Can Jaylon Johnson Shut Down NFL Opponents?

Jaylon Johnson was the Chicago Bears second of two second-round picks at #50 overall. A shutdown corner for Utah, he played through a torn labrum for all of last season which definitely gives credit to his toughness although it does add an injury concern. He had four interceptions his sophomore year, but that dropped to two this past season which is probably partly due to the labrum and partly due to teams targeting other areas of the field to avoid Johnson. I took a look at his game against Oregon in the Pac-12 Championship to see how he did against the sixth pick in the NFL Draft, Justin Herbert.

Before we get into the film, I took a look at how he tested a the combine, and he definitely didn't boost his stock at the combine, as he is extremely average athletically.

Nothing stands out. About the best you can hope for is the torn labrum made it difficult to train for the combine like he may have wanted. I wouldn't say any of this is a red flag, but there is a whole lot of yellow flags with unimpressive athletic numbers.

Here, he is in off-coverage but reads the play and closes quickly to break up the play.

Even with the torn labrum, physicality was not an issue for him from what I saw.

He has great physicality in coverage as he makes receivers work for separation.

Something that I couldn't see with my eyes directly but was evident is he covers towards the boundary very well. There were multiple times where Herbert was looking to go down the sideline to his receiver but had to check down as he clearly saw nothing going on towards Johnson's side of the field.

Johnson is a guy who belongs in a zone scheme as I do think the lack of athleticism will hurt him if he is forced to play straight-man coverage the majority of the time. This pick has me slightly more excited than Kmet, but I wasn't totally wowed. I totally understand that he might be able to shine more with two working shoulders, but that's no guarantee. What I do like is this is a guy who has a skill-set that will allow him to become an immediate competent starter. I don't see Pro Bowl potential, but I don't see much dropoff from Prince Amukamara which makes this a huge win for the Bears.

Previous Chicago Bears 2020 Draft Profiles
2nd Round - Cole Kmet - Tight End - Notre Dame
Undrafted - Ahmad Wagner - Tight End / Power Forward - Kentucky / Iowa
2nd Round - Jaylon Johnson - Cornerback - Utah