New York Jets free agent profile: San Francisco 49ers CB Jason Verrett

Jason Verrett is injury-prone, but also one of the most purely talented corners in football. Should the Jets reunite him with Robert Saleh? Positives Elite coverage in 2020 playing 13 games for the 49ers - his first season with more than four appearances since 2015 - Jason Verrett was a star in 2020. He picked up right where he left off when he appeared to be on his way to becoming one of the league's best corners for the Chargers way back in 2015. At 29 years old and in his seventh NFL season, Verrett provided some of the best coverage in football this past season. Here are some of his numbers and where they ranked among 129 qualified cornerbacks: 76.3 passer rating allowed (88th percentile) 0.82 yards per cover snap allowed (91st percentile) 76.1 Pro Football Focus coverage grade (89th percentile) Over 491 snaps in coverage, Verrett was targeted 63 times and allowed 43 catches for 382 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. In addition, Verrett did a great job of avoiding penalties. He was penalized just twice over 803 defensive snaps. That's one penalty per 401.5 snaps, more than twice as infrequent as the 2020 average for cornerbacks (169.7). Established track record of elite play Verrett has a very small sample of NFL tape on his resume for a seven-year veteran - even with all of those years in the league, his 2020 season alone makes up 33.3% of his career games and 38.7% of his career defensive snaps - but when he has been on the field, he has been outstanding on a highly consistent basis. Weighting Verrett's season-by-season PFF grades according to his snap counts, he owns a composite career overall PFF grade of 79.3. That's a mark that would have ranked ninth-best (94th percentile) among qualified cornerbacks in 2020. Verrett has a total of 26 career passes defended over 1,292 coverage snaps and 189 targets in his direction. Those numbers give him rates of one pass defended per 49.7 coverage snaps and a pass defended on 13.8% of his targets. Both marks are substantially better than the 2020 league average for cornerbacks (64.4 and 10.8%, respectively). A 2014 first-round pick (25th overall) out of TCU, Verrett was quickly growing into a star for the Chargers over his first two seasons. Even with all of the missed time since then (58 missed games from 2016-19), it looks like he still has plenty of top-end talent left in the tank. Run defense Coaches should not have to worry about Verrett being a liability in run support, at least based on his performance from last season. His 76.2 run defense grade at PFF in 2020 ranked at the 89th percentile among qualified cornerbacks. Tackling It's not often you see Verrett miss a tackle. Over the course of his career, Verrett has 140 tackles and 14 missed tackles, giving him a miss rate of 9.1%. That's well below the 2020 positional average for cornerbacks (12.9%). Negatives Durability Seeing Verrett on your television screen on Sunday has been rarer than seeing a blue moon. Since being drafted in 2014, Verrett has played only 39 out of 112 possible regular season games (34.8%), an average of 5.6 games per year. Verrett played 14 games in 2015 and 13 in 2020, but other than that, he has almost never been on the field. As a rookie, Verrett missed 10 games due to hamstring and shoulder injuries. After staying mostly durable with 14 games played in his second season, Verrett played six games over a four-season span from 2016-19. His 2016 season ended after four games due to an ACL injury. In 2017, he played only one game until knee surgery ended his season. The following year, Verrett tore his Achilles tendon on the first day of training camp and missed the entire season. Joining the 49ers in 2019, Verrett only played one game due to an ankle injury. In 2020, Verrett missed the first two games of the season with a hamstring issue, and he would later miss San Francisco's Week 15 game with a non-COVID-19 illness. Potential downturn in run defense While Verrett graded excellently against the run in 2020, he did not fare nearly as well in his only other mostly-healthy season. In 2015, Verrett had a 49.1 run defense grade at PFF that ranked 11th-worst out of 131 qualifiers (8th percentile). With one tremendous season and one terrible season under his belt against the run, it's anybody's guess as to what Verrett will do in this phase going forward. It seems more likely that he will lean towards his 2020 performance as a run defender, which, obviously, is far more recent than his 2015 season, but his past struggles have to be taken into account. Age Verrett will turn 30 years old in June. It's always a concern when a cornerback approaches that 30-year-old wall, but for a player like Verrett who has glass bones and paper skin, it is even more concerning than usual. Film When watching Verrett, what stands out most are his instincts. He has excellent awareness and play recognition. These traits are essential for the outside cornerbacks in Robert Saleh's defense, as they are typically asked to keep their eyes on the quarterback and make smart decisions. On the following goal-line play, Verrett sprints into the flat step-for-step with the innermost wide receiver in the bunch set, shutting down the route. Then, with