This season has seen some of the top corners in the NFL drop like flies. We aren’t even two months in, but already (arguably) the league's two best have been lost to torn ACLs. When top players go down to injury, the perceived elite ranks tend to swell rather than seeing new faces replace old and with Darrelle Revis and Lardarius Webb out for the season, there is a void to be filled at the very top of the tree.
One of the candidates ready to fill that void returned from his own absence this week and straight into the heat of a divisional matchup against a receiver who — in only his second season — is putting together a compelling case to be considered one of the league’s elite at his position.
The men in question are of course Joe Haden of the Cleveland Browns and AJ Green of the Cincinnati Bengals. In two games last season Green got the upper hand in this matchup, collecting 151 yards and a touchdown on only four catches. That touchdown was a pivotal play in which Green and the Bengals caught Haden and the Browns with their pants down; getting quickly to the line and running the play before the Browns' broke their defensive huddle for a go ahead score.
Haden missed the first ‘Battle of Ohio' this season, but in his return this duel of players ready to break into the highest bracket once again took center stage.
This week in Marquee Matchups we’ll take a look at which player got the better of this contest and why both showed their potential to be recognized more widely as the marquee players that some feel they are already.
A Little Green on his Return
Spending a month out of football and returning to face off against an elite opponent (or very close, depending upon your view) has to be one of the most challenging things that a corner can do. You haven’t been out injured, so you don’t have to worry about any niggles cropping up, but you have lost your match sharpness and you need to knock off the rust.
The rust was certainly in evidence this week for Haden as, in spite of a generally solid performance, his coverage statistics belie the big plays that he gave up to Green. On five targets covering Green he allowed three completions for 82 yards, including a 57-yard bomb late in the fourth quarter. That very play is one that Haden will not look back on with any fondness — on 3rd-and-long (very long… 3rd-and-17 for those keeping count) he allowed a receiver to not only get behind him, but to do so for a score.
As you would expect in such a long yardage situation, Haden gave Green plenty of cushion — 10 yards at the snap — but as Haden turned to run with Green he slipped and tripped and couldn’t even recover to interfere and prevent the score. In terms of technique, this wasn’t a matter of a great flaw in Haden’s game; without a doubt it looks bad when you watch it and it looks bad on the stat sheet, but in reality it’s little more than a red-faced moment of embarrassment. Consider that that unfortunate slip cost Haden more than half of the yards he allowed upon his return and you get a far rosier picture of his day. In terms of things that are repeatable from this display, that slip is not one that you expect to see Haden (or any corner, for that matter) replicate over the course of the season.
Showing the full repertoire
What that play does show, though, is how Green can challenge defenders deep down the field and make them pay for every single slip they make. Throughout this game, Green made a series of quality plays en route to the seventh 100-yard receiving game of his short career. He took advantage of the fact Haden didn’t track him to the slot and snagged a further 53 yards and a score against T.J. Ward, Usama Young, and Buster Skrine. He further demonstrated his big-play ability on his first touchdown grab, which gave the Bengals a lead at the two-minute warning of the fourth quarter.
Green motioned across the field and fought through an attempt at pass interference by Young (who was caught in as bad a position to defend a crossing pattern as you can possibly get) to get free in the end zone. Green had space behind him, but didn’t immediately look to drift to the back line. Instead he left that room for Dalton to loft the pass over D’Qwell Jackson. The pass asked Green to elevate, which he did all too comfortably before getting his feet down in bounds for the score. Deep speed, field awareness, and balance, just about everything you look for in a play-making wide receiver.
However, Green is so much more than that and deserves to be counted as one of the truly elite receivers in the league. At the 7:45 mark in the second quarter he showed his ability to get open between the linebackers and safeties, and the toughness to absorb a hit and still bring in the ball.
Lined up close to his offensive line, Green used his gas to quickly get behind the defense. Despite having a close to 10-yard vertical window to fit the ball into, Dalton still made his receiver work for the catch and exposed him to the potential of an extremely painful hit from Ward. By securing the catch with his hands and quickly drawing it in to his body, Green not only ensured possession was secure before the hit arrived, but he also protected himself. After all, what use would he be on the shelf with rib injuries?
Green clearly has the ability to make game-changing plays, but it is the unnoticed plays, like this one, that mark out the truly elite. If you can bring top-quality possession skills along with downfield ability, you are the total package for your offense and the ultimate threat to an opposing defense, as they simply can’t take everything away.
The Haden Range
While the highlighted deep ball took the gloss off an otherwise successful comeback for Haden, it shouldn’t overshadow how impressive his comeback was in almost every other aspect. The completion rate (70%) and QB rating (95.0) he allowed were both high, but many of the other completions were on passes where forcing an incompletion was an unrealistic expectation. Two of the three incompletions into his coverage were a direct result of him breaking the pass up, while the third came courtesy of a force-out with the Bengals driving late in the fourth quarter to try and make it a one-score game. Combine that with his interception off a deflected pass targeted to Green in the coverage of Skrine, and you see how one play can badly skew the impression of a player’s overall performance.
Haden made tackles in coverage four times that counted as a defensive stop, and on his six other completions Haden allowed only 20 yards after the catch. When you consider that he allowed four catches to either running backs or the Bengals’ own joystick receiver, Andrew Hawkins, you start to see just how closely he stuck to his assignments all day, and how quickly he closed and enveloped passes in front of the Browns' defense.
Perhaps his marquee play in the game came on a rare occasion where he picked up a receiver from a tight formation, as the Bengals lined everyone up inside the numbers. On the play in question (Q3, 10:18) Dalton looked for Green on a wheel route fading out from inside the right numbers, and Haden played the route while looking into the backfield the whole way. Haden stayed on Green’s inside hip the whole way downfield and, with his eyes on Dalton and the ball, was able to elevate to knock the pass away. The decision to look for a receiver so tightly covered, and Dalton’s execution of the throw (with space to the outside for a more lofted pass) were a little dubious, but that takes nothing away from the quality of Haden’s coverage.
It is ability and instincts like this that make Haden one of the few corners in the league capable of reaching the level that the likes of Revis and Webb have touched in recent seasons.
Room to Grow?
This is a titanic battle that looks certain to continue in the years to come, and on a twice-annual basis. So what do Green and Haden need to do to be considered among the league’s elite?
Well, for Green it would seem that it is simply a matter of time and continued performances for him to reach this level. His rookie season got tongues wagging all over the football playing and watching world, but there is always a sense with rookies that they can’t be truly elite until they do it again and prove they aren’t a flash in the pan. Green is certainly well on his way toward doing that this season.
However, for Haden there is more for to prove, in spite of a larger body of work than Green, as he enters his third season. I mentioned at the top of this article that his stats against Green weren’t favorable last season and his slip in this game will only add to the theory that Green has the upper hand on him. The elite players tend to be judged in part on how they perform against the very best, so Haden needs to redress the balance in this regard. More than that, he needs to work on his discipline (nine coverage penalties conceded last season are simply too many for a player of his caliber) and take away the deep pass — he ranked toward the bottom of the league in terms of defending deep targets last season. If he can do this then there is no reason to think that Joe Haden won’t be considered among the league’s elite corners by the end of the season. Injuries have opened the door, it is up to him to put his foot in that door and make himself known.
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