Now let’s draft his match on the other side.

DRC can be as fine a player as he wants to be. He has rare athleticism. His ability to flip his hips and run in man coverage, turn and locate the football, break on it and get it is among the very best at the position in the league. He also has something that can not be taught and that’s recovery speed. This is critical to a corners’ success because safety’s can’t always bail the CB out if he’s beaten. The other area of DRC’s game where there is clear growth is the mental aspects of the game. He recognizes coverage schemes and his assignment much better this season vs. last season. He’s played with various injuries and they have not affected his play.

The one thing that will keep him from being mention as one of the top 2/3 guys at CB is his lack of functional football strength. Meaning he has not shown a propensity or desire to be physical in run support by coming up and forcing run plays off the edge back inside to his help ala his fellow CB mate McFadden. If DRC gets in the weight room and gets stronger while maintanining his great speed then he gets mentioned by the “experts” as one of best. Maybe he will remain just a top five “pure” cover corner. Either way it’s nice to know that one corner spot is maned by DRC and should not be a concern for years to come.

I think DRC has improved his game immensely even over the course of this season. Early in the season his play seemed really inconsistent. He seemed to always still be trying too hard to jump routes and get interceptions, when he could have easily just broken up the pass. He was also making some mental errors in coverage, for example Shaun Hill’s game winning TD pass to Frank Gore in week 1. Gore was wide open in the flat on DRC’s side. The next week against the jags, although his stats were impressive with 5 tackles, a forced fumble, and the game sealing interception, he tried unsuccessfully multiple times to jump short curl routes including Mike Sims-Walker’s touchdown in the fourth quarter which cut the lead to 14, it was the jags second unanswered TD and Warner had been pulled for Leinart at that point which meant the door was starting to look more open than it should for a possible comeback. In week 3 he got absolutely lit up by Peyton Manning and the Colts. He was pretty much solely responsible for 2/4 of Manning’s TD’s, one on a blown zone coverage, and another when he got caught looking at Manning in the backfield and bit on a pump fake and got burned deep.

I was really high on DRC at the end of last season, but found myself constantly being pissed off at him at the beginning of this season. I never really gave up hope though because he showed incredibly signs of potential on the positive plays he was making. Since the bye week, I haven’t really noticed him much in games except for the occasional batting down of a pass, and I’d say that’s a really good thing for his position, because it means he usually has his man too well covered to be thrown to. I think he has matured a lot by not constantly trying to hit the home run and go for an interception, and instead staying at home and causing incompletions. He proved against the Lions though that he can still make the big play when he gets the right opportunity. I feel a lot more confident about his ability to make smart decisions in coverage going into the playoffs and would even trust him with a chance to redeem himself against the likes of Peyton Manning in a possible super matchup (knock on wood haha).