With this in mind, the question that arises is what can and should teams do about this. Fundamentally, teams are stuck with the prospects as they stand in terms of their development, so any changes in strategy should be focused more on how to maximize success based on that fact. Looking at historical data, two clear (and slightly terrifying) patterns emerge: the very best cornerback prospects have a reasonably high chance of success and there is very little correlation after that.
The first one is certainly not a hard rule, the top cornerback taken is not guaranteed to work out, but barring a couple of notable exceptions (Dee Milliner and Justin Gilbert) they actually fare quite well – Denzel Ward, Marshon Lattimore, Jalen Ramsey, Patrick Peterson, Joe Haden, Janoris Jenkins, Darrelle Revis and Charles Woodson were all the first corner taken in their class. In terms of advice to general managers, this is possibly best phrased as ‘taking elite cornerback prospects early makes sense, but there is a large gap between elite and very good in terms of outcome’. For every success like Donte Jackson, there is a Duke Dawson, the New England corner who began the year on IR and never saw the field after being selected the pick directly behind Jackson.
James Bradberry was selected 62nd in 2016 – Will Redmond was drafted six picks later and has been on three teams in five years and spent most of 2018 on Green Bay’s practice squad.
The second rule is certainly far more applicable for the Panthers this season, as the minimal benefit gained from drafting a cornerback in the early rounds over drafting one later or grabbing a UDFA would mean that rather than wasting middle round draft picks on a nickel corner prospect, a team would be best advised to take multiple and repeated chances on UDFA corners.
While some players can be clearly eliminated due to athletic limitations, signing a handful of undrafted corners every year (or possibly drafting one very late) allows a team a shot of finding a usable corner without having to risk otherwise valuable draft picks. This is a tactic that Hurney has discussed with regards to quarterbacks in the past, and it would be neither a surprise nor a bad idea to see him use a similar tactic with cornerbacks as well in the 2019 draft.
