Florham Park – Early this week, the Jets traded for Tennessee Titans cornerback Jarvis Brownlee.
The Louisville product via Florida State entered the league as a 2024 fifth-round pick of the Titans.
After the Titans made the selection, NFL.com draft guru Lance Zierlein said about the player:
“Jarvis Brownlee had a really good Senior Bowl,” Zeirlein said. “He plays with tremendous confidence, tremendous attitude. He’s an aggressive press corner. He likes to stay right up under your chin on your release, so he’s going to be very physical with his press release. Love the mentality as a press corner.”
He sounds like a good fit for Aaron Glenn’s scheme, which asks the corners to play a lot of press coverage.
Some people are calling for him to start quickly for cornerback Brandon Stephens, who the echo chamber seems to have turned on.
But that might be a little misguided.
First of all, Brownlee doesn’t know the Jets’ scheme yet, and is also injured.
Secondly, while many people are trying to run Stephens out of town, he really hasn’t played poorly the last two games, aside from giving up a five-yard TD on a quick slant to Tampa Bay’s 6-5, 231-pound receiver Mike Evans. Considering the result of the play, of course he could have played it better, but Evans has done that to a lot of corners, and how’d Sauce Gardner fare against the future Hall-of-Famer in the same game?
So you could argue, Stephens had one truly bad game this season, the first one, but that was more on the coaches than him. Stephens had issues staying with 5-8, 170-pound receiver Calvin Austin, who has 4.3 speed and incredible short-area quickness—a terrible matchup for a big corner like Stephens, who is 6-1, 215.
Can Stephens play better? Of course, but who doesn’t that apply to on defense?
So it’s worth taking a flyer on Brownlee, no doubt, but rushing him into the starting lineup might not be pragmatic.
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