Some nice options for Bears to upgrade at corner
Before he put on a clinic of individual athletic skills at the Scouting Combine in late February, South Carolina cornerback Stephon Gilmore didn't appear in the first round in many mock drafts.
Now he's considered by many talent evaluators the second-best corner available behind LSU's Morris Claiborne and is projected as a possible first-round pick of the Bears at 19 overall.
That's what running a 4.39-second 40-yard dash will do for a cornerback who already has excellent CB-size (6-feet, 0½-inches, 190 pounds) and has a reputation for physical play. Gilmore's 1.47-second 10-yard split was the best time among all players at the Combine, and his 6.61 seconds in the three-cone drill was just .09 seconds slower than the fastest time.
After leading his high school team to the South Carolina state championship as a quarterback, Gilmore started all 13 games at cornerback for the Gamecocks as a true freshman. As a sophomore and junior he intercepted 7 passes and showed that there's almost nothing he can't do on a football field.
He played quarterback in Wildcat formations and returned punts and kickoffs before deciding to enter the draft with a year of eligibility remaining. As a sophomore he led the Gamecocks in tackles, exhibiting the physical characteristics often lacking in elite cornerbacks who favor a finesse game, which is a euphemistic way of saying they prefer to avoid contact.
“I like to tackle a lot,” Gilmore said. “I think most corners don't like to tackle. I like to make plays on the ball, and sometimes I try to strip the ball. I just try to be a complete corner.”
Gilmore could be an ideal partner with and eventual successor to Bears corner Charles Tillman. But, because the team has more pressing needs, it probably won't commit its first-round pick to a cornerback.
Even in Round 2, though, the Bears should find great cornerbacks. Super-talented corners like Alabama's Dre Kirkpatrick and North Alabama's Janoris Jenkins will probably come off the board in the first round despite character concerns, but if Central Florida's Josh Robinson is still available when the Bears select at No. 50 overall, he makes sense.
Robinson tested even better than Gilmore at the Combine. He's just 5-10 but a solid 199 pounds. Like Gilmore, Robinson is a true junior who started all three seasons and has punt-return ability. His 4.30-second 40-time was the fastest at Indianapolis. His 38½-inch vertical jump, 11-foot-1 broad jump and 6.57-second three-cone drill were all the best marks among corners.
Robinson didn't always face the toughest competition at UCF. But, as a sophomore, he more than held his own against Georgia's A.J. Green, a first-round pick last year who caught 65 passes for 1,057 yards and 7 touchdowns as a rookie with the Bengals last season.
“That gave me a lot of confidence, especially seeing a guy like A.J. do so well this past year,” Robinson said. “He's a great receiver. After studying film on him for weeks, I knew he would be from the get-go.”
That didn't prevent Robinson from engaging his much more well-known opponent in some verbal competition.
“We were talking back and forth,” Robinson recalled. “He's a great guy, a great competitor and naturally, when you have two competitors going at it, you say a little something every now and then.”
Robinson says he and UCF got the best of Green and the Bulldogs.
“We got the win,” he said, “so I believe we did.”