Denmark looks very intriguing
6-3 cornerback prospect could compete for backup job
On a whim last spring, Stephen Denmark switched sides and lined up on defense.
Valdosta State was going through one-onone drills during spring ball when coach Kerwin Bell, now the offensive coordinator at South Florida, asked who could play cornerback.
Denmark raised his hand and said, “I can play it.” Both men had a chuckle and over the next few weeks, Denmark took a handful of reps at the position. When he met with Bell for his exit meeting at the end of spring practices, the coach said, “I know you can play receiver and I think you can play corner — if you put your mind to it.”
Denmark knew he would be a regular for the Blazers at wide receiver, but Bell had inspired confidence in him while also challenging him, and Denmark decided to commit to changing positions with one caveat: If he didn’t like it over the summer, he could return to offense.
That’s the backstory of how Denmark went from being a wide receiver on nobody’s radar — he caught 30 passes over his first three college seasons — to a freakishly sized cornerback who slowly gained exposure as Valdosta State completed a 14-0 season with a victory over Ferris State in the Division II national championship game. Although he was a seventh-round pick, drafted 238th, the Bears’ depth chart behind starters Kyle Fuller and Prince Amukamara is wide open, especially compared with most other positions on the roster.
General manager Ryan Pace said Denmark was one of the players he was most looking forward to seeing this weekend at rookie minicamp.
Denmark looked every bit the 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds the Bears list him at Friday during the first practice, and his 79½-inch wingspan is massive. The goal for the weekend — besides improving on a deflating end to Friday’s session with six of eight kickers missing field-goal attempts from 43 yards — is to get players who will stick around for the offseason program up to speed with how the Bears practice.
As the offseason progresses and the team reaches training camp in Bourbonnais, it will get a better handle on whether Denmark can battle for a role. His 4.46second time in the 40-yard dash at his pro day will only help.
Taller cornerbacks face challenges, but Vanderbilt’s Joejuan Williams was the sixth one drafted this year, taken in the second round by the Patriots. Like Denmark, he’s listed at 6-3.
The Patriots are a press-heavy team in the secondary and play a good deal of single-high safety. Coach Bill Belichick wants big, long corners outside the numbers to match up against bigger receivers. When a taller corner — think above 6-1 — is going to play off man, he isn’t going to have the footwork of a corner who is, say, 5-10 to 6-foot. The taller corners are not going to close as quickly — it takes them longer to come out of their breaks.
The 49ers’ Richard Sherman, who became a star as a fifth-round pick of the Seahawks, is a good example. He is also 6-3 and plays his best when he can get his hands on guys and dictate the matchup at the line of scrimmage. When he plays off, he isn’t as dominant because he doesn’t make the quick transition that a smaller, quicker corner can.
With the notable exception of 6-2 Charles Tillman, the Bears rarely have found taller cornerbacks who could get on the field. Since 1970, Charlie Ford is the only other cornerback listed at 6-2 or taller to play in eight games or more during a season for the franchise, according to profootball-reference.com. The 6-3 Ford was a second-round pick from Houston in 1971 and had 14 interceptions in three seasons, including seven in 1972.
The Bears sent assistant director of player personnel Champ Kelly and secondary coach Deshea Townsend to Valdosta to work out Denmark three days before the draft. They put him on the white board. They looked at some tape. They watched how he moved laterally and made quick transitions. They left impressed with Denmark, who spent all of about a week at cornerback as a sophomore in high school and was not invited to even a low-level college all-star game, let alone the NFL scouting combine. It’s worth noting he comes from the Southeast, where the Bears have area scout Sam Summerville — the one who pushed for the Bears to draft another Division II talent two years ago: running back Tarik Cohen.
If Cohen was a bit of a sleeper as a fourth-round pick, Denmark is a super sleeper. Raw? Very. Intriguing? You bet. The Bears felt Denmark did a nice job absorbing information during the private workout. They liked how he tracked balls in the air on film, not an easy skill for some experienced corners. They liked his physical play.
“I kind of had an idea they really liked me, but when it got late (in Round 7), I didn’t know,” said Denmark, who watched Day 3 of the draft with family and friends. He didn’t schedule a cookout as a draft party until the day after he was selected.
In the pre-draft process, some teams talked about Denmark as a possible safety. Two clubs asked if he was comfortable putting on weight and becoming a linebacker. The Bears want to see him at cornerback, which stands to reason. Cornerbacks are more valuable than safeties, and it would be a mistake to switch him until they know he can’t play the position.
“We’ve got time with him and he’s got traits,”coach Matt Nagy said. “He’s a big guy who can do a lot of things.”
In time, the Bears will learn if Denmark can play off man, if he can play in space and if he can redirect and break on smaller, quicker receivers. If he can, there’s little doubt with his size and strength that he would get physical with receivers and handle them at the line of scrimmage.
“I’m already having a lot of fun. I am just taking advantage of the opportunity,” Denmark said. “I’m a late developer at corner. I know I still have a lot of technique stuff to work on so I can become a professional cornerback.”
