Broncos Training Camp Preview: Cornerbacks

It’s obvious that the most-improved position on the Broncos in 2022 will be quarterback.

But the second-most-improved position could be cornerback. That position group’s potential rise is due to a few factors.

Better injury luck, for one. The continued improvement of young players like Pat Surtain II and 2020 third-round pick Michael Ojmeudia, for another.

But Wilson is a factor, too. The way he extends plays forces the hand of the corners. It forces them to adapt when receivers break off their routes as Wilson extends plays.

“You can be perfect for the first six seconds,” Ojemudia explained during minicamp last month. “But for the next six seconds, it’s guard your man, and let the line get him.

“You’ve gotta live with the results if he scrambles. But it’s just sticking to your man. That’s basically what I’m thinking as soon as they break out of their initial route.”

And if a Denver cornerback passes the Wilson test in practice, he will do well against the types of mobile quarterbacks that loom on Sundays.

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Starters: Pat Surtain II, Ronald Darby, K’Waun Williams

Just because Surtain wasn’t a Pro Bowler last year doesn’t mean he wasn’t playing at a Pro Bowl level by the end of the season. And perhaps never was he better than in Week 15 against the Cincinnati Bengals, when he played the primary role in shutting down Pro Bowl receiver Ja’Marr Chase.

Against the rest of the NFL, Chase averaged 5.25 catches for 91 yards on a per-game basis. Against Surtain and the Broncos, he mustered just 3 yards on a single reception.

It was par for the course down the stretch for Surtain; after the Broncos’ Week 11 bye, he had three interceptions, while not allowing a touchdown. His tackling also improved; he missed just one potential stop in his final nine games of the year after missing four in his first seven.

In the offseason, he worked on the mental side of the game.

“Confidence and just recognizing play concepts,” he said during OTAs. “[I’m] getting locked in with film study and understanding tendencies and stuff like that. That’s something that I’ve grown in throughout these OTAs compared to last year.”

Surtain’s growth on the cerebral side of the sport should mean the first of many Pro Bowl selections when this season concludes.

When healthy last year, Darby was as you’d expect from a No. 2 cornerback. He had a low missed-tackle rate. His penalty rate was fine; with one infraction called every 225 snaps, he ranked 35th of 94 cornerbacks with at least 500 snaps played last season.

But as Surtain’s reputation grows, Darby might find himself in the crosshairs more often. He will need to discover a turnover touch that hasn’t always been evident in his career, as he has no interceptions in the last two seasons. His most recent 3-INT season was in 2017.

Williams is a pure slot corner, and he’s one of the league’s best at that discipline. Effectively, the Broncos want him to handle the Bryce Callahan role in the defense.

But they expect Williams can be more.

First, his history shows that he should be more available. Williams played at least 13 games in six of the last eight seasons, while Callahan made it to 13 games just once. In the last three seasons, Williams played 43 of 55 possible games, while Callahan played 21 of 49.

Among the aspects distinguishing Williams is his pass-rush ability. He is effective when used on the occasional blitz. Per the data compiled by Pro Football Focus, the 49ers rushed him once every 20.2 snaps. That was the 10th-highest rate among 143 cornerbacks with at least 200 total snaps. And with one pressure every 19.5 pass-rush snaps, Williams was 18th among those 143 cornerbacks in pressure rate.

This skill brings an added dimension and opportunities for an element of surprise in Denver’s scheme.

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Backups: Michael Ojemudia, Bless Austin, Damarri Mathis, Essang Bassey, Faion Hicks, Donnie Lewis Jr., Ja’Quan McMillian

The promise is obvious for Ojemudia. Injuries forced him into extensive work as a top-three cornerback in his 2020 rookie season, and he more than held his own. After being on the wrong end of a pair of Ben Roethlisberger touchdown passes in Week 2 of 2020, he’s allowed just one touchdown on 92 times targeted since then, per the data compiled by SportRadar.com.

All 13 passes targeted at Ojemudia in the 2022 season came in the Week 18 finale against Kansas City, in which he played extensively following a hamstring injury. Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes posted a pedestrian 61.4 rating when throwing in Ojemudia’s direction. It was a promising performance that Ojemudia built upon during offseason work, when he played extensively on the first team while Darby took mental reps.

