Young NFL breakout candidates for 2024: Colts CB JuJu Brents

In contrast to the smaller Marcus Jones, JuJu Brents, the second-year corner towers over most of the players at his position, standing tall at 6-foot-3, just under 200 pounds. Brents began his career at Iowa as a former top-500 national recruit, but after a promising true freshman showing, he only played eight total games over the following two seasons.

After transferring to Kansas State, JuJu Brents started all 27 contests for the Wildcats, intercepting and breaking up four passes each as a redshirt senior, earning himself first-team All-Big 12 accolades. Yet, it took an insane combine performance, which earned him a Relative Athletic Score of 9.99, for many people to really dive into his tape, which I had been of the believe already that is was equally impressive.

A man of his dimension should not be able to move like that and some of the challenges he took on against top receivers in that conference, had me very excited about his NFL prospects.

The Colts – in dire need of outside corners – selected him 44th overall, which was right in line with where I personally had him on my big board. A wrist injury cost JuJu Brents the majority of his first offseason program in the pros along with the first two weeks of the regular season.

A banged-up quad cost him another six-game stretch in the middle of the time he was actually healthy. Having said that, he did start all but one of the nine contests he was available for, recording 30 solo tackles (43 total), breaking up six passes, along with putting up ones in interceptions, fumbles forced and recovered each.

Will questions on the perimeter of this Indianapolis defense remain, I believe they found themselves one piece that when fit, can be a true difference-maker for that unit.

Why Colts' JuJu Brents could break out in 2024

When you put on the tape, it’s not hard to figure out who you’re looking for, as you see JuJu Brents taller than most receivers he’s lining up against, with arms dangling below his knees. You love Brents’ ability to pin receivers into the sideline when they try to release outside of him, but he also has the speed to stick with opponents on fades and drag routes.

Surrendering more of a cushion, he has a knack for initiating contact – and you can argue, somewhat catching receivers – but not bumping them or tugging cloth in a way that draws flags, as well as if he does feel like they’re getting hung up with each other, pulling his hands away and literally showing them to the referee.

JuJu Brents did have to eat his lumps a few times in their week 17 game against the Raiders, especially when he had to defend a pristine technician in Davante Adams with space to operate, but he also had some tremendous reps in that matchup and especially Jakobi Meyers had a tough time freeing himself from the rookie clinging to him like a flea.

He can really bother receivers with his length whether he’s plastered to them in off-man or matching routes. The total coverage numbers for the season don’t look great – allowing two-thirds of the targets his way to be completed for a passer rating of 109.1 – but on the 32 snaps (of 295 overall vs. the pass) PFF labeled as “true man-coverage”, Brents only allowed four of nine targets to be completed for 27 yards, actively forcing two incompletions.

JuJu Brents was only penalized three times for the year, for a total of 19 yards, with one of those being declined. On the negative side, while he got his paw on the ball or the hands of the intended target quite a few times, he didn’t actually separate those two parts in too many of those moments, where he needs to be a little more precise and/or aggressive.

While JuJu Brents' length and supreme athleticism make you want to put him in press-man assignments, what I’ve always been impressed with for that lanky build is the change-of-direction skills, playing off-zone (particularly quarters with outside leverage) and redirecting as guys snap off routes around him.

And his fluidity to fully flip around his hips against receivers double-releasing on him or trying to slide inside after selling the take-off, is truly special. You see some speed-turns on deep outs and comebacks that you just don’t associate with 6-3 corners.

JuJu Brents showcased some pretty good route anticipation and ability to decipher patterns, where based on how other guys broke, he’d know where the man he’d ultimately would have to match would go. You also see that sorting through stacks and bunches.

Quarterbacks have a tough time layering the ball over Brents’ head, where he can slow down guys pushing vertically at about five yards as a high-low defender in cover-two, yet then still sink underneath when the ball is laid up in the air and get his hands on it. He dropped an almost surefire pick at the goal line like that in week five vs. the Titans.

Moreover, the rookie provides good communication when handing off routes to the high post safety in cover-three or as they break inside to the second level. In the run game, Brents is disciplined with not getting sucked up initially before the ball-carrier commits but then urgent to stop the play once he does.

Where JuJu Brents does have his issues based on his height is actually dealing with blockers, who can take advantage of that extended surface area, as they attack his chest and control him as blockers.

Still, he had a solid 11.1% missed tackle rate despite exclusively being used as an outside corner, where if he had a bit of a runway, he’d sling his arms around the knees of the ball-carrier on an angle to great effect.

Only in one game did he actually have multiple misses. Where I don’t love him in that regard is when the offense flips the ball to a tight-end leaking into the flats and it would require a face-up tackle of the much bigger body compared to JuJu Brents.

So, there are some issues that arise from the lanky build of this player, whether it’s dealing with blockers or probably also as bigger wideouts figure out how to attack his chest in order to create separation, but in terms of redirection skills and hip fluidity, JuJu Brents is a rare specimen.

Looking at defensive coordinator Gus Bradley’s system, he doesn’t typically flip corners a whole lot, but this is a player in the mold of what he had at the time when his career really ascended with the Seahawks. The Colts once again led the NFL with a staggering 55.2% rate of cover-three, but at 8.5%, they ran cover-one less than all but two teams around.

So if they feel like it’s time to run a little more man-coverage as a single-high-heavy team, with Dallis Flowers returning from the torn Achilles, even some of the signs another seventh-round rookie in Jaylon Jones showed when called upon and a couple more draft picks from this year, I could see them asking JuJu Brents to be their primary guy in the boundary, even if he may not “travel” with receivers.

So even as they officially are in the structure that made this Seattle-three scheme – which has become largely outdated – so well-represented across the league, it gives them the ability to isolate what I see as their top cover-man on the backside of the formation and rotate coverage away from him.