Evaluating Benjamin St-Juste's development at cornerback

Looking forward to the future by evaluating the development of CB Benjamin St-Juste

Last week I began to look ahead to next season given the Commanders realistic chances of the playoffs are gone. We all know what’s likely coming in these last few games and we all expect big changes at the end of the season with a new front office and coaching staff looking more and more likely. I’ll get onto those regime changes in the offseason, but in the meantime I thought I could evaluate some of the young players on the roster to see where they stand with the team heading into a hugely significant offseason. Sam Cosmi was the subject of last week’s article but today I’m looking at cornerback Benjamin St-Juste. 

If you were to build your ideal cornerback, it would look a lot like St-Juste. He measures in at 6-foot-3, 200 pounds with long arms and elite foot quickness. In theory that has the potential to lead to a very good cornerback, especially in press coverage. However, St-Juste hasn’t quite turned out that way. In fact, most of his struggles come when playing press man coverage. 

This clip shows three examples of St-Juste getting beat while up in press coverage. On the first play of the clip, we see him lose to Bears receiver DJ Moore. Moore uses a patient release at the snap, slowly selling a jab step outside before suddenly bursting inside and up the seam. St-Juste fails to jam him at the line which allows Moore to release freely. From that point, St-Juste is playing catch up. He attempts to anticipate Moore cutting inside and make up ground by undercutting the route, but unfortunately he ends up biting heavily on a double move. Moore fakes the break inside and takes off back down the sideline. St-Juste is significantly beaten and Moore picks up a huge catch on the play. 

The other two plays of the clip are fairly similar to each other. Both are shots down the sideline and we see some similar issues to what we saw on the first play. St-Juste fails to get his hands on the receivers at the line of scrimmage which means none of the receivers in this clip get disrupted or knocked off their paths. They’re all allowed free releases into their routes, which immediately puts St-Juste on the back foot. On top of that, St-Juste struggles to stay with speedy receivers down the field. St-Juste isn’t a bad athlete and his short area quickness is elite, but his long speed isn’t great, so he struggles to make up ground down the sideline once he’s beaten. 

These are just a handful of plays with St-Juste struggling on the outside. The Commanders have also used him frequently in the slot, where his issues in press coverage are still apparent. 

On the three plays in this clip, we see St-Juste line up in press coverage in the slot. On the first play. St-Juste faces A.J. Brown in the slot on third and four. St-Juste, to his credit, does a better job here of being physical at the line of scrimmage and trying to disrupt the receivers route. But instead of really jamming Brown and disrupting him with a strong punch, St-Juste is more grabby, trying to hold onto Brown and delay him getting into his route. There’s only so long St-Juste can hold on without getting called for a penalty, so eventually he has to let go, at which point Brown beats him. Once Brown breaks free, he gets vertical before breaking outside to the sideline. St-Juste is a step behind him and slow to react to the break, leaving Brown open for the pass. 

On the second play of the clip, St-Juste goes back to not attempting to jam the receiver. This allows the receiver to release freely inside and simply run away from him. St-Juste can’t catch up, but gets bailed out by the pass rush getting to the quarterback before he can make a throw. On the third play of the clip, St-Juste again gets lucky. He doesn’t jam the receiver but does get a bit grabby as the receiver gets inside. St-Juste gets turned around a bit and much like the catch we saw from DJ Moore in the first clip, St-Juste bites hard on the fake inside, leaving the receiver to break away from him as they cut outside. Once again though, St-Juste gets away with it due to a poor throw. 

You might think he’s just struggling in press coverage against deeper routes and is perhaps more competitive when the routes are shorter. But even on slant routes, his press ability is poor.