Why Logan Ryan Is New England Patriots' Most Critical X-Factor in 2015
For all the energy we invest covering, reading and worrying about the NFL draft, the offseason's signature event will likely have a fairly minimal bearing on how the 2015 season actually plays out. Yes, the most stable franchises rely on a draft-and-develop philosophy to roster building, but in our instant-gratification culture, the second part of that mantra often gets forgotten.
As much as one may want to nitpick their draft-day choices, the New England Patriots have generally gotten the development part of that equation down pat. And yet, cornerback has been a persistent drafting blind spot during the Belichick era, particularly in the early rounds.
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Perhaps the most disturbing prospects are not the obvious flameouts like Ras-I Dowling and Terrence Wheatley, but those who suddenly regress after ostensibly promising starts, like Darius Butler and Alfonzo Dennard.
Following a sophomore slump, Logan Ryan is on the verge of joining that latter group. And yet, the memories of Ryan's excellent rookie season still linger, so among a relatively uninspiring group of cornerbacks, Ryan's upside stands out. As the player with the highest ceiling in New England's weakest positional group, it's not a stretch to call Ryan a the biggest X-factor for the Patriots' 2015 defense.
But what can we really expect from someone who has yet to assume an every-down role for a sustained stretch? With nearly 1,300 career defensive snaps to his name already, there are plenty of clues to answer this question. For the sake of transparency, I looked at every defensive snap Ryan played from these 2014 games:
| Week 2 (@ Minnesota) | 69 (100%) |
| Week 3 (vs. Oakland) | 60 (100%) |
| Week 7 (vs. NY Jets) | 45 (51.7%) |
| Week 13 (@ Green Bay) | 28 (37.8%) |
| Div Round (vs. Baltimore) | 30 (39%) |
These were the games where Ryan played the most snaps, excluding those where junk-time elevated his snap count. Taking a look at the findings below, it appears pretty clear that Ryan is a hugely important swing player for New England's defense next season.
What Went Wrong?
Before the 2014 season, I suggested that Ryan was a logical candidate to challenge Brandon Browner and Dennard for the starting right corner spot opposite Darrelle Revis. If you follow the link, you'll notice that Ryan had some very impressive charting stats over 709 snaps his rookie season, with numbers that essentially mirrored what All-Pro Patrick Peterson put up.
Well, those numbers took a bit of a tumble last season. Per Pro Football Focus, Ryan played over 100 fewer snaps (580 in all, playoffs included), and his per-snap statistics plummeted from elite to replacement level:
| 2013 | 53.3 (3) | 7.0 (10) | 1.00 (T-23) | 13.8 (T-6) |
| 2014 | 83.3 (38) | 5.3 (T-22) | 1.59 (93) | 9.0 (T-73) |
Those stats might be a bit byzantine in a vacuum, so here's another way to visualize Ryan's statistical decline. Looking at cornerbacks from Ryan's 2013 draft class, the graphs below illustrate corners who accrued at least one Approximate Value (Pro-Football-Reference.com's measure of player value) in either season.
Players who are furthest to the right played the most, and those who are highest on the chart garnered the most Approximate Value:
As you can see, Ryan went from one of the top corners in his rookie class, alongside the likes of Desmond Trufant and Johnthan Banks, to someone floating in the middle. The corners in that area are generally facing make-or-break years in 2015 (Marcus Cooper, Melvin White, etc.), so there's a strong sense of urgency surrounding Ryan's development this upcoming season.
It's too simplistic to suggest that Ryan's playing time was bound to dip after the arrivals of Revis and Browner. Recall that Browner missed the first six games of the season between his four-game suspension and conditioning woes; moreover, Dennard failed to play more than 10 snaps in any game after Week 7 due to injuries and ineffectiveness.
Thus, it's no coincidence that three of the five games I looked at came from Weeks 1-7, the period when Ryan had his best chance to seize the perimeter corner role opposite Revis. Apart from the Green Bay tape, which was easily his worst game of the year, there were actually more promising signs than I expected to find.
However, Ryan was also a mistake-repeater, which may as well represent a scarlet letter in New England. Many of these issues were characteristic of inexperienced corners, most prominently his situational awareness. Broadcasters always harp on receivers to run their routes to the sticks on third down, but it's just as critical for corners to know where the markers are as well.
Ryan conceded numerous third-down receptions in part because of a failure to recognize the sticks. For instance, on this 3rd-and-short, Ryan had nice coverage on Cordarrelle Patterson, but he keeps his eyes glued on the receiver despite the fact that Patterson's route has reached the sticks.
