Why did the New York Jets sign Brandon Stephens to a three-year, $36 million deal with $23 million guaranteed?
It is a question that I and many others continue to grapple with. Stephens’ body of work is vastly below the pay grade he now finds himself in. He allowed the second-most yards among all cornerbacks in 2024 (806), and over the course of his career, he has allowed a 13:2 touchdown-to-interception ratio along with a 100.5 passer rating. That sure doesn’t sound like $23 million’s worth.
The disconnect between New York’s valuation of Stephens and his “overpay” status in the eyes of outsiders can be traced back to one word: projection.
Critics of the contract, like myself, are comparing Stephens’ contract to the player he has been. The Jets apparently paid Stephens like the player they think he could be.
When you dig into the nuances of Stephens’ game, you can see why the Jets believe his best might be ahead of him. In some ways, he is right on the verge of stardom. Unfortunately, one fatal flaw in his game has prevented him from getting over the hump.
The Brandon Stephens dilemma
Physically, Stephens is the type of cornerback all teams covet.
At six feet (66th percentile among CB) and 215 pounds (99th percentile) with 32-inch arms (70th percentile), Stephens has tremendous size and plus length for the position. He complements it with plus speed for his frame, recording a 4.44 forty time (72nd percentile). Tall, long, big, fast – every team wants that in their corners, regardless of whether they play zone or man.
And in terms of flat-out sticking with receivers in coverage, Stephens actually has translated those tools into elite ability at the NFL level.
According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Stephens had a tight-window rate of 33.7% in 2024, which ranked fifth-best out of 83 qualified cornerbacks (min. 50 targets). In other words, on more than one-third of the passes where Stephens was the nearest defender, there was less than one yard of separation between Stephens and the receiver when the ball arrived. The position average was 22.7%.
Stephens is joined by excellent company at the top of the list. He was one of only six corners to force a tight-window throw on at least one-third of their targets as the nearest defender, and each of the other five is known to be among the game’s best corners:
- Tariq Woolen, SEA (39.3%)
- Denzel Ward, CLE (37.5%)
- D.J. Reed, NYJ (37.3%)
- Sauce Gardner, NYJ (35.3%)
- Brandon Stephens, BAL (33.7%)
- Trent McDuffie, KC (33.3%)
Despite his success in this category, Stephens was a liability in coverage. In fact, he was the only one of those six corners who did not thrive in coverage. His allowed passer rating of 107.4 was the worst of the group; every other player was below the position average of 95.4. Reed was the next-worst at 91.7, still better than average and more than 15 points ahead of Stephens.
How does one get toasted in coverage despite sticking with receivers at the caliber of players like Sauce Gardner and Trent McDuffie? It is quite simple: Awful ball skills.
Playing the ball in the air
It does not matter how tight your coverage is if you cannot make plays at the catch point. That is Stephens’ fatal flaw. He is pretty darn good before the ball is thrown, but once it is in the air, he loses with astounding regularity.
Multiple metrics back this up. For one, Stephens had a ball hawk rate of 10.2%, which ranked 58th out of 83 qualified corners. This metric shows how often the defender records a pass breakup or interception relative to his number of targets as the nearest defender. Stephens had 10 pass breakups and zero interceptions on 98 targets, per NGS, which equates to 10.2%.
For comparison, it was the worst mark among the top-six corners in tight-window rate; the other five players’ average ball hawk rate was 19.6%, almost double Stephens’. The league-wide position average was 14.6%.
Another knock on Stephens’ ball skills is his CPOE (completion percentage over expectation) allowed. Stephens yielded a CPOE of 9.5%, which placed 81st out of 83 qualifiers. Basically, when Stephens was the nearest defender, the pass was completed 9.5% more often than expected.
CPOE uses tracking data to calculate the probability of a pass being completed at the time it is released. It accounts for factors such as the separation between the receiver and the nearest defender, the depth of the pass, and the receiver’s location relative to the sideline, among many others. As a defender, if you allow a high CPOE, it indicates that you allow passes to be completed more often than expected relative to the expected difficulty of the pass when it is thrown – in simpler terms, poor ball skills.
Last but not least, we can refer to a less nerdy metric that every fan understands: defensive pass interference penalties. Stephens had six of them in 2024, tying him for the fourth-most among cornerbacks. A high DPI total indicates a player who often loses track of the ball, causing him to panic and interfere with the receiver.
All of these numbers reflect a simple truth: While Stephens has great physical traits and is effective at using them to be sticky in coverage, his troubles with the ball in the air negate his positive traits.
In January, former Ravens cornerback Jimmy Smith brilliantly dissected this dilemma in Stephens’ game, offering a perspective that only an NFL cornerback could. His breakdown touched on every point we have discussed about Stephens so far.
