What CB Christian Holmes brings to the Washington Commanders
Taking a closer look at the skill set of the Commanders new cornerback.
With their final pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, the Washington Commanders selected cornerback Christian Holmes out of Oklahoma State. Holmes has decent size, listed at 6-foot, 201 pounds and is a solid athlete. He also has the right mentality to play corner in the NFL. When Ron Rivera called him to tell him he was going to be drafted, Holmes told Rivera he was the best corner in the draft. That probably isn’t true, given he was taken in the seventh-round, but NFL cornerbacks have to play with that mentality because the position is so tough and it’s easy for them to lose confidence quickly without that mindset.
From a skill set standpoint, Holmes stands out as more of a zone or off-man corner, rather than playing up on the line in man coverage. When he played press coverage, he had a tendency to struggle. He doesn’t play with patient feet, instead overreacting to the first movement of the receiver.
Here, Holmes lines up against the outside receiver to the right of the formation. The receiver runs a go route down the sideline, but he takes an initial hop step off the snap to try and set up his release. Instead of staying patient with his feet and forcing the receiver to declare his intentions, Holmes reacts by instantly opening his hips to the sideline. Now, on this occasion it works out for him as the receiver is working down the sideline. However, it’s a bad habit that would expose him to various release techniques designed to take a corner one way before releasing another. If the receiver used the same release to run a slant, Holmes would open to the sideline and struggle to flip his hips and get back inside.
Another thing he failed to do there was initiate contact. It might have been he was taught to not try and jam the receiver at the line, but without the attempt to jam the receiver combined with his footwork, he often allows free releases. That gave some receivers the ability to just fly by him.
On this play, we see Holmes in a similar position, defending the outside receiver to the right of the formation. This receiver also runs a go route down the sideline. Off the snap, we again see impatient feet from Holmes as he opens his hips early as a natural reaction to the initial move. Then the receiver works outside and down the sideline freely, without much of an issue working off Holmes’ press coverage. The receiver simply runs by Holmes down the sideline and has a step on him the whole way. Unfortunately for the receiver, the throw from the quarterback is poor and too far inside, allowing the deep safety to work across and make an interception, but that shouldn’t take away the fact that the receiver was able to run by Holmes.
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