Given that Patterson took an outside release, Ryan needs to know that the comeback route is most likely, given the game situation:
As you can see by the second screenshot, Patterson actually drifted a few yards past the markers (which speaks to his own route-running issues), but Ryan never turned to make a play on the ball. Yes, Patterson's deep speed deserves respect, but this is the kind of situation where Ryan should at least be able to anticipate his route.
The other primary issue I saw was Ryan's tendency to gamble. Corner-receiver matchups are like a game of poker—you want the other guy to reveal his intentions (i.e., by stemming one way or the other) before you commit. Ryan is a ball hawk, which is a good thing, but he'll often commit far too early on routes.
Green Bay's Davante Adams absolutely devoured Ryan with his double moves, leading to big gains (and a would-be walk-in touchdown that Adams dropped):
Adams also broke free on a scramble situation, which speaks to another facet of Ryan's awareness. I saw him get lost on multiple "plaster" situations—the backyard plays where the quarterback scrambles around to buy time while his receivers improvise. Ryan has a tendency to look at the quarterback too long in these situations, and Adams burned him for a 30-plus yard gain:
Again, these are costly mistakes, but ones that aren't exactly out of line for a young corner. Unlike in 2013, the corner-rich Patriots had no need to live with Ryan's growing pains, especially with a realistic Super Bowl run on the line. But now that the Pats' one-year reprieve is over, what did Ryan show that would suggest a revival during his third year in the league?
The Upside
There's good news for the Patriots: All the movement and ball skills that made Ryan such a pleasant rookie-year surprise are still there. When New England moved to a press-man-heavy coverage scheme, that didn't necessarily play to Ryan's strengths. Ryan was consistently a willing and physical challenger against bigger receivers last year (for which he deserves credit), but that's really not where he belongs.
Assuming the Patriots select a corner, the draft will offer us a better hint of what coverage scheme Belichick is planning for 2015. For now, it's probably safe to assume that the smaller corner corps will play more off coverage, while mixing man and zone schemes. (I'd expect plenty variations of Cover 4.)
The perimeter corner in Cover 4 needs to cushion the deep-half safety while also possessing the agility to drive on underneath routes from perimeter receivers. Ryan's burst is arguably his best natural trait; when he's able to identify a route, he makes quick cuts in short space and close in on receivers to either break up the pass (as he does in Screenshot 1) or to prevent any YAC (Screenshot 2):
That short-area quickness could have Ryan move into the slot whenever the Patriots move on from Kyle Arrington. His straight-line speed isn't necessarily great (as the Packers' Adams exposed), but Ryan does show the ability to stay on the hip of receivers on crossing routes.
Indeed, though I suggested that Ryan's ball-hawking ways led to too many failed gambles, that instinct does lead to some positives as well. In particular, Ryan repeatedly demonstrated a knack for undercutting crossing routes:
A Revis holding penalty nullified this third-down pass deflection, but it was one of several examples in which Ryan kept himself in position to make a play despite lacking ideal speed. Even when he himself didn't make the play, Ryan's positioning often forced the quarterback to lob the ball beyond his target. Devin McCourty's third-quarter interception against Baltimore in the divisional round was a textbook example:
Ball-hawking is Ryan's best trait, so it would be a mistake to suppress that instinct. There's a fine line to walk between instinctive and reckless, however, it's unclear if Ryan possesses the route diagnostic ability to end up on the right side of that divide. This is the area where offseason film study needs to pay off most for him.
For what it's worth, though, Ryan's endearing physicality and tackling soundness should give him a leg up on the competition. It sounds like a small thing, but offenses will run toss sweeps at a corner if he can't shed the receiver and make a tackle. Despite average size, Ryan has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to confront running backs, even bruisers like Chris Ivory:
Moreover, Ryan was one of just nine cornerbacks last year to play at least 25 percent of his team's defensive snaps and not miss a single tackle against the run, according to PFF. Obviously that's helped a bit by his depressed snap count, but even if you limit the sample to corners who played 200 snaps or less, just seven out of 31 (22.6 percent) kept a clean sheet.
There's a strong starting foundation here, and in a different scheme, it's reasonable to expect a jump in production next year. But just a small jump will still leave the Patriots without a No. 1 corner. Even if Ryan isn't a Revis type of lockdown weapon, can he come close to that kind of production?
