Prime-Time First TD Bets — Monday Night Football, Week 16
Alex Christenson
Defensive Player of the Year is usually an edge rusher award, but not always. Five years ago, Stephon Gilmore took home the prize after locking down half the field for the Patriots in 2019. This year, Patrick Surtain might get the prize for doing the same for the Broncos.
With one week left in the regular season, Surtain leads the NFL in my cornerback coverage DVOA metric. What’s particularly interesting here is that the cornerback who plays the other side for Denver, Riley Moss, comes out near the bottom of the league.
The cornerback coverage metric looks at every snap with a cornerback in coverage with the help of FTN Data charting, and then how often he either allows a successful reception, earns a DPI penalty, or gets an interception. The numbers are adjusted for opponent and for where the receiver in question was lined up before the play. Receivers lined up in the slot tend to have more success than those lined up wide, but the receivers lined up wide are often the more talented and overall successful players.
It takes some time to put these numbers together every couple of weeks, but until we get them automated so that they can appear on StatsHub, I want to present the numbers to our subscribers every few weeks during the season. (Here’s the article from after Week 11 if you want to compare it to the current numbers.)
The Top 12 Cornerbacks of 2024
(minimum 350 routes in coverage)
| Rk | Player | DVOA | Team | Routes |
| 1 | Pat Surtain II | -45.1% | DEN | 567 |
| 2 | Christian Benford | -40.3% | BUF | 532 |
| 3 | Tarheeb Still | -36.5% | LAC | 424 |
| 4 | Jaylon Johnson | -36.4% | CHI | 511 |
| 5 | Byron Murphy Jr. | -34.8% | MIN | 572 |
| 6 | Tykee Smith | -31.1% | TB | 376 |
| 7 | Derek Stingley Jr. | -27.9% | HOU | 557 |
| 8 | Cooper DeJean | -26.6% | PHI | 366 |
| 9 | Garrett Williams | -26.5% | ARI | 378 |
| 10 | Donte Jackson | -23.9% | PIT | 451 |
| 11 | Marlon Humphrey | -22.7% | BAL | 475 |
| 12 | Deommodore Lenoir | -21.9% | SF | 472 |
As I note each time I discuss this metric, cornerback stats are very inconsistent. Nothing in a small sample should be taken as proof that a player is a secret superstar or a complete flop. Sometimes coverage DVOA will swing 80 percentage points between Weeks 1-9 and Weeks 10-18. I would make sure to always judge cornerbacks with a combination of stats and reputation earned from film study. (For example, Sauce Gardner is mediocre in this metric this year but was fabulous in both 2022 and 2023. One average year does not make him an average cornerback.)
One reason Patrick Surtain deserves DPOY consideration, then, is that he’s been very consistent this year. In Weeks 1-9, Surtain had a coverage DVOA of -43.4%. In Weeks 10-17, Surtain had a coverage DVOA of -47.5%.
Another important fact about Surtain is that he covered WR1 more often than any other cornerback in the league this year, 297 routes. On a percentage basis, that’s 52% of his routes, which ranks third among cornerbacks with at least 350 routes behind Christian Gonzalez (59%) of the Patriots and Deonte Banks (55%) of the Giants. Benjamin St-Juste (48%) of the Commanders was a surprising fourth with AJ Terrell (47%) of the Falcons fifth.
Do you want to see the whole table of 2024 cornerbacks? That’s available to subscribers coming up here…
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