Kristian Fulton film review: What does the Chiefs' new CB bring to the table?
Examining where Fulton wins, where he needs work, and how the domino effect at CB makes this bigger than just adding another competent player.
You may not believe me, but you probably underrate the 2023 Chiefs cornerback room and how important it was.
It’s well-known at this point that the ‘23 defense as a whole was elite, and was really the driver of Kansas City hoisting back-to-back Lombardi Trophies. It’s also very commonly accepted that the secondary was a huge part of that, starting with the high level play of cornerbacks Trent McDuffie and L’Jarius Sneed (whose domination of the 49ers in the Super Bowl was one of the most fun writeups I’ve ever done here).
But even with all that credit, I don’t think people really understand just how much that 2023 defense was driven by having three cornerbacks that Steve Spagnuolo trusted. Sneed and McDuffie were elite, but Jaylen Watson being a very competent CB as the “third guy,” and having the 4th CB be a guy who could start on some teams (Josh Williams) gave defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo a huge advantage in game planning. That cornerback room, along with superstar pass rusher Chris Jones, was the foundation of that defense being elite.
We’ll come back to that later (at the end of this article). But what we’re here to talk about first is new Chiefs cornerback Kristian Fulton, who Brett Veach brought in on a 2 year, $20 million deal with $15 million guaranteed. Fulton spent last season with the Chargers after being a three-year starter in Tennessee following being selected in the 2nd round of the 2020 draft). Fulton was one of the Chargers’ primary CBs last season, seeing the second highest snap count in the position group (and was 24 snap from being first). He’s best known to Chiefs fans as the guy who picked off Mahomes on the play Rashee Rice was injured.
That’s a little bit of background, but what does Fulton bring to the table? How is his film snap in and snap out? Where does he fit with Spags’ defense? Those are things we can only find the answers to on film. And so, as ever, I went back and reviewed a bunch of Fulton’s snaps from last season, being sure to include multiple games and every 3rd down he was on the field.
The idea, of course, is to get a clear picture of who Fulton is consistently as a player, game in and game out.
One of the first things to note is that Fulton is primarily a boundary corner, not a guy who lines up in the slot. That’ll be important for later, so file that away. How we’ll do this today is talk about where Fulton wins and what he brings to the table. Then we’ll talk about areas of weakness or where he could use improvement (or will need to be protected a bit). Then, we’ll talk about how he fits in the grand scheme of Spags’ defense. That’s a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get to it
Where Fulton wins
Fulton plays “big” for a CB and has decent size, listed at 5’11” and 197 pounds. He’s solidly built and, as you can see in the above clip, is not afraid to compete for the ball while it’s in the air. He consistently shows a pretty good knack for seeing when the ball is going to arrive and will make a play on it at the right time, whether he’s in coverage down the field (in man or picking someone up as part of quarters, cover 3, etc) or if he’s staying on top of a route and breaking on it.
