Dolphins play on Xavien Howard, make him the NFL's highest paid cornerback | NFL analysis

The brass of the Miami Dolphins are all officially on Xavien Howard.

By Adam Schefter of ESPNMiami signed a $ 76.5 million, five-year contract with Howard, guaranteeing a $ 46 million guarantee on Thursday night, making him the NFL's highest paid cornerback. The record extension follows a career year for the 2016 second round pick. Howard has reached career highs in Overall Score (77.3), Defense Rating (83.6) and Coverage (80.3) out of 803 defensive shots. 2018.

Howard's career has been marked by ups and downs, however. Of the 114 NFL cornerbackers targeted at least 100 times in the last three years (2016-2018), he is ranked 58th in coverage (70.3), 42nd in percentage of forced completion ( 15.9%) and the 42nd in yards allowed by snap coverage. (1.10).

The 6-foot-1 and 192-pound Baylor product has the athletic size, length, and athletic ability to play the press and thrive in the NFL, but the results are inconsistent. It is elite game flashed In the press, the man is in crisis throughout his career, but his three years of coverage as a man, both on and off the fray, are disappointing. He earned 30.0 and 29.9 coverage ratings in the press in 2017 and 2018, largely because his highlighted pieces are too often followed by penalties.

[Editor’s Notes: To view all of Xavien Howard‘s career grades and advanced stats, check out his player page in Premium Stats 2.0!]

Only five cornerbacks of the NFL have been penalized on a higher percentage of their goals than Howard in the past three seasons, and an absolute majority of his coverage penalties result from too much or too difficult physical coverage to attract in the press. In fact, 18 of the 21 sanctions he has inflicted over his career have been claimed while he was in the press.

In fact, if Howard's penalties in the male coverage of the equation are removed, his three-year coverage rating increases from 56.8 to 77.3.

Imposing penalties on Howard's rate will always have a negative effect on the coverage note of the cornerback in the PFF system. It is not surprising that he has achieved better ratings in the area coverage throughout his career. His zone play is not much better and remains very inconsistent, but there are fewer bad games on his band when he is assigned area coverage responsibilities as opposed to a man.

In 2018, Howard allowed 11 receptions on 22 targets for 131 yards, zero touchdowns and just four first tries in the Cover-2, Cover-3 and Quarters looks. He also recorded four forced breaches, including two interceptions, and ranked 12th for the cover rank (81.4) among the cornerbacks with 20 more targets in the covers. year. His passer-by rating of 26.8 allowed in all three covers led all half-corner qualifiers in the last season.

Bring our attention to its targets of more than 10 airfields in the area coverage last season, and its coverage level of 70.2 and 26.7% of the uncompleted percentages forced to 14th and 8th ranks, respectively, out of 80 qualified.

The same natural ability (size, length, athleticism, speed) that drove Miami to want to make Howard an elite half-corner in the NFL reveal in his game in the zone blanket. And he is less subject to penalties when he is removed from the tight-headed situations in which he finds himself when he plays the man blanket.

While all teams want their version of Stephon Gilmore – the NFL's top-ranked corner-half and juicer a year ago – the new Dolphins defenses coordinator, Brian Flores, will not bring him to South Beach . And while Flores wants Howard to defend Gilmore's Miami defense without fail, he will do more harm than good, but he can not hone Howard's physical appearance and get rid of the absurd penalty rate.

The safest game is to limit Howard's clichés in the press officer and choose his battles according to the clash, which will give him fewer opportunities to see flags and more opportunities for production. above ground with extended coverage. The aggressive game, the most likely of the two options with Flores at the helm, is to bet on Howard's improvement in 4th year with fewer penalties and less coverage against all the matches.