Most improved position groups during the 2023 NFL offseason

Cornerbacks – Miami Dolphins

Additions: Jalen Ramsey & Cam Smith

Subtractions: None

Dolphins cornerbacks Jalen Ramsey and Cam Smith

This one’s a bit odd because the Dolphins literally didn’t lose a single true cornerback even listed at pro-football-reference.com in terms of snap-counts. The obvious one that was on their books last year, but didn’t actually ever see the field, is Byron Jones, who basically announced his retirement in a passionate response to a clip of his record-setting broad jump at the combine, urging upon young players to turn down opportunities to take pain-killers and protecting their bodies.

Yet, going back to the active players from 2022, everybody is still on the 90-man roster at the point I’m writing this. The difference is that they traded only a third-round pick to the Rams for three-time first-team All-Pro Jalen Ramsey and used the 52nd overall pick on Cam Smith out of South Carolina.

What that means effectively is that Keion Crossen, Nik Needham and Noah Igbinoghene won’t combine to play 80% of defensive snaps, to build up the Frankenstein monster that was Miami’s second outside corner, alongside Xavien Howard and Kader Kohou in the slot.

Not to say that all three of those names are horrible players. Crossen played 504 snaps through his first four seasons as a pro on three different teams, with just over 300 coming with the Texans in 2020. He’s only missed nine of 127 career tackling attempts, but his coverage profile has certainly been more down than up.

Needham I believe has been the most consistent of the bunch, where despite being thrown into the lineup as a former undrafted free agent in 2019, being targeted 201 total times through his first three seasons, where after he was picked on in the red-zone, especially as a rookie, he’s been responsible for passer ratings of 95.1 and 73.4 respectively, with three TDs vs. four INTs.

Unfortunately, I thought this past season his six weeks played presented a definite downgrade and then he tore his achilles. Igbinoghene, I believe, we can confidently say by now turned out to be a massive bust. He has a career passer rating allowed of 113.1 and while the sample size is rather small, he’s missed 20.7% of his tackling attempts so far.

Once again looking at the PFF database, had Needham stayed healthy with his grade of 63.7 they might’ve been fine, but Igbinoghene (51.8) and Crossen (50.7) were right next to each at 125th and 126th respectively among the 140 corners who played 200+ snaps last season.

So just replacing that play collectively with an All-Pro level player like Jalen Ramsey provides a MASSIVE boost. This guy finished second in Defensive Rookie of the Year voting in 2016 and has at least made the Pro Bowl in every other season. He’s allowed passer ratings below 90 in each of them and he’s never missed double-digit percent of his tackling attempts.

Now, is he quite the island-type of shutdown corner he was during most of his time in Jacksonville and L.A.? – Maybe not quite, but looking at what he did in coverage over the final seven weeks this past season, he held opposing quarterbacks to 18-of-34 for 276 yards and two touchdowns, whilst picking off three passes himself. That stretch includes five contests against top-12 passing offenses, Aaron Rodgers and whatever you still think of Russell Wilson.

Ramsey is still highly capable of matching up with and frustrating the opposing team’s X receiver and flooding the coverage away from him, but he’s also spent over 500 snaps in the slot over the last two years combined, if you want him to make an impact closer to the action, recording 12 tackles for loss and 13 pressures across 42 pass-rush snaps.

Meanwhile, Cam Smith is also coming off somewhat of a down-season based on general consensus, but I’d say that’s a bit overblown. He was the fourth-highest-ranked FBS cornerback by PFF in 2021 (88.4) among guys with 100+ snaps. Looking at the coverage numbers, they’re actually very similar, only that he allowed one touchdown compared to his three interceptions as a redshirt sophomore, compared to two TDs and just one pick last year.

At the same time, he showed more versatility, by spending more than a third of his snaps in the slot and taking on different coverage assignments. His physical play style in press technique allowed him to ride receivers into the sideline regularly, yet for being a lanky dude at 6’1”, 185 pounds, he’s loose enough to completely lose phase and he’s quick to drive forward out of his pedal playing off-man or zone.

Plus, he tracks the exceptionally well and is ultra-competitive at the catch point. He certainly needs to clean up how he initiates contact with receivers further than five yards down the field, but the athletic concerns some people had were largely put to rest when he ran a 4.43 and put up jumps in the 75th and 96th percentile respectively.

With Vic Fangio taking over at defensive coordinator, we’ll see a schematic shift from these heavy-pressure looks and the cover-zero rain once installed by Brian Flowers and Josh Boyer to a much more split-field coverage-oriented approach.

With that being said, even if they’re running something quarters-based, there will be opportunities for Ramsey to be in quasi-man on the backside of three-by-one sets and we did see Fangio adapt more cover-one during his final year in Denver (more so due to necessity, but they have the bodies now to at least make it a larger focus of their third-down packages.)

While I don’t know when we might see Nik Needham back healthy, now they have Cam Smith as your primary backup for all three corner spots probably, where he and Ramsey both present some inside-out flexibility.

Honorable mention: Atlanta Falcons