Size and Upside; Rookie Chiefs cornerback Jaylen Watson

Examining the huge corner's film to see where he wins, where he needs work, and how he fits in for KC's now and future plans.

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before; The Chiefs have acquired a huge cornerback with exceptional length and better long speed than you’d expect at his size.

No, I’m not talking about 4th round pick Joshua Williams (whose lack of available all-22 has been a bane on my existence). I’m talking about 7th round pick Jaylen Watson, who stands an imposing 6’2”, weighs 197 pounds, and has arms that are over 32” long. Watson, a two-year starter at Washington State, was expected to go earlier in the draft but was available late for the Chiefs, who spent multiple picks overhauling their secondary.

Herbie Teope @HerbieTeope

Chiefs seventh-round pick Jaylen Watson says he was down not hearing name called earlier in draft, said he and one of his best friends went outside and sat in car. Then, phone ring with KC area code. He was so excited and ran full speed down street. “It’s the Chiefs!” he yelled.

I knew precisely nothing about Watson when the Chiefs drafted him, other than the obligatory “man, that’s a big corner.” But I was intrigued by the fact that Dane Brugler and others felt like Watson was a player who should have been drafted sooner than the final round. I also heard all of you loud and clear when you (repeatedly, lol) requested that I look at his film as well as fellow 7th-rounder Isiah Pacheco (whose name’s spelling has been changed from “Isaih", per Matt Derrick).

And so to the film we go. As with first round pick Trent McDuffie, what I’m looking for in a college cornerback’s film is more traits-based than wins/losses etc given quality of competition. And as ever, it’s all about consistency from one snap to the next, rather than highlights or lowlights. We’ll look at what strengths Watson has, where he needs improvement or has a ceiling as a player, and how he fits in KC now and in the future.

One thing that’s helpful with Watson is that he faced off against 1st-rounder Drake London in one game and had multiple 1x1 snaps against him, allowing us to see how he does against high-level competition. Let’s talk about it.

Where Watson wins

The first thing one notices when watching Watson’s film is his size and the way he’s learned to utilize it against receivers. His height, length, and strength allow him to be very tough on the line when he’s playing press coverage, often times jolting the receiver with an initial punch. He’s also very comfortable utilizing his physicality to slow down and redirect receivers as they try to move into their routes.

There are multiple snaps where one can find Watson hassling receivers away from where they’re trying to run, pushing them into the sideline, or slowing down their timing. That plays well in the NFL, where routes are timing-based in virtually every system and slowing a receiver down even a second can be fatal to play design. Watson is also aggressively physical when playing zone, delivering shots on players who enter into his coverage radius and disrupting their routes.

Watson’s size and physicality also plays well at the catch point. He’s aggressive in trying to attack the ball or the receiver (depending on where he is when the ball is in the air), and he’s often able to knock the ball away, rip it free, or jolt the receiver enough to cause the pass to fall incomplete. He also has such a large frame that he’s able to virtually erase a throwing window for receivers.

Here, you can see how even though Watson doesn’t get a chance to turn and make a play on the ball, his sheer size and length creates a situation where there’s not really an opening for a jump ball or back shoulder throw to work. That’s tough to do, especially against bigger receivers, but that’s the benefit to being several inches taller than most cornerbacks.

Watson and London had very physical battles in the red zone and down the field for jump balls, and Watson made London work for it as much as any corner he faced in college. London definitely got his (though only one big gain was on Watson, a jump ball played perfectly that London just went full London), but the modern world of football is that if you can force a player to be perfect to beat you, you’ve done your job as a cornerback.

When matched up against non-freak receivers, Watson’s size and physicality stands out even more. There aren’t many receivers who can go blow-for-blow against Watson the way London could, and he generally wins contests for the football when arriving at the same time as the receiver. He also seems comfortable playing the ball and tracking it as it arrives, timing his swats/hits well.

Watson doesn’t have tremendous speed, but he does have some acceleration and burst that allows him to be able to press and recover to run down the field on deep routes, as well as make up some ground if he gets beaten by an initial cut. His quickness/cuts are more problematic (we’ll talk about that shortly), but because he can plant and burst forward or turn and run he’s able to play off as well as press man with some consistency in terms of hassling the receiver, whether it’s on the route (when he’s pressing) or when the ball arrives (when he’s playing off).

