17. Dallas Cowboys: Jaylon Johnson, CB, Utah
It’s not that the Cowboys’ cornerback group is completely bereft after the Dolphins stole Byron Jones away with a five-year, $82.5 million dollar contract — Chidobe Awuzie and Jourdan Lewis are decent enough players. But there isn’t a true top-level cornerback on that roster anymore, which is something Jerry and Stephen Jones might want to address in the draft, and they could do a lot worse than the underrated Johnson, who took a total of 1.256 coverage snaps in his collegiate career, allowing just 93 catches on 190 targets. Battle-tested and unusually reliable at a position where up-and-down performance is generally the order of the day, Johnson would bring stability to a defensive backfield in need.
18. Cincinnati Bengals (From Miami Dolphins via Pittsburgh Steelers): Patrick Queen, LB, LSU
With their second first-round pick in the hypothetical Dolphins trade, let’s give the Bengals the second-best linebacker in the 2020 draft class behind Isaiah Simmons, because with a group led by Germaine Pratt and Jordan Evans… well, to paraphrase Gertrude Stein, there isn’t a whole lot of there there. Defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo has some issues to deal with, including his at-times out of place concepts, but Queen would solve a lot of his problems. He didn’t get on the field a lot for LSU until 2019, but he was a major part of the Tigers’ championship season. At 6-foot-0 and 229 pounds, Queen brings just about everything you’d want from a modern linebacker — run-stopping ability, range for days, and intuitive coverage abilities that will only become more refined over time.
19. Las Vegas Raiders (from Chicago Bears): Antoine Winfield, S, Minnesota
Word was that Karl Joseph was never Jon Gruden’s kind of safety for whatever reason, but with Joseph off to Cleveland in free agency, there is a serious hole to fill. Right now, the Raiders’ safety depth starts with Curtis Riley and Jeff Heath, and that’s just not good enough when you’re dealing with Patrick Mahomes twice a season. Were Gruden and general manager Mike Mayock able to add Winfield to their secondary, they’d have the true deep-third thief they didn’t have last season. Injuries limited Winfield to eight total games in the 2017 and 2018 seasons, but he came back with a vengeance in 2019, picking off seven passes and showing the range, ball skills, and field wisdom one expects only from the top free safeties in any draft class.
20. Jacksonville Jaguars (from Los Angeles Rams): Xavier McKinney, S, Alabama
Jaguars defensive coordinator Todd Wash and his staff don’t have a lot left to work with after the mass personnel exodus on the defensive side of the ball over the last couple years, so let’s give Wash a guy who plays at a plus level at multiple positions. Last season for the Crimson Tide, McKinney played 285 snaps in the box, 271 snaps at free safety, and 227 snaps in the slot. The 6-foot-1, 200-pound McKinney also played 38 snaps on the defensive line and five snaps at outside corner, to make his versatility even more impressive. Like Minkah Fitzpatrick, who played multiple positions in Nick Saban’s defense before McKinney did, McKinney also has the potential to star specifically at deep safety, as Fitzpatrick did after the Dolphins traded him to Pittsburgh.
21. Philadelphia Eagles: Justin Jefferson, WR, LSU
This week, my esteemed Touchdown Wire colleague Mark Schofield went under the hood on Jefferson’s game, revealing in an outstanding article that while the LSU product played 870 snaps in the slot and just five outside in the 2019 season, there’s more to his game than the ability to be a slot weapon. Not that it matters much for the Eagles, who are just hoping to get any part of the M*A*S*H* unit their receiver corps became last season back at a high performance level. Jefferson would be an outstanding fit in Doug Pederson’s offense because he us truly versatile, he gets how to exploit coverage openings, and as long as he’s not facing a ton of press coverage (which is where the slot thing comes in), he could be a productive asset from Day 1.
22. Minnesota Vikings (from Buffalo Bills): Tee Higgins, WR, Clemson
Free agency “robbed” the Vikings of a cornerback group that wasn’t that good to begin with, but the trade of Stefon Diggs to the Bills also took away Minnesota’s most dynamic receiver. Kirk Cousins is a quarterback who needs contested-catch receivers to perform at his highest level, and there weren’t many better at that in the 2019 NCAA season than Higgins, who seamlessly uses his 6-foot-4, 205-pound frame to out-leap and box out defenders to his quarterback’s benefit. Add in a Gumby-level catch radius and an extreme ability to come down with the deep pass (per Pro Football Focus, he grabbed 15 of 23 targets of 20 or more air yards last season for six touchdowns), and you’ve got a great complement to Adam Thielen’s own deep speed and big-play ability.
23. New England Patriots: Jordan Love, QB, Utah State
With Tom Brady out the door after 20 years, what is Bill Belichick to do for a quarterback? Yes, he could look to Jarrett Stidham as a guy who at least understands his offense. Or, he could upset the applecart completely and go with a different kind of passing game. Let’s say the Patriots sign one Cameron Jerrell Newton in free agency, and select Love in the first round. What Belichick then has, as long as Newton’s healthy, is a mobility and running flexibility he’s never had in at the quarterback position before. Newton would give Love the time he needs to work out his rough spots, which led to 17 interceptions in 2019, and at age 68, Belichick would take the Patriots into the new wave of offensive football.
Stranger things have happened.
24. New Orleans Saints: Kristian Fulton, CB, LSU
The Saints took former Giants cornerback Janoris Jenkins off waivers late in the season to improve a cornerback group that struggled in 2019 outside of Marshon Lattimore, and Jenkins performed well enough to grab a two-year, $16.75 million extension. But New Orleans played with five or more defensive backs on 83% of their snaps last season, and that isn’t likely to change. With that in mind, here’s new blood in the person of Fulton, who impressed against some of the SEC’s best receivers and was able to show a knack for coverage in both man and zone concepts — though at this point, he’s best off when he can take a receiver from the line of scrimmage all over the field. Fulton has some technical issues to work out, such as his pad level and footwork, but a little more coaching could turn him into a legitimate No. 1 cornerback.