his eyes fixated on Jared Goff, Verrett notices Goff turn his attention to the corner route in the back of the end zone. Verrett instinctively peels off of his assignment and springs to the back corner of the end zone for an interception. Beautiful play. Here, Verrett drops back with outside leverage and reads the eyes of Jared Goff. The moment that Goff begins his throwing motion, Verrett drives on the receiver's curl/stop route and breaks up the pass. Verrett's tackling is a prime reason behind his impressive coverage numbers. He allowed only 3.3 yards after catch per reception this past season, over a full yard below the positional average (4.5). Check out the picture-perfect open-field finish by Verrett against Robert Woods on this play. The Giants run a bubble screen to Golden Tate against Verrett here, and they catch him at the perfect time as he bails at the snap. Despite the disadvantageous positioning, Verrett still blows up the play as he explodes off of his left foot, subtly shifts outside to avoid the kicking-out tackle, and makes an accurate dive at the hips of Tate to bring him down for no gain. Contract estimate Despite his elite production in 2020 and throughout his career, it is hard to imagine that a team out there will be comfortable about investing too much money in a 30-year-old cornerback who has proven to be one of the most injury-prone players in modern history. With that being said, given just how great Verrett was last year at a position that many consider to "premium," he very well could earn himself a handsome deal. Jimmy Smith is a close comparison for Verrett. Similarly, Smith hit the market with a sustained track record of an elite play, but questions regarding his age and durability. Smith played only nine games for the Ravens in 2019, his age-31 season, but he was fantastic when healthy as he allowed a 62.8 passer rating. He wound up signing a one-year, $3.5 million deal (fully guaranteed) with the Ravens in 2020, and he rewarded them with another great year as he allowed a 69.6 passer rating at 32 years old (although he missed 5 games). The Ravens gave Smith a one-year, $2.5 million extension for his efforts. Chris Harris is another possible reference for Verrett. One year ago, Harris became a free agent as he was entering his age-31 season. Harris had been arguably the league's best slot corner for the majority of his career, but he was coming off of a down 2019 season for the Broncos in which he allowed a career-high 109.4 passer rating. That's the one key difference here - Harris was coming off of a bad year while Verrett is coming off of a great one - but nevertheless, Harris is still one of the closest comparisons for Verrett that signed a deal last year. Harris signed a two-year, $17 million deal with the Chargers that included $9.5 million guaranteed. Xavier Rhodes hit the market last year as he was set to turn 30 years old. Rhodes was a longtime star for the Vikings, but he was coming off of a terrible 2019 season. He signed a one-year, $3 million deal with the Colts that promised only $1 million guaranteed, and ended up reviving his career with an elite season. In 2019, Jason McCourty reached free agency as he was set to turn 32 years old, but he was still a big-time player after a strong season in New England. He signed a two-year, $10 million deal ($5.5 million guaranteed) with the Patriots. All-in-all, teams simply have not been willing to pay much for cornerbacks on the wrong side of 30, even those with a lot of success in the league. It seems fair to expect that Verrett will not receive a deal that extends any longer than two years, and on a per-year basis, his realistic ceiling can be placed in the $6-8 million range. Maybe a team will be desperate enough to shoot above that, and maybe teams are so afraid of his health that he still receives a bottom-of-the-barrel deal regardless of his performance, but my personal guess is that he lands something in the neighborhood of a two-year, $14 million deal that is about 50% guaranteed. Projecting Jets' pursuit On the field, Verrett checks every box for the Jets. He is a supremely talented player at a major position of need who is a tailor-made fit for Robert Saleh's defense and has experience playing under him. It all comes down to price, as is the case with every player in team sports. Overpaying for Verrett - a guy who has played less than 40% of possible games in his career - just would not make sense for the Jets or any team. However, if Verrett can be had on a fairly-priced short-term deal with limited guarantees, Joe Douglas should certainly consider throwing his hat into the ring. Given their pressing need at cornerback, Verrett's talent level, and his connection with Saleh, I would certainly expect the Jets to show a lot of interest in him, but out-bidding the competition for an injury-prone, 30-plus cornerback does not seem like something up Joe Douglas' alley. However, if Verrett's market does not go out of control, it feels plausible to believe that the Jets will have an offer on the table that closely mirrors the others that are thrown Verrett's way. If that is how things play out, it's possible that Verrett's connection with Saleh could make the Jets a favorite to land him if it is something that Verrett values.