Challenges facing Mike Sainristil as he shifts back to the slot

Breaking down the challenges for Mike Sainristil ahead of a likely move back into the slot

One of the shining stars of the Commanders 2024 draft class, outside of quarterback Jayden Daniels of course, was second round cornerback Mike Sainristil. Sainristil was drafted to be the long term slot cornerback with an undersized frame but outstanding character, competitiveness, athleticism and ball skills. Those traits are all key traits for a Dan Quinn defender, which made Sainristil an obvious fit with Quinn.

Sainristil immediately won the starting slot cornerback job, but after the secondary had multiple issues in the opening weeks of the season, the Commanders kicked him outside and he steadily improved over the course of the season. He came up with two huge interceptions in the playoff win over the Lions, one of which was a truly exceptional play that showed the upside in his game.

With about 30 seconds remaining in the half, the Lions were driving looking to score another touchdown and cut the lead down to just three at the half time break. The Lions call a great quarters beater. To the right of the formation, the Lions have two receivers. The inside receiver runs a basic cross while the outside receiver runs a post route. The idea here is if the defense plays quarters coverage, the safety will likely have to attach to the basic cross underneath, leaving the deep middle of the field open. The outside receiver can then run his post route away from the outside corner, who is expecting to have help inside and thus plays with outside leverage.

The Commanders happen to play the exact coverage that the Lions were looking for. They play quarters coverage and you can see how safety Quan Martin attaches to the basic cross from the slot receiver. That leaves cornerback Mike Sainristil on the outside in a really tough position. He’s playing with outside leverage against a post route where he should have help inside but actually doesn’t. On top of that, he’s doing it against one of the fastest receivers in the league. But Saintstil plays this perfectly. He keeps his cushion to try and stay on top of Jameson Williams vertical threat. Once Williams breaks inside to the post, Sainristil gets a strong idea of what the offense is trying to do. Instead of trying to stay on top of the route, he gets aggressive and goes for the ball by undercutting the route. He times it perfectly and arrives in front of Williams as the ball does, intercepting the pass in the end zone.

It was a huge play by Sainristil, probably his best coverage play of the entire season. He couldn’t have played it better. The Lions had the perfect look for the concept they had called, but Sainristil made an outstanding read and play by undercutting the route to intercept what should and probably would have been a touchdown against a lot of other cornerbacks. For a rookie corner to make that play in that moment is amazing and shouldn’t be understated. It was another huge turnover that took points off the board and maintained the 10-point lead at the half time break.

However, playing outside wasn’t always the plan for Sainristil. He was drafted to play in the slot, largely because of his size. At his size, he’s more suited to playing inside. As it turned out, Sainristil held up better on the outside than anticipated, so it’s not impossible he ends up out there in the future. But there were times when that size issue showed up.

On this play, the Eagles send receiver A.J. Brown out to the right and have him run a slant route against Sainristil. Brown is listed at 6-foot-1, 226 pounds while Sainristil is listed at 5-foot-10, 182 pounds. That’s three inches and 44 pounds of difference. Brown is a prototypical X receiver with his size and physicality. That’s a tough matchup for a lot of bigger corners, let alone an undersized slot corner playing outside. This rep shows why that size can be a huge disadvantage for Sainristil if he makes the slightest mistake.

Brown takes his three steps before breaking inside on the slant. Sainristil is a step or two too slow getting out of his backpedal and that causes him to be late in closing on Brown. Brown is able to catch the slant uncontested with Sainristil still a couple yards away from him. That enables Brown to keep running after the catch. Sainristil tries to catch up but Brown runs through his tackle attempt before Quan Martin brings him down.

It’s such a small margin for error that Sainristil has when playing outside against a big receiver like Brown. Having seen the number of double moves the Eagles tried to run at him already, you can see why Sainristil might have wanted to take an extra step or two to make sure Brown was actually running a slant and not a double move, but the result of him not breaking quick enough was that Brown was able to turn a simple slant route into a 25-yard gain.

However, while that wasn’t a good rep for Sainristil and one that highlights his potential size issues playing outside,the competitor in Sainristil enabled him to fight back later in the game. One of the best traits Sainristil displayed last year was the ability to learn from his mistakes.

This time, the Eagles flip Brown to the left side of the field but still have him run a slant against Sainristil. Before the snap, we can immediately see a difference in Sainristil. He takes a much heavier inside leverage to try and close off the path inside. At the snap of the ball, Sainristil doesn’t get into a backpedal the same way that he did on the 25-yard catch and run. Instead, he sits on the route with a few short steps.

From using this technique, Sainristil is able to stay closer to Brown and as the receiver makes his break, Sainristil is in better position to drive on the route. He makes up the gap quickly and arrives at the catch point at the same time as the ball. Unfortunately, Brown does a good job using his body to shield Sainristil from the ball, but that is where that size advantage comes into play. Sainristil played this about as well as he could, but couldn’t prevent the catch. He does, however, make the tackle immediately, keeping the gain to a minimum instead of giving up big yards after the catch as we saw earlier in the game.

Learning from his mistakes is very encouraging for Sainristil’s future development, but the size issue still remains against some of the bigger, more physical receivers like A.J. Brown when he plays outside. With the Commanders having traded for Marshon Lattimore midway through last season and then drafted Trey Amos in the second round, Sainristil is likely to make his way back into the slot this year. That is where the Commanders drafted him to play, but he did struggle there at the start of last season before they moved him outside.