Breaking down Benjamin St-Juste’s performance against the Bengals
Reviewing how Washington's rookie CB played against Cincinnati
Washington opted to rest both starting cornerbacks in its second preseason game. With William Jackson and Kendall Fuller on the sidelines, rookie corner Benjamin St-Juste and journeyman Torry McTyer were handed a chance to start with the first team defense. It was clearly a big opportunity for St-Juste, but also a significant test of where he’s at in his development.
If he can prove he’s ready to contribute early, St-Juste could allow Fuller to kick inside to cover the slot in nickel packages. That would give Washington the flexibility to play more man coverage, which in turn enables defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio to get creative with different blitz packages and generate one-on-one matchups for that highly-touted defensive line. But for that to happen, St-Juste needs to prove he can be trusted. So how did he perform against the Bengals? Let’s take a closer look.
The stand out feature in St-Juste’s game continues to be his length and more specifically, how he uses it to play press coverage. St-Juste had a solid test against Bengals rookie receiver Ja’Marr Chase, who was the fifth overall pick back in April. Washington allowed St-Juste to roll up onto the line of scrimmage and try to be physical with Chase in certain situations.
I mentioned last week that when St-Juste gets his jam right, he can really disrupt receivers at the line because of his length. However, if he gets it wrong it can lead to significant issues. Against the Patriots last week, he had one missed jam that allowed a receiver to speed by him, but fortunately the ball went elsewhere. On a third and eight situation, St-Juste looked to jam Chase at the line, but didn’t quite get it right.
On this play, the Bengals isolate Chase to the right of the formation. St-Juste aligns with slightly outside leverage. As the ball is snapped, Chase takes his first step outside, selling a fake outside release. St-Juste attempts to stab with his outside arm, but Chase quickly then slips back inside and avoids the jam. St-Juste does a solid job trying to recover, but with Chase releasing freely into the route, he’s slightly on the back foot. He gets a little grabby with his hands as Chase looks to break inside, but nothing too bad that would be called a penalty. He actually does a nice job trying to undercut the route, but because he was trying to recover, he was focused on Chase rather than the ball. Fortunately, Chase drops the ball and it falls incomplete.
That wasn’t a horrible rep that would have given up a long touchdown, but it probably would have resulted in a first down. It shows how key that ability to get the jam and disrupt the release of the receiver is when playing press coverage. However, St-Juste explained after the game, he took a mental note of the look from the offense and the route Chase ran, understanding where he made his mistake. He felt he needed to correct his leverage to play more inside instead of outside to take away that in-breaking route. It was a smart note to take because on the Bengals next possession, they came right back at St-Juste with the same look.
Here we see the same look from the Bengals, with three receivers to the left and Chase isolated to the right. The situation is pretty similar too. The last play was third and either, this time its third and five. St-Juste remembered what happened on the previous series and made the correction. You can even see at the start of the clip how he takes a little shuffle inside just to ensure he’s playing with inside leverage.
The other adjustment he makes is being a little more patient with the jab. On the first play, he attempted to jab on Chase’s first step. This time, he lets Chase try his little stutter move and close the gap between them before then getting his hands on him. With that extra bit of patience, he’s able to jam him and disrupt the timing of the route. Chase does eventually break off and cut inside, but it’s late and the quarterback is already looking to deliver the throw. St-Juste comes out of the break cleanly too and is in position to locate the ball and drive down on it. As the ball arrives, St-Juste shows off that length again, getting his hand in at the catch point to prevent Chase from securing the pass and knocking the ball incomplete.
Those subtle in-game adjustments are critical to success in the NFL, especially at corner. Corners are going to get beat from time to time, it’s just the nature of the position. But being able to identify the mistake, understand how to correct it, recognize when the offense is trying to exploit that mistake again and apply the correct technique to make the adjustment is hugely promising and speaks to St-Juste’s football intelligence.
The Bengals certainly looked to attack St-Juste, which is a good test because if he earns playing time early on, every offense is going to look to throw his way instead of two more established corners in Fuller and Jackson. The Bengals actually went after St-Juste the moment they entered the red zone, attacking him on back to back plays. We saw the result of the second of those two plays as he broke up the pass to Chase. But on the play before that, St-Juste held up just as well.
