Field CB - Stevenson
Nickel CB - Couch
Boundary CB - Blades
Ivey wouldn’t step foot on the field at CB again, I’d move him to Striker.
Stevenson has the best physical upside, but in terms of pure cover corner Couch is the most technically sound understanding leverage, natural footwork & proper technique.
Blades is a good cover corner as well in Press man, but he struggles in off Zone & has to improve his physicality at the point of attack particularly in the run game being able to fight off blocks, offenses tended to throw Bubble screens to his side because he couldn’t fight off blocks & would get pushed 7-8 yards up the field before he could even make an attempt to tackle the ball carrier. But as a pure Press cover corner he has good technique in Bump & run when he gets an early jam in to reroute the WR, where he messes up at is he stops trusting his eyes & does’t read the WR, when he gets beat if he were reading his man properly he could get his head around & make plays on the ball. Early in the year he played well, but as the season progressed he struggled & got really sloppy with his eye discipline.
He finished the season with 7PBU’s & 2INT’s had opportunities to have way more, but it seemed like he lost confidence or something as the season went on, idk what happened to him before the injury but his play just dropped he last few games before he had to sit out with C19 & myocarditis.
I think TRob will do a good job reconstructing Blades game & get him back to being more solid & consistent in coverage. I think under tRob’s tutelage you’ll see a more aggressive Blades playing up to his potential.
Couch is a very good cover corner & has the best technique amongst the bunch, he has natural fluid hips & great footwork, plus good ball skills, he just needs to be more consistent & needs to physically stronger.
He can play outside at Field, but I think his upside will be best at Nickel in the slot against the opposing teams speed option WR, because he stays step for step in the hip pocket of his man & can transition in phase smoothly the best within the CB group. TRob & DVD will do a good job helping him maturation into a lockdown corner, he has very good upside & he’s just scratched the surface of his ability.
A lot of it will come down to Defensive play calling, our Corners excel in Man coverage, under Baker he had them playing extreme soft cover 2,3,4,5,6 zones & it would leave our secondary susceptible to getting picked apart.
Coverage should be better this year with TRob, but it ultimately falls on Diaz & the type of coverages he calls as DC. If he trusts them to cover their man, then he should call a lot more Man coverage, if he’s still calling Heavy Zone dogs, then it will be moreover same.