Realistic Expectations
Every corner is different, but we can look at some recent trends that will suggest the profile Ryan fits. Going back to 2007, here's a list of corners who posted between four and six AV their rookie seasons, only to see that figure regress in their sophomore campaign:
| 2012 | Morris Claiborne | 6 | 2 |
| 2012 | Stephon Gilmore | 5 | 4 |
| 2012 | Mike Harris | 6 | 2 |
| 2012 | Casey Hayward | 4 | 0 |
| 2012 | Leonard Johnson | 4 | 3 |
| 2012 | Josh Norman | 5 | 0 |
| 2010 | Alterraun Verner | 5 | 3 |
| 2009 | Derek Cox | 6 | 4 |
| 2009 | Jacob Lacey | 5 | 4 |
| 2009 | Sean Smith | 5 | 4 |
| 2008 | Leodis McKelvin | 5 | 1 |
| 2007 | Trumaine McBride | 4 | 2 |
And since we're looking to guess how Ryan might fare in his third season, here's how those aforementioned players fared in Year 3 of their careers:
| 2012 | Morris Claiborne | 1 | -1 |
| 2012 | Stephon Gilmore | 6 | 2 |
| 2012 | Mike Harris | 0 | -2 |
| 2012 | Casey Hayward | 2 | 2 |
| 2012 | Leonard Johnson | 2 | -1 |
| 2012 | Josh Norman | 4 | 4 |
| 2010 | Alterraun Verner | 6 | 3 |
| 2009 | Derek Cox | 3 | -1 |
| 2009 | Jacob Lacey | 4 | 0 |
| 2009 | Sean Smith | 9 | 5 |
| 2008 | Leodis McKelvin | 4 | 3 |
| 2007 | Trumaine McBride | 0 | -2 |
On average, these second-year regressors regained one point of AV, which isn't really much. Some of the positive regressions are from players like Casey Hayward and Leonard Johnson, whose sophomore-year dip in AV resulted from missing games with injury. (Though it's worth noting that Trumaine McBride's third-year goose egg is from his own injury.)
It's mostly a mixed bag overall, with plenty of success stories like Sean Smith, Alterraun Verner and Stephon Gilmore, but also flameouts like Mike Harris and Derek Cox. The sample size is also low, so it might be more accurate to look at all third-year Patriots corners under Bill Belichick and see how they fared. Excluding players who were primarily confined to special teams, here's what that list looks like:
This is still a small sample, but it's an encouraging one. There's no superstar seasons in here, but five out of 10 players were solid contributors. Randall Gay is the only one with a goose egg, and he missed the majority of the year on injured reserve. Two defensive backs (Asante Samuel and McCourty) would eventually develop into All-Pro-type talents.
So for all the flak the Patriots (rightfully) receive for their inability to develop corners, those who make it past the first two years without totally washing out typically turn into viable contributors. Ryan is more likely than not to follow that path, but his development into a true top-two perimeter corner hinges on a couple of factors that jumped out on tape.
For one, I don't think Ryan can be a pure zone corner unless his route recognition and discipline improve significantly. When he was a boundary zone corner (typically Cover 3), he occasionally failed to cushion the deep-half safety.
For instance, here's a play against the Vikings in which Ryan didn't gain enough depth, leaving a picture-perfect pocket for the flag route to the sideline. Fortunately, Matt Cassel didn't look that way:
As I mentioned earlier, Ryan also tends to reveal his hand too early. Corners who play off-man typically need to "flat-foot read"—that is, they need to chop their steps and not flip their hips one way or another until the wide receiver stems his own route.
Ryan is rather raw in this department. The first screenshot below shows him getting "stacked" (vertically aligned so that the corner has no angle on the receiver) for a third-down conversion. The second could have led to a Torrey Smith fourth-quarter touchdown, which may have changed the course of New England's season, but Joe Flacco fortunately had his eyes locked on Steve Smith from the start:
These are areas where Ryan may be able to improve, as they are mental rather than physical aspects of the game. Overall, I was encouraged by the lack of physical skills regression from Ryan. The second-year regression probably stemmed from a lack of consistent reps coupled with offensive coordinators adjusting their play calls to better target the type of routes that gave Ryan trouble.
It's doubtful that Ryan will be a No. 1 corner, simply because he doesn't possess the size to play press coverage against the most physically daunting receivers in this league. That's no shame, though, especially if the Patriots play more hybrid schemes that showcase Ryan's adeptness in space.
Ryan's progress is important not just for New England's 2015 title defense, but also for the long-term health of the cornerback position. Perhaps we'll see Dennard rebound or experience a sophomore leap from Malcolm Butler, but those leaps would be unexpected.
Ryan is really the only corner on the roster right now with clear-cut top-two cornerback upside, and if the coaching staff doesn't trust him, that will really limit the Patriots' flexibility in the early rounds of the draft. Thus, while Ryan's success won't make or break New England's win-loss record next year, his development could significantly increase or decrease the margin of error the Pats will have to work with next season.
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