Surely, the Bears have taken note of the fact Denmark responds well.
“If coach asks you to do something, just do it,” he said. “You never know where it might take you.”
In his case, it brought him all the way to the NFL.
No one would have blinked if the Bears had sent Spencer Evans home Friday.
After the kicker from Purdue missed his first eight field-goal attempts, his three-day tryout easily could have been shortened to one regrettable day. The Bears could have proceeded with seven kickers here instead of eight, leaving Evans as a forgettable footnote in a competition that will take many more turns before Week 1.
But not only did Evans remain in the mix Saturday, he was the most accurate of the bunch. While Friday’s standout, Elliott Fry, returned to ordinary, Evans was nearly perfect.
“The patience is huge,” coach Matt Nagy said. “It gives these kids a chance to bounce back from a rough day, come back today and improve themselves, just like we’re telling every other player on this team.
“When you make a mental mistake — you drop a ball, you get beat on a double-move as a DB, you make a mistake mentally — do you make the same mistake twice? The more volume we get to see (regarding) what they do trajectory-wise as kickers, accuracy, leg-strength-wise, we can judge them by that.”
Nagy said if the Bears make roster moves at kicker based on the rookie minicamp, it won’t be for a couple of more days.
“We need some time,” he said, “and we need a lot of attempts.”
Six of the eight kickers made a 42-yard field goal in front of the entire team at the end of practice. That was after only two of eight connected on a 43-yarder at the end of Friday’s session.
On Saturday, with dozens of onlookers as silent as they would be for a golfer teeing off, only Redford Jones and John Baron missed. They are two of the four kickers under contract.
Another development in the kicking fun Saturday: Tryout punter Alex Kjellsten (McNeese State) participated with the kickers and was one of the most accurate. Kjellsten’s inclusion makes nine kickers — five on a tryout basis, four under contract — at this camp.
The four under contract are being made available for media interviews Sunday. Evans and the other tryout players will not be made available.
2. Kerrith Whyte and Emanuel Hall have a real chance of making the 53-man roster because of their speed.
Whyte, the seventh-round running back from Florida Atlantic, and Hall, the undrafted receiver from Missouri, each ran the 40-yard dash faster than 4.4 seconds during the pre-draft process.
The Bears offense doesn’t have such lightning speed in abundance. Other than Tarik Cohen and Taylor Gabriel, the Bears lack skill-position players who threaten defenses vertically, so Whyte and Hall could have staying power.
“Sometimes you can have that track speed and you don’t feel it on the field,” Nagy said. “But both of those guys, you feel it on the field.”
Whyte showed off his speed Saturday on a go route on which he caught the pass. Hall, meanwhile, will have to diversify his route running to complement deep patterns.
He expected to be drafted as high as the second round, but teams were scared off by, among other things, durability concerns. His final season at Missouri was limited by a groin injury.
Hall hosted a full-blown draft party last weekend, only to never hear his name called.
“That was probably one of the (biggest) motivational things that’s ever happened to me,” he said. “It was humbling.”
3. When some former Bears players met with rookies the first night, Whyte connected with Matt Forte at dinner.
Whyte has an appreciation for Forte’s versatility, especially his contributions in the passing game.
“He just told me to attack practice each and every day, form good habits and the good things will happen,” Whyte said.
4. Receiver Riley Ridley earned Nagy’s praise for minimizing mental errors on Day 1.
The fourth-round pick has solicited advice from his older brother Calvin, who is coming off a productive first season with the Falcons after a decorated career at Alabama.
Riley Ridley was a renowned route runner at Georgia. His brother’s point of emphasis for continuing that success at the NFL level: game speed.
“You’ve got to run fast,” Riley said. “You’ve got to be able to get in and out of your cuts fast. You’ve got to be dialed in. You’ve got to know how to convert on certain things and with certain coverages.”
5. Undrafted tight end Dax Raymond believes he can pick up the Bears offense quickly because he has learned a new language.
After graduating high school in 2013, Raymond served a two-year church mission in and around Vladivostok, Russia.
“That gave me confidence that if I can learn the Russian language,” Raymond said, “I can pick up a playbook.”
It took Raymond six months to learn satisfactory Russian, he said. At least the Bears’ playbook is in English.
Raymond, listed at 6-foot-5 and 220 pounds, isn’t athletic enough for the Bears to consider him a true U tight end, the receiver-like position led by Trey Burton. And Raymond’s blocking technique is raw for a Y tight end, the in-line role Adam Shaheen plays.
The Bears will try to develop Raymond as a Y. And if they keep four tight ends on the 53-man roster, Raymond is the leading candidate for the fourth spot behind Burton, Shaheen and Ben Braunecker.
“With some coaching, I think I can get there (as a blocker) because I know I’m willing and I have the body and I’m physical,” he said. “It’s just some technical problems or things that I just haven’t learned that I can.”