If he had been a free agent last offseason, Mike Hilton would almost certainly have been in the top 50 of this list. However, he struggled in 2024, allowing four touchdowns on just 61 targets and a 92 passer rating when targeted. Those numbers were his worst since his first year in Cincinnati and the second worst in his career so far. Teams must decide whether 2024 was a blip or a sign of a 30-year-old corner losing a step. His role as a slot corner carries a lot of value, but it can also be a tough spot for an aging corner if they are losing half a step.
Asante Samuel Jr.’s season was cut short by an injury in 2024. Coming off the best year of his career in 2023, Samuel was looking for a strong showing to hit free agency as a potential top-50 option overall. Unfortunately, that was not the case due to a shoulder injury. In his second season, he cut his completion rate to 55.2% but allowed seven touchdowns in coverage. Then in 2023, he cut those touchdowns back to just three, despite seeing a career-high in targets, and held that completion rate at a more than respectable 60.4%. Samuel was off to another solid start in 2024 before the injury. His career trajectory is headed in the right direction, but he is still away from the top of the list of available corners at this stage.
At his peak, Stephon Gilmore was one of the premier cornerbacks in the NFL, but at 34 years of age, we are past that point now. Last season in Minnesota was Gilmore’s worst season in terms of passer rating allowed since that data was kept starting in 2018. He has seen that number climb from 74 in 2022 to 94.1 over the last two years. However, he still remains a solid veteran option who can help a team. Gilmore allowed a 61.9% completion rate in 2024, which is highly respectable. His one interception was his worst return since his final year in New England in 2020, and his 7.1 yards per target were the most since 2018.
The seventh-year pro started all 15 games he appeared in, recording a career-high five interceptions playing across from Joey Porter Jr. He also cut down on his penalties, with two flags being the fewest he’s accrued in any season in which he played 10+ games. Jackson did not commit a pass interference penalty for the first time in his career despite playing his second-highest coverage snaps total (467). He’ll be 29 years old until November, which should provide Jackson an opportunity to land one more multi-year deal as a clear-cut, starting-caliber perimeter cornerback. He did miss two games near the end of the regular season with a back issue, though he returned for the Wild Card game, suggesting this shouldn’t hamper his offseason.
Nate Hobbs has been the Raiders’ slot cornerback since the former fifth-rounder was a rookie in 2021 (with a brief interlude as a primary outside CB in 2022). However, Hobbs was limited to a career-low 11 games, missing six of the final eight due to an ankle injury. Injuries have been a recurrent issue for Hobbs, who has missed 16 games in the last three seasons. Hobbs did have five passes defended — the second-highest total of his career — in just 295 coverage snaps. His only larger total came in 2023 when he had seven in 451 coverage snaps. Hobbs turns 26 in June, and his solid level of play when healthy (including a willingness to stick his nose in run defense) should earn him a similar role to the one he’s occupied with Las Vegas.
After spending the first eight years of his career in Dallas, Jourdan Lewis could hit free agency this offseason. He is coming off one of the better seasons of his career, having allowed an 85.3 passer rating against. However, he is far from a slam dunk for teams this offseason. Lewis has generally been able to stay healthy, only missing more than one game once in his eight years. However, he has never been tested that heavily, having never started more than 13 games in a season and not targeted more than 80 times in a season. While Lewis does not have any disastrous seasons on his résumé, he has allowed a passer rating over 90 in three of the last five years. Those have all come in the years where he was targeted more than 70 times. Lewis has the potential to be a solid No. 2 option for a team, but his upside is capped there.
Paulson Adebo is coming off a season in which he allowed just a 71.9 passer rating against and had three interceptions. The year before, he allowed a 62.7 passer rating and intercepted four passes on 100 targets. However, he played just seven games in 2024 before breaking his femur and requiring surgery. That caps his upside a little and may make teams hesitant to sign him to a big deal. Additionally, Adebo had nine flags thrown against him in those seven games, with six of them being for defensive pass interference and the other three for defensive holding. The numbers are certainly tantalizing in terms of Adebo’s upside, but there are also enough factors to create hesitation this offseason. We could see Adebo sign a short-term deal this offseason before hitting the open market again in a year or two when he will hopefully be fully healthy.
Carlton Davis is also a potential high-reward free agent. He is coming off the best season of his career, with a 77 passer rating allowed. Among qualified corners, that ranks 20th, and it is his fifth season in six years with a passer rating allowed below 90. In 2024, Davis allowed just two touchdowns and a 55.3% completion rate when targeted. He only managed two interceptions and has not had more than two in a single season since 2020. Davis does not give teams the high-splash upside of Murphy and has a little more injury concern than Reed. Therefore, he slots in as the third-ranked corner in our list of free agents, and we could see teams hesitant to commit big money over multiple years with those injury concerns.
In terms of pure cover corners, D.J. Reed is perhaps the top option in free agency. While his passer rating allowed (87.1) ranked just 50th this season, it is his consistency that is key. That was the highest passer rating allowed by Reed since his second year in the league. That is five years with a passer rating allowed of 87.1 or lower. Reed has allowed more than two touchdowns in coverage only once in his career, back in 2021. Additionally, he has held opposing quarterbacks to a lower than 60% completion rate in three of the past four years. The concern around Reed is that he does not make big splash plays. He has just six interceptions in his career and has only picked off two passes in his three years with the New York Jets. The reason Reed is not the clear-cut number-one corner is that he is not a player whom opponents will avoid targeting at all costs, and he is not someone who can change the outcome of a game with splash plays.
Byron Murphy is set to head into free agency coming off the best year of his career. He was targeted 119 times in coverage, allowing just a 76.7 passer rating when targeted. That ranked 18th among qualified corners this season. A big part of that was reeling in six interceptions, compared to just four touchdowns allowed when in coverage. In the last two years with Minnesota, he has proven to be an opportunistic cover corner, picking off nine passes. This season, his six interceptions tied for the league lead among corners with Marlon Humphrey. He has been well-tested this year, being the most heavily targeted corner in the league.
