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By Bob Sturm Sep 30, 2021
Most players look for a reason to feel doubted. It stokes the fire and probably gives them a fire in their belly when they need a reason to train for hours in the middle of the offseason.
“Nobody believed in me,” is a phrase we hear in many championship interviews where someone tells us that even though they were selected pretty high in the NFL draft, because they were not picked even higher — they didn’t have enough “believers.”
I have no idea where Trevon Diggs is in this discussion. Given that he went to Alabama and was earmarked to be an NFL player for years before he got here and because his big brother was already a star in this league, he probably didn’t have too much reason to be mad at the haters. On the other hand, he was thought to be a first-round prospect and then wasn’t selected until pick No. 51.
In fact, if you really want to annoy him, I bet you could tell him that seven other corners were picked before him. Imagine the insult!
Here is the list (I am sure he has his own stored mentally):
2020 NFL Draft - Cornerbacks
| RK | YEAR | RND | PICK▲ | PLAYER | POS | TM | GS | COLLEGE/UNIV |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2020 | 1 | 3 |  Jeff Okudah | CB | DET | 7 | Ohio St. |
| 2 | 2020 | 1 | 9 |  C.J. Henderson | CB | JAC | 10 | Florida |
| 3 | 2020 | 1 | 16 |  A.J. Terrell | CB | ATL | 16 | Clemson |
| 4 | 2020 | 1 | 19 |  Damon Arnette | CB | LAV | 7 | Ohio St. |
| 5 | 2020 | 1 | 30 |  Noah Igbinoghene | CB | MIA | 2 | Auburn |
| 6 | 2020 | 1 | 31 |  Jeff Gladney | CB | MIN | 15 | TCU |
| 7 | 2020 | 2 | 50 |  Jaylon Johnson | CB | CHI | 16 | Utah |
| 8 | 2020 | 2 | 51 |  Trevon Diggs | CB | DAL | 14 | Alabama |
This last week, C.J. Henderson (pick No. 9 of the 2020 NFL Draft and the second corner taken) was traded from Jacksonville to Carolina for very little return. There is a great chance he plays Sunday in Arlington against the Cowboys and a reminder of top prospects not always instantly becoming top pros.
Now there are certainly a number of ways for us to catalog who is better than the others with statistics and highlight films, but much like last week with Micah Parsons, Diggs is making us wonder what everyone else was thinking.
Diggs has six interceptions with three in 2020 and three more in 2021. That doubles the productivity of any other member of the 2020 draft class and when you look at it from a “splash play” perspective, only Chicago’s Jaylon Johnson would be close to him on the list of overall impactful plays on defense. Washington’s Kam Curl is a seventh-round safety who has also made a large number of plays in his own right and would be third on this list.
Courtesy of TruMedia
That is a whole lot of high-impact plays made for a corner who we thought was a nice player, but one with some rough edges who would need time to develop. His rookie season was interrupted for over a month when he went down in the Pittsburgh game in Week 9 and did not return until Week 15 versus the 49ers. But all year long, the kid made plays and picked off three different Philadelphia Eagles passes in ’20.
So, we shouldn’t be surprised when he picked off a fourth Eagles pass in 2021. He was sitting on an out to DeVonta Smith and cut in front of a stumbling Smith and took it back to the house in an instant.
This play turned the game and wasn’t his only moment of impact. Diggs broke up three more passes and looked like a guy the Eagles might have been advised to stop challenging. I think it is clear that this is probably the most aggressive and impressive corner the Cowboys have had in a long time. No disrespect to Byron Jones or Brandon Carr or anyone else on the list, but I think we are forced to use Terence Newman as the last player who had this quality.
Newman was a magnificent player who is probably under-appreciated for his accomplishments in Dallas (as many players from that era are given the tepid team results), and as the fifth pick overall in the 2003 draft with 42 career interceptions, it would seem impossible to suggest he did not hit his ceiling. He was superb.
