Meet Vernon Hargreaves III, the 2016 NFL Draft's Top CB Heading into Next Season
For an NFL team hoping to come away from the 2016 draft with a shutdown cornerback, Florida’s Vernon Hargreaves III could be the answer. Having already been one of the top defensive backs in college football for two years, Hargreaves enters his junior season with a chance to be one of the first overall players off the board next spring.
A third-team AP All-American as a freshman in 2013 and a second-team AP All-American in 2014, Hargreaves has already made his case for being the best cornerback in the NCAA. Halfway through his collegiate eligibility, Hargreaves has already started 22 games and recorded 30 passes defensed, including six interceptions.
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| Year | Games (Starts) | Tackles | Interceptions | Pass Breakups |
| 2013 | 12 (10) | 38 | 3 | 11 |
| 2014 | 12 (12) | 50 | 3 | 13 |
| Total | 24 (22) | 88 | 6 | 24 |
The aforementioned “shutdown cornerback” moniker is an overused one, but Hargreaves has the talent to be exactly that. A player who virtually never allows big plays while exhibiting big-play ability of his own, Hargreaves is a cornerback whom Florida can trust to play on an island and whose skill set should translate quickly to the NFL.
Playing in the Southeastern Conference—which means going up against future NFL wide receivers on a near-weekly basis—Hargreaves has proved that he can hold his own against even his toughest competition.
Hargreaves has the speed to keep up with any wideout and terrific footwork. He shows seamless ability to change directions with opposing receivers, on both inward and outward breaks, and exhibits comfort within his backpedal.
Watch Hargreaves’ game tapes, and one thing you will virtually never see is Hargreaves allowing a receiver to run by him for an open reception. While he will be beaten at times by receivers coming back to the ball and/or boxing him out at the catch point, it’s rare to see Hargreaves truly out of position on a passing play.
As Pro Football Focus' Steve Palazzolo noted prior to Hargreaves' final two games of last season, the Florida cornerback was highly efficient as a sophomore in preventing opposing receivers from making big plays.
Listed at 5’11” and 198 pounds by Florida’s official athletics website, Hargreaves’ size is no better than average by NFL standards. Even so, he demonstrates proficiency in jamming receivers at the line of scrimmage in press coverage.
At times, Hargreaves plays with too much physicality, as he does get handsy and will need to be more careful downfield to avoid drawing penalties in the NFL. That is not a huge issue, though, and more importantly, Hargreaves has proved that he is a defender who will not back down from playing tough man coverage against larger opponents.
Once the ball is put in play, Hargreaves frequently shows ability to make plays on the ball—as evidenced by his statistics—even though opposing offenses typically try to avoid throwing directly at him. He clearly belongs on defense, as he is inconsistent when it comes to actually catching the ball, but he is great at getting his hands in position to knock the ball away from his opponent.
Hargreaves’ overall fluidity of movement, especially in his backpedal, is a huge asset in enabling him to make plays on the ball. A textbook example of that came on the following play, from Florida’s 2014 contest against Kentucky.
Able to backpedal 20 yards, Hargreaves kept his eyes on Wildcats quarterback Patrick Towles while putting himself in perfect inside position on wide receiver Blake Bone. Despite giving up six inches to Bone and Bone pushing off him before leaping up, Hargreaves (No. 1) was able to elevate to the catch point and get his hands on the ball to swat the pass away from its intended target.
When receivers try to stop for a back-shoulder throw or come back to the ball against Hargreaves, the Florida cornerback can pounce on those plays with his burst from behind to get a hand in and break up the pass. But even when he has to run downfield with a wide receiver all the way to the catch point, Hargreaves can still get himself in position to make a play on the ball, as demonstrated in the following clips from last season’s rivalry game against Georgia.
Having run approximately 40 yards down the right sideline with Bulldogs wide receiver Malcolm Mitchell, Hargreaves exhibited excellent body control in spinning back around to the ball in midair, then getting his hands out to spike the ball away from Mitchell on what otherwise could have been a deep reception.
On rare occasions when Hargreaves does allow an opponent to get out in front of him, he displays top-end recovery speed, which enables him to get back into plays, either to make a play on the ball or at least make a tackle to prevent extensive yardage after the catch.
That same closing burst to the ball makes Hargreaves dangerous against runs and screens. While he is not a player who will regularly fight his way through blocks, he has outstanding acceleration when free that enables him to cover ground in a flash.