On this play, the Bengals look to hit a fade to 2020 second-round pick Tee Higgins. He aligns in a relatively tight split at the bottom of the numbers rather than a few yards outside. This is a potential hint to St-Juste that he might be looking to work into the extra space outside, so St-Juste plays with outside leverage. Higgins releases outside and St-Juste shows that patience again to wait a beat before applying the jam. He gets a nice stab with his inside arm, forcing Higgins wider towards the sideline while still staying on top of the route. St-Juste then takes a terrific angle to cut off any chance of Higgins straightening up, forcing him to continue to work towards the sideline and closing the throwing window for the quarterback.
The quarterback attempts the throw anyway, but St-Juste forces Higgins almost all the way to the sideline, so the throw sails over their heads and out of bounds. If there’s one slight improvement I’d like to see from St-Juste is that he never really turned to try and locate the ball. Perhaps that’s how he’s being coached, but typically when the defender play the route that well, they have it secure enough that they can afford to turn their head and try to locate the ball. St-Juste leaves it too late to do that, but it ultimately doesn’t matter because the ball sailed out of bounds anyway.
Another part of St-Juste’s game that I liked against the Bengals was how quickly he was able to flip his hips and feet when he needed to. In the second quarter. St-Juste played press on Higgins again, but this time in a different situation.
This time, Higgins looks to run a slant against St-Juste, who plays with inside leverage to try and take it away. As a response to the leverage, Higgins attempts to sell an outside release to force St-Juste to open up towards the sideline and create a path for Higgins to break back inside. The plan almost works perfectly for Higgins, getting St-Juste to open up and ready to run down the sideline, creating a lane to cut back inside. However, St-Juste is able to jab with his inside hand, using that to not only slow Higgins’ break, but use that momentum to help flip his hips and feet back inside quicker. As Higgins comes out of his break, St-Juste has already got his body turned back around and his foot level with Higgins’ foot, putting him in a perfect position to contest any potential throw that way.
St-Juste’s ability in press coverage is clearly improving and was far more impressive this week than it was against the Patriots. His length and press coverage ability will always be his best skill, but there will be times when he has to play off coverage. That requires a different skillset and process to playing press. Against the Bengals, he showed just a little bit of hesitation still in off coverage situations, not necessarily trusting what he saw and committing to it, leaving him a step behind on occasions.
On this play, Washington appears to be using a form of zone blitz, sending safety Landon Collins on a blitz and playing three deep zones and three underneath zones behind it. If that is the case, St-Juste is responsible for the deep outside third to his side of the field. That means he can’t necessarily just lock on to the receiver he’s lined up over, instead having to see more of the field. However, when the ball is snapped, the other receiver on his side of the field, a tight end, sifts back across the line towards the other side of the field. That means the only real threat to St-Juste’s zone is the receiver he was lined up over, so he can adjust his coverage to play that receiver more than just sinking into his zone.
St-Juste appears to process all that information as the play progresses. He even notices the receiver deliberately widening his route to try and widen St-Juste’s position, creating more space to break inside. I think St-Juste knows what route is coming, but just as the receiver looks to break, St-Juste takes a false step to gather himself before mirroring the break of the receiver. That little hesitation gave the receiver just enough space to make the catch over the middle (though if I’m honest, I think free safety Bobby McCain did the receiver a favor and pulled out of a potentially huge hit because it’s only the preseason).
That little hesitation isn’t uncommon for younger defensive backs, especially those that are better in press and learning to adjust to playing off with more vision. The positive to take away is you can see the process from St-Juste appeared to be correct and he seemed to read the play nearly perfectly. He just appeared to doubt himself slightly, either not fully trusting what he saw or how he processed that information. That doubt should clear with experience and given how quickly he corrected his mistake earlier, I wouldn’t be surprised if he starts playing without that doubt in off coverage sooner rather than later.
This was a tough test for St-Juste, going against two very talented young receivers that were both drafted highly in the last two drafts. Washington should be very pleased with how he reacted to that test. As I wrote last week, St-Juste being able to contribute early opens up a significant amount for this defense. I wasn’t totally sure if he was ready last week. He’s still got plenty to work on, but this performance was a promising sign that Washington could be able to trust him as the third corner going into the regular season.
I do agree with you on that last clip, I think in a real game, McCain would have laid a massive hit, as he was also in very good position to make that play. In watching St-Juste, did you get any insight into how well the secondary was communicating? We've had pretty significant issues with that in the past, so how has that piece looked so far?
Love these Cover 1 looks. That Cover 3 blitz could also be a nice way to get pressure on opposing QB's, too. Only problem I see with it is our personnel in the secondary could be a huge tip off to what we are playing unless they're all able to get comfortable playing different techniques.