- A new leader at the top: It’s been a tight race atop the Advanced Coverage Grade rankings, with a new leader emerging for the third straight week. Jourdan Lewis, who finished seventh in 2024, has carried over his breakout season with the Cowboys to Jacksonville, helping the Jaguars to a 2-1 start. He ranks second in positive grade rate, sixth in PFF coverage grade and fourth in EPA allowed per target.
- Will Johnson is not missing a beat in Arizona: Despite missing Week 3 with an injury, Will Johnson still holds the league lead in forced incompletions. He’s now joined at the top by Riley Moss, who has forced five incompletions on 28 targets through three weeks.
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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 achieve this in two ways: it can pressure the passer to disrupt their 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 2025 season. These rankings will change drastically over the first month, as one interception, one missed tackle, or one deep completion can significantly 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 cornerbacks.
Last year, these rankings utilized PFF All-Coverage charting and data to rank the cornerbacks while providing insights into PFF coverage grades and our Successful Coverage Over Expected (SCOE) metric, which measures how well each coverage defender performed above expected 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 utilize play-level normalization and expectation adjustments. After all, matching up with a receiver is more difficult than covering a running back, and playing man coverage is typically more difficult than matching in a zone.
Here are the top 32 cornerbacks in PFF’s advanced coverage grade after Week 3 of the 2025 season.
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