“He’s really stepped up and really done a great job,” Broncos coach Nathaniel Hackett said during OTAs. “There has been a couple of instances when you have actually seen him getting better, just even through coaching. … He’s had a couple breaks on some plays and he’s competing out of his mind.”

Also competing are veterans Austin and Bassey.

Austin has a chance to stick on the back end of the depth chart after a strong offseason in which he frequently made plays on the football during practices observed by local media.

Late last year, Bassey caromed around the AFC West, capping a frustrating year. The recovery from the torn ACL he suffered in December 2020 lingered, and he opened the season on the physically-unable-to-perform list. He then spent 20 days with the Chargers late in the season after they claimed him off waivers from the Broncos, but returned to Denver in February.

Bassey showed promise as a rookie, and the key to him finding that form again is health. Often, players don’t recapture their previous form until the second season after a torn ACL; that’s where Bassey is now, and he looked confident during his offseason work.

What could hurt the chances of Austin and Bassey are the rookies in the room: Fourth-round pick Damarri Mathis, seventh-rounder Faion Hicks and undrafted signee Ja’Quan McMillian have a good chance of seizing spots on the back end of the depth chart and practice squad.

For the rookies, a key is avoiding penalties. That is especially crucial for the speedy Mathis, who was called for nine infractions last year alone.

“They’re very correctable. We just have to be cautious about it. He has to be cautious about it,” defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero said in May. “We have to constantly demand it.”

But Evero believes the Broncos’ zone-based scheme will help.

“The scheme change, I think will help as well,” Evero said. “He played so much ‘bump man’ (coverage at Pitt). That’s part of the game for everybody, not just Damarri, but everyone has to adjust to the NFL game.”

Hicks tested well at Wisconsin’s Pro Day, although his straight-line speed doesn’t match that of Mathis. He caught the eye of veterans during OTAs with his mental grasp on the game.

Said Surtain: “He’s very smart, as well. He’s dialed in with the playbook — as good as us (veterans).”

Hicks’ work at Wisconsin should help him with the transition, giving him a chance to stick as a depth corner and special-teamer.

“We’re also putting a lot more on him, but he’s lucky because he’s coming from a system that is somewhat like ours and has been around a lot,” Hackett said. “I think for him particularly, it would probably be more of the speed, but he’s doing a good job and we’re excited to have him.”

The Broncos selected McMillian to make one of the team’s 30 allotted in-person pre-draft visits to team headquarters. So, it was no surprise when they signed him following the draft. They gave him a reported $15,000 signing bonus and another $60,000 in salary guarantees.

Lewis, like Austin, joined the team after a successful tryout at voluntary veteran minicamp in April. A seventh-round pick of the Browns in 2019, Lewis spent time on the practice squads of the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals in 2019 and 2020.

At Tulane, Lewis was a feast-or-famine cornerback; in his final two seasons there — 2018 and 2019 — he broke up 21 passes and intercepted 6 of them, but also surrendered 10 touchdowns, per the data compiled by Pro Football Focus.

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Summary

In Surtain, the Broncos have their CB1. While arguments continue being made as to whether picking a cornerback was the right call at the time in a four-QB first round, one cannot question the value of the pick for where the Broncos’ roster ended up 15 months later.

The Broncos eventually got their quarterback. Surtain plays one of the “core four” spots on any roster (QB, blind-side protector, edge rusher, CB1), so the positional value of him as a top-10 pick cannot be reasonably questioned.

If you’re not picking a quarterback with a high choice, you want a key player at one of those other spots. Now, Surtain looks like the Broncos’ most impactful first-round pick since Von Miller.

The questions are down the depth chart. If Ojemudia can follow his strong, confident spring with good play this summer, the Broncos can be confident in his ability to step in when he is almost inevitably needed for extensive work. But if he struggles, don’t be surprised to see a veteran join the room before training camp concludes.

Prospects like Mathis, Hicks and McMillian bear watching in the coming weeks. However, the Broncos will likely play the long game with them.

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