• Christian Benford stays on top: Benford holds the top spot for the second week in a row after an outstanding performance on Thursday Night Football. He was targeted nine times, allowing just four catches for 25 yards while also intercepting an overthrown pass from QB Tua Tagovailoa.
• Top Ranked Rookie in Advanced Coverage Grade: Kool-Aid McKinstry, McKinstry, the 41st overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, has been outstanding to start the season. He boasts a 75.4 coverage grade, ranks 12th in SCOE, and holds a 72% lockdown rate, which is the second-best mark among cornerbacks.
• Unlock your edge with a PFF+ subscription: Get full access to all our in-season fantasy tools, including weekly rankings, WR/CB matchup charts, weekly projections, the Start-Sit Optimizer and more. Sign up now!
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
If quarterback is the most important position on the football field, then limiting the effectiveness of that player is the most important thing a defense can do.
A team can do this in two ways: It can pressure the passer to disrupt his timing, rhythm and accuracy, or it can shut down the opposing receivers.
Each week, after every NFL game is graded and reviewed, PFF will check in on the top cornerbacks of the 2024 season. These rankings will drastically change over the first month, as one interception, one missed tackle or one deep completion can dramatically alter a player’s grade when the sample size is small. But as snap counts rise, the grades will stabilize, and we’ll get a clearer picture of the league’s best corners.
Last year, these rankings combined PFF coverage grades with our Successful Coverage Over Expected (SCOE) metric, which measures how well each coverage defender performed on non-targeted coverage snaps. We grade every coverage defender’s ability to prevent separation, whether they are targeted on the play or not.
These rankings will utilize that same data this year but with play-level normalization and expectation adjustments. Matching up with a WR is more difficult than covering running back, and playing man coverage is typically more difficult than matching in a zone.
Here are the top 32 cornerbacks for the 2024 season heading into Week 3.
