NFL coverage:
Term divides cornerbacks, ‘D’ experts
How do you define a shutdown cornerback? Plus, team-by-team notes.
How exactly does one define a shutdown cornerback?
USA TODAY Sports posed that question to several of the NFL’s top corners in an attempt to answer a few other questions: Why is the term still around? Should people even use it?
But first, here’s what today’s top lock-down pass defenders had to say.
Patrick Peterson of the Arizona Cardinals: “If you’re going to have that label, you should at least show that it’s you and that particular receiver with no help. At all. Going with a guy when he’s in slot. Going with a guy when he’s on the right side. Taking that No. 1 receiver out of the game. Let’s slug it out.”
Richard Sherman of the Seattle Seahawks: “A guy who makes enough plays. A guy who gives his team a chance to win. A guy who needs to be game-planned for. A guy who is on the scouting report. That’s a shutdown corner.”
Josh Norman of the Washington Redskins: “Best on best. If that receiver comes in averaging 100 yards and however many touchdowns, he better not get 100 yards. He better not get a touchdown.”
Other players interviewed offered similar versions of those answers. There’s just one issue: The term is nebulous.
“Shutdown corner” is to a defense what “franchise quarterback” is to an offense. Fans and the news media use the phrases, but there’s no quantifiable way to categorize a player as such with absolute finality. It leads to inconclusive debates. It also causes bruised pride, swollen egos and social media takedowns.
Perhaps that is because of the biggest hang-up that always comes up in these discussions: Does a shutdown cornerback need to shadow his opponent’s No. 1 receiver?
“I wouldn’t stick your hat all on that, because there aren’t many guys that can do that,” Denver Broncos corner Chris Harris tells USA TODAY Sports. “I can only name a handful that travel anyway.”
Just to show how far opinions vary, all you have to do is look at the other side of the field.
“It requires you to travel with him,” cornerback Aqib Talib, Harris’ teammate, tells USA TODAY Sports. “Because I don’t think you can be a shutdown corner if you line up on the left and the guy on the right has 500 yards receiving and four touchdowns and you’re just watching him. You’re not shutting nothing down. You’re just doing your job. You’re a do-your-job corner.”
Based on several conversations with former and current players, coaches and analysts, the traditional definition of a shutdown corner was a player who operated in a man-to-man scheme — with little or no help — and was assigned the opposing team’s top receiver from whistle to whistle.
But zone coverages have become much more popular in recent years. In 2016, 14 teams are planning to operate out of a base defense primarily employing man-to-man coverage, 11 will use zone-based schemes and seven will run hybrid concepts that mix in man and zone.
Based on the traditional definition of a shutdown corner, that means more than half of the 32 teams wouldn’t be eligible.
But should a player be penalized because of the scheme in which he plays? This brings up one of the most interesting questions that arose during the interview process, and it is the one argument that would alter the way we talk about cornerback play in the NFL: Was there ever a shutdown corner?
Based on numerous conversations with current and former players and coaches, Hall of Famer Deion Sanders is the man who is credited with the creation of the term ... even if he isn’t sure what it means now.
“We’ve got to figure out what the term really means,” Sanders tells USA TODAY Sports by phone. “It should be a guy that nullifies the big plays of an opposing receiver. He shuts that down. You might as well go somewhere else. But isn’t that what all corners should do?”
Sanders says he thought he was a shutdown corner.
But Sherman says it is a misnomer and false rhetoric to consider Sanders a cornerback who blanketed a No. 1 receiver.
“Deion was a right-side corner,” Sherman says. “He didn’t travel anywhere.”
This is where the debate becomes complicated.
Sanders played from 1989 to 2000 with the Atlanta Falcons, San Francisco 49ers, Dallas Cowboys and Redskins. He returned for two seasons in 2004 and 2005 with the Baltimore Ravens.
Greg Cosell, an analyst and senior producer at NFL Films, says the digitization of archived coaches’ film through the league’s Game Rewind software goes back only to 2006.
“There were times (Sanders) did travel and times he didn’t, but it wasn’t automatic,” Cosell tells USA TODAY Sports. “I remember times later in his career where he would definitely play on one side. There were times he didn’t even go into the huddle. He just stayed on the right side.
“But I do remember other times where he did match up. As is the case with everything in football, nothing is 100%. People talk about it at times as if it is, but nothing is 100%.”
By the conventional label, Peterson and the New York Jets’ Darrelle Revis are the closest fans will get to that man-to-man matchup/shutdown corner. But that doesn’t minimize the impact of players such as Sherman who operate primarily out of a zone scheme, even if they play man coverage concepts out of that foundational defense. That would cheat Sherman out of the credit he deserves as one of the top defenders in the league.
Much like talk of elite quarterbacks, the argument about shutdown corners will never reach an end. That’s part of what makes it so compelling. But that’s all it will ever be: endless and unresolved sports-talk fodder.
“It’s overrated to me,” Talib says. “Four receivers, five guys out there that can catch the ball, there’s five DBs, so who is the shutdown? Let’s start a new topic and talk about who are the shutdown secondaries.
“Who is shutting down every pass that you throw?”