Now, here is Diggs, who has tremendous size and has shown the ability to match the speed of most, the playmaking of few, and the mental acuity required to be a lead corner on a top defense. He has definitely been beaten in his first 15 games, but show me a player who hasn’t. Every corner takes his turn in the burn unit. But, like Parsons last week and Osa Odighizuwa, Diggs is another tremendous talent who is starting to piece together a group of defenders that may form a better group quicker than people think.
Dan Quinn is great and, along with the front office, has demonstrated an eye for talent. That is important because while scheme and technique matter, you will not win the Kentucky Derby on a donkey. You require thoroughbreds and it appears those are being accumulated in short order.
Week 3 versus Philadelphia
Some good and bad in this performance but this is where context will be vital. Box score readers can surmise that some of these red numbers above show signs the defense is still in major disrepair. But, I hope we prepared you for this in the game preview because the Eagles have one source of offense and it is “chunk plays” right now. They cannot sustain drives and that showed as much throughout most of the game.
The raw yardage, yards per play and explosive plays are too much for our liking. But, the Eagles never strung together big moments. So while they were decent at flipping field position a bit, the Eagles didn’t threaten a score until the very late stages of the third quarter when they were already lost at sea.
The Eagles took the ball 12 times Monday night and only twice — drive No. 8 started down 20 points and drive No. 11 started down 27 points — yielded multiple first downs. That is a shockingly poor number. Their first-half drives went like this: interception, punt, punt, punt, punt. Then the Eagles started the second half with an interception (pick six) and another punt. Like I said previously: If you have any idea what Philadelphia is trying to do on offense, please advise. I have no idea whatsoever.
For me, the lead story of this week continues to be the lead story of the season. This defense has not collapsed without having many of the heavy lifters we expected to be vital to its success. To assume the Cowboys’ defense could survive against the Chargers and Eagles without DeMarcus Lawrence, Neville Gallimore, Donovan Wilson and even Keanu Neal this week seemed far-fetched. Say nothing about no Trysten Hill or Kelvin Joseph, who are both on injured reserve. Carlos Watkins was giving them 35 snaps per game and he was gone, too. We had no idea how the Cowboys were going to handle a game with almost no defensive tackles. The Eagles obliged them by giving the ball to their runners three times the whole game.
Parsons was again impressive. Randy Gregory got after it. Odighizuwa necessitated his own banana stand.
The question for the Dallas defense is going to be limiting the big plays. Big plays must be limited, but they are being covered up nicely by a team that keeps taking the ball away. We know turnovers are unlikely to continue at this NFL-leading pace (would love to be wrong), but you don’t want receivers running free in the secondary very often for a free 25 yards. The Eagles employed many crossers that cause traffic collisions and were able to scheme open targets, but that is not unique at this level. Sorting through the mess and staying with your targets is the next step.
Dallas is 29th in the NFL at allowing big plays and only three teams are as bad or worse. But, get a load of who they are: Baltimore, Kansas City and Washington. That is right, through three weeks, somehow Washington has allowed more big plays than any team in the league.
So, yeah, it is early.
SPLASH PLAYS
Let me wrap up this short week with a look at where we are with splash plays. This, to me, is the most important way to measure the positive impact of my defenders. And the most important way to understand what I am talking about is to review what the heck a splash play even is here.
In short, here is a visual aid:
I have great news. TruMedia has constructed a way for these to collate automatically. The one exception is they cannot add in the holding penalties drawn, so I will be adding those up as we go. For instance, Gregory drew three holding penalties (which is close to a record) on Monday, but they are not included here. I will add those soon enough.
For now, without the benefit of holding penalties, here are the Week 3 totals:
The season totals through three games:
In all of my years of doing this (2012), we have never had a cornerback win this — because most splash plays are at or behind the line of scrimmage and corners don’t play there much. But, Diggs is making an early run at it. To see Diggs and Parsons up top is quite a story for us to follow.
Carolina will bring its own plans and it is already Thursday. We riff at dawn to prepare for that one on a very short week.
