What do the young cornerbacks in Devin McCourty and Darius Butler need to reach their full potential?
I think the two key things for cornerbacks, No. 1 is the length of the play. Defensive linemen, offensive linemen, those guys line up a few inches away from each other and then they’re engaged in the play and it all happens pretty quickly. Whereas if you’re on the perimeter, you can be in good position, you can be in good position, you can be in good position and the guy can catch it in the end. Or vice versa, you cannot be in good position and at the end of the play if you play the receiver properly you can knock it down.
It really extends the length of the play, and the cornerbacks coming into college they were just much better athletes than the guy they covered in college. Now they’re up against athletes who are just as good as they are, so it comes down to technique and just playing proper leverage and using your help and those kinds of things.
And the other key is the communication, getting the calls and understanding where your help is and kind of what technique we’re playing. That again is different from college because in college teams don’t see as much passing game as we see here. So I don’t think in this league you want to sit in the same thing all day, but in colleges some defenses do. In the NFL it’s a lot harder to do that. If you sit in the same defense all day, a good quarterback and a good receiver will take what you give them.
So those are the the two big adjustments, just A) the communication and understanding where everybody is on different route concepts, and B) the technique and the length of the play. To jam at the line of scrimmage, re-route the position, playing the ball in the air, receivers being good with putting up late hands, like Randy Moss does. He doesn’t put his hands up, you’re waiting for him to catch the ball and it’s in his hands, or back shoulder. And also how physical the receivers are, [they] slap you to get leverage and that kind of thing.
