Cornerback options will be hot debate for Bills in 2022 NFL draft

Six or seven cornerbacks probably will be rated among the top 35 to 40 players in the NFL draft, with three looking like slam dunks to be selected among the top 20.

That could make cornerback an attractive option for the Buffalo Bills with the 25th pick in the first round.

Cornerback might be the biggest single need on the Bills’ roster, considering starter Levi Wallace is set to become a free agent. Add the fact that star cornerback Tre’Davious White is recovering from knee surgery and might not be ready to open the regular season.

Most of the Bills’ toughest foes in the AFC – Kansas City, Tennessee and Cincinnati, in particular – have at least two elite receiving talents. It would be nice for the Bills to have another top-end athlete to pair with White at cornerback.

There figures to be a debate over whether they should take one in the first round or wait until the second, third or fourth.

“I think it’s a strong class at cornerback,” Baltimore general manager Eric DeCosta said at the NFL scouting combine. “It looks pretty deep. It looks like you can get a corner pretty much at any point throughout the draft process.”

“I think corner is a position where the depth is excellent,” ESPN analyst Mel Kiper said. “It’s hard to separate the seventh guy from the 15th guy on the list of corners.”

The top three widely are viewed as Louisiana State’s Derek Stingley Jr., Cincinnati’s Ahmad “Sauce” Gardner and Washington’s Trent McDuffie, in one order or another.

Stingley is the grandson of the late Darryl Stingley, the famous Patriots receiver from the 1970s. Derek Stingley was a first-team All-America as a true freshman, but wasn’t quite as dominant the past two seasons.

“I know myself and I know that when I'm at the best version of myself, I'm the greatest,” said Stingley, ranking himself against the other corners in the draft in a session with reporters Saturday. "Going into my second year and throughout my second year, I felt it was just as good as my freshman year. Freshman year I had over 90 targets. Sophomore year I had 30. If anything, that should just say I was doing my job.”

Most projections have Stingley and Gardner going in the top 15 picks. McDuffie is a clean prospect – fast, instinctive, smart and with minimal bust potential. Kiper projects him going 15th. The NFL Network’s Bucky Brooks has him going 23rd. The Bills might have to trade up a few spots to get him. McDuffie said he has talked with Buffalo.

“They’re a playoff-caliber team, so, I mean, shoot, my biggest goal is let’s get to the Super Bowl,” he said. “So if you go to the Bills, you’ve got a good chance for that.”

McDuffie’s teammate, Kyler Gordon, is a likely first-rounder who could break 4.4 seconds in the 40-yard dash. He is an elite athlete. His coverage instincts have drawn some questions, but he plays fast and physical. He met with the Bills, too.

“It was a fun time, just asking me questions, getting to know me and what I know, seeing my film and how I break it down,” Gordon said.

Gordon, Clemson’s Andrew Booth, Auburn’s Roger McCreary and Florida’s Kaiir Elam are in a group that have a good chance to be on the board at No. 25.

Booth is an aggressive, fluid athlete who can play man or zone, and he’s a good tackler, which is essential for corners in the Bills’ defense. McCreary, at 5-foot-11 and 189 pounds, is not quite as fast or as big as Booth, but he’s tough, fluid and instinctive.

The 6-2 Elam is more of a press-man corner, which doesn’t seem as much of a fit for the Buffalo defense.

“Where does Kaiir Elam from Florida, who’s really, really tall, end up going?” NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah said. “He's a press corner. He's got big-time makeup speed. There's some stuff in the transition that he struggled with a little bit, gave up a little bit of separation.”

A second-day cornerback who has a lot of experience in zone coverage and who loves to tackle is Nebraska’s Cam Taylor-Britt. He looks like a Bills-style player, if they don’t pick a corner in the first round. Small-school prospect Joshua Williams of Fayetteville State is scheme versatile with the long arms the Bills like, but he’s raw. He has major college athleticism, but small-school corners are a bit more of a risk making the big jump to the NFL.

Speed and more speed

The 2022 draft class is showing impressive speed at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis.

Six running backs posted times faster than 4.40 seconds in the 40-yard dash, the most since at least 2003 and more than the combined total of the past seven combines (five).

They were: Rutgers’ Isiah Pacheco (4.37), South Dakota State’s Pierre Strong (4.37), North Carolina’s Ty Chandler (4.38), Florida International’s D’vonte Price (4.38), Michigan State’s Kenny Walker III (4.38) and Iowa State’s Breece Hall (4.39). Hall and Walker are considered the top two backs in the draft class.

That followed blazing performances Thursday night by the wide receivers. Only six wide receivers in the previous 20 years ran faster than 4.30 seconds at the combine. Baylor’s Tyquan Thornton joined them by running 4.28. He’s slender and viewed as a Day 3 pick. Five other receivers broke 4.35 seconds. They were Tennessee’s Velus Jones (4.31), Memphis’ Calvin Austin III (4.32), Cincinnati’s Alec Pierce (4.33), SMU’s Danny Gray (4.33) and Rutgers’ Bo Melton (4.34).

Ohio State’s Chris Olave and Penn State’s Jahan Dotson, both potential targets for the Bills late in the first round, ran fast. Dotson ran 4.38, Olave 4.39.

Kentucky receiver WanDale Robinson, an attractive second- or third-round prospect, measured 5-8, three inches shorter than his roster height. But he ran fast, 4.44.

Meanwhile, Minnesota offensive tackle Daniel Faalele measured 6-8 and 384 pounds, the heaviest player since 2003, according to NFL Research. Faalele said Thursday he weighed 426 when he arrived at college.