1. Chargers Slot Cornerback Position
2. Chargers Slot Cornerback Game

Slot or Nickel Cornerbacks. A slot cornerback is also referred to as a “Nickel” cornerback. The slot corner is also dubbed the “Nickel” corner because Nickel is the package that brings the extra defensive backs to the field. This also means that there are 5 defensive backs (nickel = 5 cents) on the field. Mar 31, 2020 Harris expects to play slot cornerback for the Chargers in 2020, Daniel Popper of The Athletic reports. The Broncos opted to move on from Harris this offseason, and the nine-year veteran found a. In case you weren’t familiar with Desmond King, he is a 25-year-old slot cornerback who can play almost any spot in the defensive backfield and has played his whole career with the Los Angeles. Slot or Nickel Cornerbacks A slot cornerback is also referred to as a “Nickel” cornerback. The slot corner is also dubbed the “Nickel” corner because Nickel is the package that brings the extra defensive backs to the field. This also means that there are 5 defensive backs (nickel = 5 cents) on the field. In 2020, the slot cornerback is more valuable than ever in football, at any level. With more offense spreading defenses out, more good cornerbacks are needed on the inside to deal with the dangerous weapons that offenses are deploying nowadays. Nickel is the new base, and that means slot cornerbacks can go high come April.

Chargers Slot Cornerback Position

In the 2019 NFL season, per Sports Info Solutions, there were 19,933 total quarterback dropbacks. Against those dropbacks, NFL defenses put four defensive backs on the field just 18% of the time (3,579 snaps), while nickel defense (with five defensive backs) ruled the league by far with 59% of all snaps (11,780). And if you want to know how much the NFL isn’t a base defense league anymore, consider this: Defenses lined up in dime coverage (six defensive backs on the field) on 20.9% of total dropbacks (4,091), which means that teams played more dime defense than base defense. The Seahawks were the only team to play base defense more than 50% of the time (67%), and the Cardinals finished second at 37%.

All this is to say that unless you’re the Seahawks, you’d better have some top-level slot defenders if you want to put a credible pass defense out there in a league where offenses are implementing more kinds of receiver sets and route combinations than ever before.

And it’s not as if the skill sets required to be a slot defender are the same as those for an outside cornerback. You might be up against a 6-foot-5, 250-pound tight end on first down who can body you right out of the paint, and on the next play, you may have to deal with a small, speedy option-route receiver whose job is to juke you right out of your shoes. And as Richard Sherman once told me in his Seattle days, the thing about playing outside cornerback is that the boundary is your friend. That’s not the case when you’re in the slot, where you’re defending in space pretty much all the time.

So, which slot defenders were the most effective and valuable to their teams in 2019, and thus should be set up to do the same in 2020? With help from Pro Football Focus’ metrics, and a whole lot of tape study, here’s one list. To avoid small sample-size results, each of these defenders played at least 50% of their snaps in the slot.

Chargers Slot Cornerback Game

Mike Hilton Chris Harris Jr. Jourdan Lewis Tramon Williams Mackensie Alexander Nickell Robey-Coleman Marlon Humphrey D.J. Hayden Brian Poole K’Waun Williams Tyrann Mathieu