My feeling is that most Bears fans believe that taking Jaylon Johnson in the second round was the Bears’ best pick in the draft. Most have him penciled in as an instant starter in place of the departing Prince Amukamara.
Amongst all of the optimism surrounding this pick, I thought it would be good thing to pull the comments on Johnson from Bob McGinn‘s pre-draft article on the defensive backs in The Athletic to see what it said. For those not in the know, McGinn is known for getting provocative quotes from scouts on the draft prospects.
Typically for each prospect he’ll have at least one review where a scout has mostly good things to say about the prospect followed by at least one that is very negative. Here is what the negative scout had to say about Johnson :
“He’s a stiff player that tends to play high. He’s out of balance at the top of routes. When he’s playing off he has dirty eyes. Average to below tackler. He does not hunt the ball. He lacks change of direction when playing off. Good ball production. Does a nice job when matched up with large receivers. He’ll go in the first or second. Would I take him there? No.”
Most scouting reports mentioned Johnson’s flaws when playing off coverage and its obvious that its his man-to-man press coverage that got him drafted.
I assume most coaches believe that if you have the athleticism to play man coverage, they can coach you up for the rest. We shall see.