With Jaire Alexander now a Baltimore Raven, there is a little more clarity around the makeup of the cornerback position for the Green Bay Packers, but also more uncertainty in terms of how players stepping into bigger roles will perform in 2025.
General manager Brian Gutekunst has expressed confidence in the group, headlined by Keisean Nixon, Carrington Valentine and new signing Nate Hobbs, and offered up an interesting perspective during his recent interview with Cheesehead TV.
Asked about the corner position as a whole, Gutekunst said: “We have three guys that have combined started over 90 games in the National Football League and I feel really good about those three guys and the versatility they bring. All three guys are able to play inside out and outside”.
He added: “There’s not many teams in this league that probably have three guys they feel really good about. We do.”
The last part of that quote is interesting, and after some research about how the NFL as a whole is constructed at corner entering the season, it seems to be a salient point.
Using PFF grades to evaluate each team’s top three corners entering the season, based on their best season out of the last two years (unless they are aged 28 or over, in which case their 2024 grade was used), there is some validity to Gutekunst’s statement.
By the parameters established, Nixon is the “worst” corner of Green Bay’s top three, with a 64.1 grade in 2024, which is still an above average mark. Valentine had a 65.5 grade last season, and Hobbs’ 69 grade in 2023 gives him the highest proven ability to this point.
Comparing Nixon to the CB3’s on the other 31 teams, and the Packers do indeed appear to be a good spot.
Of the projected number three corners around the NFL, only nine have fared better than Nixon in either of the last two seasons, and in fact there are three teams (Minnesota, San Francisco and Miami) with only two corners who played enough snaps to qualify for PFFs rankings in 2024.
Four of the teams with a CB3 ranked below the Packers drafted a corner in the first two rounds this year, providing a path to improvement Green Bay, who will host a competition between Kalen King, Kamal Hadden and Micah Robinson, for snaps behind the top three, cannot boast.
But in terms of established players, they have three guys with some pelts on the wall whom they can trust to not be a liability. Javon Bullard will also be in the mix to play in the slot as well as at safety.
It may not seem like much of a flex to say you have a top ten CB3 in the league, but pass coverage is very often a weak link system, with opposing teams looking for someone to pick on. The Packers do not have one.
Valentine, their CB2 based on recent performance, ranks 18th in the league, and Hobbs, who has the best track record, would rank 24th among number one corners. Overall, Green Bay’s top three corners rank 19th in the league based on their highest level of play since 2023.
This is obviously not an ideal overall ranking for a team looking to get back to competing for championships, but past is not prologue, and there is reason to believe every single one of Nixon, Valentine and Hobbs could improve in 2025.
Nixon may be almost 28 years old, but he is still developing as a corner due to only having two years of starting experience.
He has consistently improved with more experience, and after being moved from the slot to the boundary in 2024, his play ticked up. In the final six games he played the majority of his snaps outside last year, his PFF grade rose to 67.6 compared to 58.5 in his other games.
Valentine is still only 23 years old and is younger than two corners who were drafted in the first 76 picks of the 2024 draft, but has two years of NFL football, including an above average season, on his resume.
The former seventh-rounder was also trending up at the end of 2024, earning a 67.2 grade in the final six games he played, which included a four-game stretch where his average grade was 76.2.
Green Bay will be hoping Hobbs rediscovers his best play in a more prosperous situation. His PFF grade was 61.4 last season, but he posted an 80.1 grade, fifth-best in the NFL, as a rookie, and his 69 grade in 2023 is above average. There is a ceiling there to be reached.
There is a darker scenario which has to be considered, where none of them take a real step, Nixon and Hobbs are simply average cover corners and Valentine does not improve his run defense enough to be a true starter, limiting his overall impact.
However, it is worth noting that despite the issues and constant interchanging of the defensive backfield, the Packers ranked 4th as a team overall in PFF’s coverage grade in 2024, which includes not only the corners, but also the safeties and linebackers.
Defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley worked wonders a year ago on the back end, even with a lack of pass rush to make life easier. They lost Alexander, who only played 33% of the defensive snaps, and Eric Stokes, who was their worst corner, and added Hobbs to fill the void.
Whether they have someone who can line up across from Justin Jefferson in man coverage and survive is debatable, but in the modern NFL, few teams do, and zone coverage is very much the default setting.
Even if the worst possible outcome for Green Bay’s projected top three corners plays out, they should still be just fine defending the pass, and there are reasons for optimism that the Packers could get better overall play from their corners in 2025 than a year ago.
