Big Blue View
Coverage is an unpredictable skill from year to year.
Here’s a quiz: Name the five best wide receivers in the NFL over the past three years (based on receiving only, not rushing or blocking).
Now name the five best pass-rushing edge defenders in the NFL (based on pass-rushing only).
Finally, name the five best cornerbacks in the NFL (based only on pass coverage, not on run support or tackling).
Please don’t read on until you’ve done all three, just to get into the spirit of things.
It’s a subjective exercise, but you might imagine that there would be substantial agreement about three or four of the five. Players who’ve only played one or two seasons are ruled out because this article is about season-to-season consistency, so forget about Malik Nabers for this purpose. Here is who Pro Football Focus gave the highest grades to in each of the past three seasons (for players who played enough snaps to be considered regular players). First, the wide receivers (ordered from 2024 to 2023 to 2022):
I know, I know, anytime I use PFF grades some of you are going to complain. You may think JaMarr Chase, who ranked No. 11 in 2024, should be in the top 10. I do, too. He probably didn’t make it because he had 10 drops last season. That’s not the point I want to make, though. The point is that when you think of the best players at a position, the same names tend to come to mind every year, with some additions as rookies begin to make their mark and subtractions as older veterans age out. On this particular list, A.J. Brown, Amon-Ra St. Brown, and Justin Jefferson make the top 10 in all three years, while CeeDee Lamb, Tyreek Hill, Nico Collins, and Drake London make it twice. Your top five probably includes some or all of those names, and if you want to look at hard stats, generally these receivers break 1,000 yards every year or at least come close if they’re not injured.
Now let’s look at the same list for edge pass rushers:
Myles Garrett, Micah Parsons, Trey Hendrickson, and Nick Bosa make the top 10 in all three years, while T.J. Watt, Josh Hines-Allen, Aidan Hutchinson, Za’Darius Smith, and Bryce Huff made it twice. Again, I’d bet your top five consists mostly of a subset of those names. Garrett, for example, has been in the top 10 in pass rush productivity (pressures per pass rush snap but with hits and hurries weighted half as much as sacks) in every one of the past four seasons.
Now, let’s get to the point of this article. Here are PFF’s top 10 cornerbacks over the past three years:
Not a single cornerback made PFF’s top 10 list in all three seasons. Only a few - Pat Surtain II, Sauce Gardner, Charvarius Ward, and Christian Benford - even made it twice.
That’s the message: Good cornerbacks in the NFL are a scarce and variable...
