Q & A: First Round Cornerbacks

By:  Bobby Shores
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Submit your questions for ReclinerQB to answer here (Twitter) or here (Email), or just leave it in the comments. Recent Articles include:  NFL Draft Quick Hits on - Dontari Poe (Biggest Potential Draft Bust), Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin III, Jake Bequette, My 2012 NFL Draft Player Rankings By Position and the Evolution of NFL Defense's What will happen to the Safety Position?

Question:  What do you think of the potential first round cornerbacks in the draft and will the Cowboys be able to use one?

ReclinerQB Thoughts:  While most fans want to put the failure of the defense this past season on the secondary, I believe the lack of a consistent pass rush made it nearly impossible for our defensive backs to cover and that a good pass rush is a secondary's best friend. I am also not naive enough to think that we don't need to upgrade the secondary, particularly the depth at cornerback and the starters at safety. Of course now that we have signed Brandon Carr CB is not as big a need, but you can never have to many talented corners.

When healthy, Mike Jenkins and Orlando Scandrick are solid starters, but we have next to nothing behind them. Terence Newman has had a good career with the Cowboys, and it't time to thank him and let him go.

When it comes to the first round cornerbacks I believe there are really only three that qualify (In my opinion), and they are Morris Claiborne, Janoris Jenkins and Dre Kirkpatrick.

2012 NFL Draft Hopeful Janoris Jenkins

Janoris Jenkins-North Alabama - Jenkins is my favorite DB in the draft! When I watched him play at Florida he seemed as fluid and natural a DB as I have ever seen. The way he moves in and out of breaks and seems to know the routes before the receiver does shows his understanding of football. The way he backpedals, opens his hips to run and his change of direction skills, makes me think that he is more comfortable playing cornerback on the football field than he is walking. Just an instinctual player who is confident in his ability, and with good reason. One of things that impressed me most on him was that he plays taller than he is, and by that I mean his anticipation on the ball and the way he times his jumps makes him seem taller than 5'10. He is not as big as the other two first round corners and that hinders his ability in the run game, but he does not shy away from making a tackle.

 The one concern that most people have with Jenkins is the off field concerns. He was kicked out of the University of Florida after three years after he was arrested twice in a three month span for possession of marijuana after the year before being arrested for a fight. While that concerns me, I heard him give a couple of interviews at the All-Star games and he never shied away from the questions asked about his character or tried to make excuses. He also seemed to be a model citizen at North Alabama, and I am not one to hold what a kid does when they are younger against him forever. We all make mistakes like that when we are 18-21, difference is we probably didn't get caught or do it in front of the entire country as a high profile college football player.

The one hole I have in scouting Jenkins is that I never got to see a game of his at North Alabama and from what I can tell he continued to play at a high level, but without actually seeing him play those games I cannot comment on them, and I do not use other people's scouting reports in my articles. But from what I did see at Florida I think he could be the most talented player in this entire draft.


Morris Claiborne-LSU - Even though the Cowboys chances of getting him are slim-to-none I still wanted to drop a note on him (and I do not think that the 'Boys will trade up into the Top 5 and grab him like my former colleague Daniel Wolf at National Football Authority does).

2012 NFL Draft Hopeful Morris Claiborne

I think Claiborne compares very favorably to Patrick Peterson (and not because they are both from LSU). And last year I was in love with Patrick Peterson and saw him as by far the safest and best prospect in the draft while also naming him to my "Pre-Draft All-Pro" list.

Main differences I see, is that partially due to size, (Peterson being about an inch taller and 50lbs heavier) he is not as good against the run and in press-man coverage as his predecessor. Don't get me wrong though, Claiborne plays hard/well against the run and does not lack aggression, just sometimes pulls the "dive at the ball carriers feet rather than take him head on and wrap him up" approach that has been getting a lot of DB's hurdled and/or juked in recent years.

On the other hand Claiborne has much better ball skills and great hands (played wide receiver in high school and some in his early years at LSU) and is not afraid to play off a receiver in an attempt to bait a quarterback into thinking he is open. There are also zero off-field or character concerns with Claiborne, and he will be a star in the NFL.

In the 2012 BCS National Championship game I did not have the Tide throwing towards Claiborne one time the entire game, at least according to my game notes. And that was a trend you saw all year long if you watched the SEC. They had a lot of respect for him.



Dre Kirkpatrick-Alabama - Very big and physical DB, and his style of play is the same.. Does not seem to have the greatest ball skills in my opinion and still needs to work on his play recognition and covering smaller quicker receivers (Ryan Mallett picked on him quite a bit in 2010, even though Alabama still beat us). Would have to play on the outside in the NFL as he is lacks some quickness and seems to be tight in the hips and would struggle covering the smaller quicker guys in the slot. Strongest DB against the run in the draft.

2012 NFL Draft Hopeful Dre Kirkpatrick

There is just something about Kirkpatrick that I cannot quite put my hands on, something that makes me uneasy about him. He is very fast and has good recovery speed, is big and physical. Doesn't seem to have the greatest knack for the ball and kinda seems to over rely on his athletic abilities instead of his brain. He also reminds me of some of those players on the 2005 Trojans (Lendale White, Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, etc), they just looked like great players because of the cast around them.....I kind of get that vibe from Kirkpatrick.