One example of his closing ability can be seen on the following play from Florida’s game against Alabama last season. While Hargreaves was initially blocked by Crimson Tide wide receiver Amari Cooper, his ability to go from zero to 60 enabled him to still explode downhill and cut down running back T.J. Yeldon for a one-yard tackle for loss as Yeldon tried to find a running lane near the right sideline.
Another clutch display of Hargreaves’ burst came in the first quarter of Florida’s Birmingham Bowl win over East Carolina. In a game he would later cap in the fourth quarter with an end-zone interception, Hargreaves shut down a potential 4th-and-4 conversion by chasing Pirates wide receiver Jimmy Williams across the field, showing tremendous quickness in the process, then laying Williams out with a crushing hit to knock him down well short of the line-to-make.
The biggest area in which Hargreaves needs to improve is tackling. As you can see even in the clips above, Hargreaves is more of a hitter than a wrap-up form tackler. While he can be an explosive hitter, he also suffers from missed tackles—like the following example against Georgia's running back—because of his lack of tackling form.
All in all, though, Hargreaves has a game that NFL scouts can already feel good about. While teams considering drafting Hargreaves will want to see him become even more dominant in coverage as a junior while showing improvement as a tackler, he already has the skill to make the leap to the next level and succeed once he gets acclimated.
How High Will Hargreaves Be Selected?
The 2015 NFL draft was the first since 2009 to not have a cornerback selected within the top 10 picks. That might have not been the case, however, if Hargreaves had been eligible to declare.
According to Walter Cherepinsky of WalterFootball.com, “Sources with NFL teams said that if Hargreaves were draft eligible, he would have been a top-10 pick in the 2015 NFL draft.”
“Hargreaves could end up being the best cornerback prospect to enter the NFL since Patrick Peterson or Joe Haden,” Cherepinsky wrote in May, referencing the 2011 draft’s No. 5 overall pick and 2010 draft’s No. 7 overall pick.
Looking forward to 2016, Hargreaves is highly likely to be a top-10 selection—barring an injury or unexpected drop-off in performance—so long as there is a team in the market for a cornerback within the top 10 picks. That said, his reign as the 2016 draft’s top cornerback will not come without challengers.
This article easily could have been written about Virginia Tech junior Kendall Fuller, who makes a strong case of his own for being the 2016 draft’s top cornerback.
Fuller hasn’t yet proven to be quite the shutdown cornerback that Hargreaves is, but he is a great athlete with tremendous ball skills. Should Fuller take his game to the next level this upcoming season, he could prove to be an even better prospect than his older brother, former Virginia Tech cornerback Kyle Fuller, who was the No. 14 overall pick in the 2014 draft.
Another player well within the conversation for being the 2016 draft’s top defensive back, if not necessarily its top cornerback, is Florida State junior Jalen Ramsey.
Moving to boundary cornerback for the Seminoles after playing a hybrid safety/nickel cornerback role in 2014, Ramsey—a world-class athlete who competed in the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in the long jump final—has great size (6’1”, 201 lbs) and demonstrated ability to make plays all over the field. He does not have much experience yet as an outside cornerback, however, and might be best suited to return to free safety for an NFL defense.
Additional juniors who could end up in the first-round mix include LSU’s Tre’Davious White, Oklahoma’s Zack Sanchez and Tennessee’s Cameron Sutton.
Among seniors, Mississippi State’s Will Redmond projects as the most likely Round 1 candidate. Notre Dame’s KeiVarae Russell, who is classified by the Fighting Irish as a senior but has two remaining years of NCAA eligibility, has first-round potential but needs to prove it in 2015 after serving an academic suspension for the entire 2014 season.
There are also numerous redshirt sophomores, including Clemson’s Mackensie Alexander and Ohio State’s Eli Apple, who could also make a push for being top-32 picks if they declare for the draft with two remaining years of eligibility.
With no shortage of cornerback talent in the Football Bowl Subdivision this year, NFL teams needing to upgrade their secondary should have some strong options to choose from in the 2016 draft.
None of the other cornerbacks, however, currently carry the accolades or proven ability to shut down top receivers, week in and week out, that Hargreaves possesses. As such, Hargreaves’ competition at the position should not keep the Florida cornerback from being one of the most highly coveted NFL prospects available, assuming he declares, next spring.
This article is part of a series on the projected top prospects at each position for the 2016 NFL draft. Also read:
All GIFs were made at Gfycat using videos from Draft Breakdown and YouTube.
Dan Hope is an NFL/NFL Draft Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report.
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