“The difference between Brandon Stephens is ball skills. It’s not that he’s not there. It’s not that he’s not fast enough. It’s not that he won’t tackle. He does all of those things. When that ball is in the air and that panic hits your heart at corner, it’s a different feeling,” Smith explained.
“The ball hits the air for him. Panic settles in, I think, a little bit, and he doesn’t just gently turn around, go up, and grab it. He’s right there. Like, he turns around, the ball hits his elbow. He’s not ‘not there.’ … If you have lapses in your game, they’re gonna come after you. So for him, it’s like, ‘Oh, you’re good. You’re really good. But I’m always betting 50-50 that when I throw that ball, I don’t know if you’re gonna turn around. And right now, he’s 50-50.”
When you sift through Stephens’ targets, you see numerous examples of what Smith and the numbers are talking about. Oftentimes, Stephens is right there, but he either allows last-second separation as the ball arrives, fails to get a hand on the ball, or panics and commits a penalty.
Check out Stephens’ body language on that final play against Denver’s Courtland Sutton. After being called for pass interference, Stephens puts his head down as he walks away. That takes us to one of the core points of Smith’s monologue, which might be the cause of Stephens’ ball-in-the-air woes.
“When teams are targeting you like that, it’s very hard to gain confidence, because every game, you’re getting 12 targets, and [his teammates are] getting like 8. And then you read one thing, or somebody says one thing, and your confidence goes down. As a cornerback, your confidence is probably – besides your athletic ability, which is No. 1 – I want to say your confidence is 1B. You need to be just as confident as you are athletic to play corner.”
Can Aaron Glenn restore Stephens’ confidence?
Perhaps confidence is Stephens’ main issue. The physical traits are there, and it can be seen in his ability to stick with receivers. However, as Smith pointed out, losing at the catch point tends to come from a lack of confidence.
As a corner, the ball comes your way only a handful of times per game out of your 60-70 snaps. In those rare moments when you see the ball flying at you, panic naturally settles in. How you respond in those moments is what separates the greats from everyone else. When you see Stephens putting his head down like that, it signals a lack of confidence.
If that is the case, it makes sense why a coach like Aaron Glenn might watch the film of someone like Stephens and believe he is capable of turning that player’s career around. Glenn was the ultimate underdog as a player: a 5-foot-9 corner who went from a two-year community college stint to a first-round pick in the league’s largest media market. On the strength of his relentless confidence, he carved out an excellent NFL career. His mindset impressed some of the league’s all-time great coaches.
Glenn knows what it takes to summon confidence at the cornerback position as well as anyone. It would not be surprising if he saw Stephens’ uncoachable traits and thought to himself, “If we can just inject him with confidence, he can turn into a fantastic player for us.”
Darren Mougey ultimately signs the contracts, but everything he does is in conjunction with Glenn’s vision for the team. These two men were hired together because of their shared philosophies. If Glenn told Mougey to focus on adding physically gifted players whose impact could be maximized with the right coaching, it makes sense that Mougey would target Stephens.
Now, does all of this justify the contract? Not exactly. Stephens is already 27 years old and will be 28 in December of the upcoming season. After building a lackluster four-year body of work, it is unlikely that Stephens has untapped potential at this stage of his career, especially considering that cornerbacks tend to peak earlier than most positions (possibly the earliest outside of running back).
Is Glenn really going to teach Stephens how to be confident and play the ball at 27 years old after he could not do it under the Ravens’ elite coaching staff for four years? That seems like quite the stretch.
While the Jets’ thought process behind signing Stephens becomes more understandable when you view it through the lens we uncovered today, it does not vindicate the contract. What the Jets are doing is banking on their coaching staff facilitating major improvement from a 27-year-old player in arguably the most important facet of his position. The trust in their coaching abilities is admirable, but it borders on arrogance. Stephens has a four-year body of work in which he was a liability in coverage. He already took a major step back in his most recent season.
Alas, the confidence shown by New York in believing they can fix Stephens is the same level of confidence that Stephens lacks in his game. Maybe if that rubs off on the fifth-year corner, the Jets will get their money’s worth in this deal.
Nonetheless, it remains a poor process by New York. This type of gamble makes sense when the player is added on a low-risk contract. The Jets did this with Andre Cisco, another talented defensive back who is coming off a down year. Cisco signed a one-year deal worth up to $10 million.
But the Jets signed Stephens to a three-year, $36 million deal with $23 million guaranteed, putting him among the position’s top-25 in both annual salary and total guarantees. That type of money should be reserved for players with a certain floor. Handing starter money to one of the league’s worst cover corners from a year ago because you think your coaching staff can unlock him is not smart business.
It is nice to at least discover a semblance of justification behind the Jets’ decision to sign Stephens, but it remains a dubious signing by Mougey.
