-draft episode of “The Install,” general manager Ran Carthon got into why the Titans are switching to a new coverage philosophy.

“It’s huge, especially for our defense, and what Dennard wants to do,” Carthon said about Sneed’s press ability, and alpha playing personality overall. “He wants to challenge guys at the line of scrimmage, which is also a reason we went after Chidobie Awuzie. Get two guys in here who are going to match that, and that’s also how [slot defender] Roger [McCreary] plays. Roger is a linebacker on first and second down, and on third down, he can play the C-gap, stick his face in there against the run. But he can also challenge guys [in press coverage] on third down. So, adding someone like LJ to the mix is what’s going to drive this defense, and what will make it go.

“[You have to disrupt receivers] at the line of scrimmage. That forces the quarterback to hold the ball a half-second or a second longer, and it gives your rush another step to get there. It will be cool to see both of those units together, the coverage and the rush, and they’re going to benefit from each other.

Carthon also had thoughts on why Sneed is so cherished now, as opposed to when he was selected in the fourth round of the 2020 draft.

“When he was coming out those years ago, the game and the way we play coverage has changed. A few years ago, illegal contact was a real thing. They were calling it a lot more, especially down the field, and you needed more guys who played off. Plus, Seattle had that nice run, and everybody wanted to adopt the Seattle defense, playing Cover-3 and playing off. Now, you have so much exposure to Cover-3, you have all those Cover-3 beaters. Now, teams are like, ‘You know what? We’re going to play more man. We’re going to get in these teams’ faces, and we’re going to challenge them.’ Guys slip [in the draft], but the NFL has a nice way of correcting itself. Players like [Sneed] rise to the top.”

Under former defensive coordinator Shane Bowen, the Titans were not big believers in press coverage. They had no cornerbacks in press coverage on 63% of their snaps — the NFL’s second-highest rate behind the Panthers’ 73%. They had one cornerback in press coverage on 25% of their snaps; only the Panthers had a lower rate at 23%. That is absolutely going to change now. Last season, Sneed had more snaps in press (393) than any other cornerback not named A.J. Terrell of the Falcons, who had 413. And when targeted in press, Sneed allowed 24 catches on 50 targets — which is a pretty nice percentage when you’re on a receiver from step one, and you’re on an island more often than not.

As for Awuzie, he’s always been a better press cornerback than when he’s playing off — that was true during his time with both the Cowboys and the Bengals, and it was certainly true in 2023. Awuzie can be befuddles at times in off coverage, but with minimal exceptions, he can match and carry all over the field from the first step in press, and it doesn’t matter how fast and slippery the receiver is.

The aforementioned McCreary stuck around because he’s a great fit in a more aggressive set of schemes, especially in situations where it’s tougher to win as a press and match defender.

The Titans may find this drastic transition to have its rough spots, but it’s nice to see them swerving decidedly in the direction of what the NFL requires in 2024.