22. Jeff Gladney, CB, TCU
Height: 5’10” Weight: 191
40-Yard Dash: 4.48 seconds
Bench Press: 17 reps
Vertical Jump: 37.5 inches
Broad Jump: 124.0 inches
3-Cone Drill: 7.26 seconds
20-Yard Shuttle: N/A
60-Yard Shuttle: N/A
Bio: A three-star recruit out of New Boston High School in Texas, Gladney got offers from TCU and Arkansas, and chose the Horned Frogs. The high school star in football, basketball, and track, who doubled up at receiver and cornerback back then, became the stalwart at left cornerback in Gary Patterson’s advanced schemes. In four seasons, he amassed 146 tackles, six tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks, 43 passes defensed, and five interceptions. As Dane Brugler of The Athletic pointed out, Gladney had more passes defenses than starts (42), and he and Amik Robertson of Louisiana Tech are the only FBS cornerbacks with at least 15 passes defensed in each of the last two seasons.
“Very physical,” Gladney said at the scouting combine of his play style. “I go 110 the whole game. I don’t play like most corners. I like to stick my nose in everything. I’m just not a cover corner. I like to hit, too. I feel like I’m the biggest sleeper. They talk about my size a lot, but everyone knows I’m a speed demon and physical.”
Stat to Know: Over the past two seasons, per Pro Football Focus, Gladney has forced tight coverage on 79.5% of his targets 10-plus yards downfield, which is the sixth-best rate in the nation and nearly 20 percentage points above the FBS average. On 46 contested targets over that time, Gladney allowed 10 catches and forced 27 incompletions.
Strengths: Gladney works through the first and second stems of routs with impressive matching footwork. Route anticipation is obvious. Has the body control to make easy catches difficult for receivers, and this is where a lot of his contested-catch success originates. Receivers find it very hard to out-leverage him in the first parts of routes — he’ll hang and stack with them all day. Sticky from the snap to the seam or boundary. Uses his hands well to track targets through the route. Not the biggest guys, but an aggressive tackler who brings the right mentality to blitz packages.
Weaknesses: Gladney is a bit slow in his transitional steps when he needs to up his backpedal speed and flip his hips. This leads to his tendency to give a bit too much cushion on some quicker angular routes. He also gets a lost at times when receivers break late — he seems to be so fixated on his landmarks, it’s tough for him to adjust. Needs his footwork to be on point, because he’s not going to beat anyone in press coverage. Will lose battles to bigger, more practiced receivers. Needs to track the ball in flight instead of playing the receiver as much as he does.
Conclusion: In 2018, I wrote a three-part series about the importance of match coverage in the NFL today, and when you play match, you need defensive backs with the route awareness, foot speed, and intelligent aggressiveness to mirror receivers through their routes and shut down the kind of plays some defenses make far too easy with passive coverage. Whether you’re talking about match or man coverage, NFL teams specializing in those concepts should see Gladney as an appealing addition. He brings all the athletic and competitive attributes to coverage concepts that become more crucial in the pros every season.
NFL Comparison: Byron Murphy. When I wrote Murphy up last year, it was clear to me that the Washington alum, selected by the Cardinals with the 33rd overall pick, was an ideal press cornerback who needed to be with his receiver through the route, and would work well in any environment where he was asked to play a lot of man and match coverage. If you were to superimpose Murphy’s 2018 tape with Gladney’s 2019 tape, the similarities would be illuminating.