When looking at cornerback prospects for your team, those prospects can make the evaluation easier with two things: A high target rate, and a minimum of big plays allowed. Any prospect that has those two things in his quiver should be highly prized.
In a loaded cornerback class, there are few prospects who check the boxes as Utah’s Jaylon Johnson does. Over three seasons with the Utes, Johnson was targeted 190 times on 1.256 coverage snaps. He allowed just 93 catches for 1,009 yards, three touchdowns, and seven interceptions. He never allowed an opponent passer rating higher than 57.6, and last season, on passes of 10 or more air yards, he gave up just four receptions on 31 targets.
Physically, Johnson looks like the prototype — 6-foot-0, 193 pounds, a 4.5 40-yard dash at the scouting combine. But when I spoke with him regarding four plays from his 2019 season, it quickly became apparent that the one thing that sets Johnson apart is the ability to take comprehensive tape study and take it to the field.
That was evident from the beginning — in his freshman season of 2017, Johnson had 310 coverage snaps, allowing 26 receptions on 55 targets for 277 yards, no touchdowns, one interception, and an opponent passer rating of 54.9. Johnson was a highly-regarded prospect out of Fresno, California, but the extent to which he was able to beat the usual adjustment issues when transitioning from high school to college rested in the prep work he did.
“The biggest thing I did was get in and get the playbook down,” he said. “Because I knew that if I didn’t know what I was doing, I couldn’t make plays. I couldn’t play as fast as I needed to play because I didn’t even know my assignment. How am I supposed to line up? So, for me, it was just coming in and learning the playbook. After that, it was just trying to focus on the technique and not be all over the place and not just play off of athleticism but also know what I’m doing. It was a lot mentally, just going into it, the focus, technique, learning the playbook, and ultimately, I was in condition to make plays.”
Over and over, against high-flying PAC-12 offenses, Johnson was able to not only shut receivers down, but did so with very little help. Often, Johnson was the island cornerback to the wide side of the field, tasked with the opponent’s best receiver. As he said, that’s not just about physical gifts — there’s a required mentality.
“I don’t think that’s something you can acquire,” Johnson said of the ‘island cornerback’ mentality. “I feel like it’s in you or it’s not in you, but that’s a different level of confidence. I mean, a lot of corners have that confidence, and a lot of corners have that swag about them but it’s different when you’re by yourself. You’re all alone, and it’s just you. You know if you don’t make the plays, nobody else is going to make them. So for me it was just, it was always in me to do, it just got brought out in my second year at Utah. I feel like it’s just something that people are born to do. You have to have a different mentality and a different mindset about yourself. It’s not just about confidence; it’s also short term memory and knowing you’re going against that number one guy. You’re going to give up the catch, but how many can you keep stopping? How consistent can you be?”
In Johnson’s case, consistency has been the order of the day. Let’s go to the tape to find out how that happens.