My biggest problem with Kirkpatrick is not the marijuana possession. Seriously, who cares, I bet that 70% of NFL players partake in the magic herb during the year and it probably affects them less than alcohol (but this is not a place for my political views on it), my concern is that during the longest job interview of his life he was stupid enough to get caught with it, that right there makes me wonder if he has his head on straight.

So what is my final opinion on him? I think that he will be a good DB in the right system, but never the true "shutdown" corner that he came across as at Alabama. I also think that Cowboys Defensive Coordinator Rob Ryan will fall in love with Kirkpatrick due to his confidence both on and off the field (his nickname is Swag), his aggressive style of play and his ability to play press-man coverage which is a favorite of Ryan.

Should the Cowboys go ahead and draft one of these corners if they are available at #14? Ask me again after free agency (I know its a cop out), but I like the depth at the cornerback position in the draft and I think the Cowboys should only draft Jenkins of the three and as of right now they should move down to get him. So where do I think they need to upgrade the defensive backfield? I like the corners that they can get in the second or even third round, that is coming soon.

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Q & A: Where is "Insert Name" Getting Drafted?

By:  Bobby Shores
Check out recent Q&A's:  Carl Nicks a Cowboy? Safest Position to Draft in the 1st Round? Arkansas Draft Prospect Jake Bequette-A Future Cowboy Why does the NFL still play the Pro Bowl? What Should the Cowboys do With Anthony Spencer?

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Question:  Where is Robert Griffin III (or any player for that matter) going to get drafted?

ReclinerQB Thoughts:  As it seems almost every single football related site in the world is currently pumping out mock drafts, I gotta say that there is very little that can be said about what is going to transpire in the upcoming NFL Draft with any certainty for multiple reasons.

Can I get in trouble for using this?

Combine - First the combine hasn't happened yet, and the combine has a very large impact on where a player is drafted, what team drafts him, etc. Most people think that the combine is a big deal because of fairly insignificant things like the actual workouts. In reality most teams value the combine for the medical check and the interviews. No matter how good a player looks on film, if they come across as a complete idiot, buffoon, way too cocky, etc. in an interview than that can cause a team to pull him off their board completely. Also just by sitting down with a prospect for 15-30 minutes, a team can really figure out whether or not that player fits within the culture of that team, and just like companies in the business world, each team has its own unique culture that players must be a fit for.

The best way to really see how a player will perform in the NFL is done by watching their college film, not watching them run 40 yards in a straight line in their underwear. As Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com always says "The only time an NFL player runs 40 yards in a straight line is when something either really good or really bad happens", and that's the truth, on 95% of the plays every game a player is only running in short bursts. Now this is not to say that the workouts are not important, as most of the drills have real world applications and will give a team some insight into how the players stack up physically to their peers in the NFL.

The combine numbers should not sway a team one way or the other though, look at Brandon Spikes, a player most people expected to to be a first round pick (a high one at that) who ran a really bad 40 time and it just reinforced what people thought of him on film, that he was a bit slow. Well the Patriots picked him up late in the second round and he has been a starter for them ever since.

Free Agency - The biggest reason in my mind why mock drafts are next to impossible to fill out this early in the off-season is because free agency has yet to happen. A lot of teams will fill a lot of their needs during free agency and can completely change the top of the draft. For example, do you think that a quarterback needy team that lands Matt Flynn or Peyton Manning in free agency is going to spend a Top 10 pick on a quarterback? Yea, me neither.

Let's take the Cowboys for instance, this is a team with a lot of needs to fill, and with where they are drafting there is a better than good chance that they will have a choice of one of one of the perceived premier players at most positions; Guard(David DeCastro), Cornerback(Dre Kirkpatrick/Janoris Jenkins), Safety(Mark Barron), Outside Linebacker(Courtney Upshaw). Defensive End(Quinton Coples/Devon Still). But there is a good chance that they will fill one or more of these major holes in free agency. For example, they will probably take DeCastro off their board if they grab Carl Nicks or Ben Grubbs in free agency.

Rumors/False Information - The last main reason why ANY mock draft is no more than a guessing game is because at this time of year NFL General Managers, Coaches and executives are all doing everything they can to conceal their true intentions. Not only will they publicly lie, they will also spread false information to their most trusted media friends, all in hopes of making their counterparts throughout the league unsure of what their true intentions really are. Some teams will only meet and bring in prospects they have NO intention of taking in the draft, while others will draft only players they publicly paraded around and others still will secretly charter planes and have secret meetings with prospects with nobody else knowing. All this in the name of hiding which 18-22 year old boy you are most interested in.

These are the uncertainties that make doing any meaningful mock drafts at this time of year an exercise in practice and fun. Even I really enjoy trying to predict where certain players will be drafted, it is fun to talk about amongst friends and colleagues and is a lot of fun to read and speculate.Once the combine is over with and after the first week of free agency though, the draft stuff will become much clearer.

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