Watson is, as one might expect, a physical tackler who will make some big hits at times. He’s not necessarily seeking contact the same way McDuffie does (McDuffie is an extraordinarily physical player, even at a smaller size), but he’s more than willing to make hits and get physical, whether that’s in the screen game, down the field, or in run support.

Perhaps the thing that intrigues me the most about Watson in terms of strengths, though, was that he seemed very assignment-sound in the games I watched.

This isn’t a snap that jumps off the page, but it’s demonstrative of something I saw in Watson multiple times; He doesn’t generally get moved out of position when he’s playing zone, and he’s smart about where routes are going and where they’re coming from. Here, he gives the receiver a smack to slow down the route, but doesn’t get dragged him down the field, knowing that he’s supposed to pass off that route. This keeps him in place eyeing the running back slipping out of the backfield, and when the quarterback checks down he’s in position to make a crucial tackle.

Whether he was playing the flats or elsewhere, Watson was consistently in the right place at the right time in the snaps I watched. He was also often calling out looks to his fellow defensive backs and seemed to have a good grasp on route concepts. That’s something that provides a very interesting player comparison (big, lengthy, physical cornerback who is sound in his assignments) that we’ll talk about shortly. But first, it’s worth noting that Watson does have some weak points as a corner that will likely limit his ceiling.

Watson’s flaws or unknowns

Watson’s strengths are impressive, and I get why Brugler thought he was more of a 4th-5th rounder (our friends at the KC Sports Network viewed him as a 3rd rounder). That said, there are a few crucial traits that are questions moving into the next level.

The first, and most important, is that Watson isn’t a twitchy player and lacks quick feet/change of direction. That’s problematic, and can get him exploited in space against a decent route.

London isn’t an excellent change of direction guy, but he’s able to shake Watson fairly easily with a decent whip route here. Watson does show his ability to recover/accelerate, but that’s not going to do much more than help him at least mitigate the damage. And against quicker receivers, it may not even do that.

This lack of quickness and change of direction isn’t something that’s likely going to change significantly for Watson. He can improve his feet and make it less problematic, but genetically he is who he is (a player with some speed and explosion but not quickness), and the fact that he’s a bit tight in the hips is always going to hurt his ability to change direction (watch McDuffie’s snaps against quick routes in comparison to see why hips can matter).

This isn’t an impossible barrier to overcome, as some other cornerbacks have done so with requisite other traits, but it does set a ceiling and it narrows his margin for error in how high he needs to hit on his other traits.

An additional issue for Watson (and one that stems from a lack of quickness) is that he can be overly grabby in coverage, resulting in a lot of flags risked.

Watson loves to jostle/hassle receivers but can’t always cut/break with them, resulting in a shove turning into a grab (he was flagged on this play). In some situations as a pro, that could end up with games where he gets flagged multiple times. He’ll need to clean that up in order to avoid those results (or, he might just learn to live with some higher-penalty games at the expense of being consistently physical).

A final issue I saw with Watson is that while he’s a willing tackler and generally wraps up well, he at times can get shaken off in his efforts to deliver a big hit. Controlled physicality will be important for him in that area at that next level.

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Watson’s role in 2022 and beyond

For fear of sounding like a broken record (I’ve said this about multiple players in this year’s draft, which was just an awesome job by Veach on paper), I liked Watson’s film a great deal more than I expected, particularly for a player taken in the 7th round. He has a defined set of strengths that can play well at the next level. He does, however, come with a set of defined weaknesses as well, and those can’t be ignored.

At the end of the day, an ideal comparison for Watson would be Sean Smith, who played at a solid-to-high level in the league (including for the Chiefs) multiple seasons without having good change of direction or quickness. What he did have, similar to Watson, was impressive size/length/physicality and the intelligence to be in the right spot while understanding route concepts. Of course, there’s a reason Smith (a successful 6’2” cornerback) is more the exception than the rule, as it’s tough to succeed without good quickness at that position.

Given Watson’s traits (not all guys his size can explode/recover/run the way he can) I wouldn’t rule out him being able to develop into a solid boundary cornerback. And in the meantime, he’s a great fit for special teams given his size, physicality, and decent speed. In the 7th round, I’ll take that bet every single time. He’s one to watch in training camp and the preseason, as he could be the surprise “better than expected” guy in this class early.