49ers rookie film review: 49ers land versatile, physical cornerback in Renardo Green, who will compete at nickel right away
The rookie Renardo Green will get his first chance at NFL reps in the slot at nickel.
The 49ers selected Renardo Green, cornerback out of Florida State, with their 2nd pick (64th overall) in the NFL draft. Green was selected as a 5th-year senior, a theme that was present throughout the weekend of the draft for the 49ers. They elected to take players with experience over anything, but who are also just good players. And the theme for much of the draft was selecting defenders after the first round.
Green comes into a thin 49ers secondary with only one guaranteed starter, the veteran cornerback Charvarius Ward. Prior to the draft, the 49ers signed cornerback Isaac Yiadom to a 1-year deal where he’ll presumably compete for the second starting cornerback position with Deommodore Lenoir and possibly Green. Lenoir is also in line to be the presumed starter at nickel as well in a defense that kicked him into the slot on nickel downs last season while Ambry Thomas played outside corner.
It appears the 49ers don’t have confidence in Thomas as evidence of the recent signings and draft picks show. The 49ers are looking to add solid depth and reliable, quality starters at defensive back to what is, by all measures, the weakest link on the defense and on the team. Darell Luter and Rock Ya-sin will also compete with Thomas for the final cornerback spot.
It’s not clear what the long-term plan is for Green but nickel is most likely where he’ll get his first chance to make an impression. When asked in his initial press conference what it is about Green that makes him suitable to play nickel, defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen said simply, “it’s how he played.”
How did he play? First let's look at his measurables and collegiate production.
In College, he didn’t play most of his snaps until his redshirt junior season, starting all 13 games for the Seminoles in his final two seasons. As a junior and senior, he registered 18 total pass break-ups but just one interception. He only one interception in five seasons, in week one of 2023. He had another called back later in the 2023 season when a teammate was flagged for offsides.
Positionally, according to Pro Football Focus, he played all five defensive back positions with the majority of his snaps, 1000+, played at outside corner with his second most played position as slot corner with just over 200 snaps, 118 of which came in 2020. He also has some snaps sprinkled in there at safety and some along the defensive line though I do not expect him to see that kind of usage in the NFL.
Green comes in a fraction of an inch under 6-foot at 5-foot-11 ⅞”. Physically, he’s around average height build, falling in the 40th and 50th percentile in a few categories.
His 40-yard dash time was decent in the 4.5s and but his broad jump and his vertical show that he’s more of an explosive athlete. His game tape suggests he plays better than his testing numbers too.
Where he wins
Right away in 2023, he got his first real test against NFL wide receivers at LSU in Florida State’s first game of the season. In fact he faced a pair of wide receivers from LSU who both went in the first round of the 2024 NFL draft: Malik Nabers (6th overall to the Giants) and Brian Thomas Jr. (23rd overall to the Jaguars).
Here’s all of Green’s snaps versus Nabers. Nabers registered two catches on five targets for 20 yards. This is also where Green grabbed his only interception of his career.
He had one career interception for the Seminoles and it came in press-man coverage on Nabers in the game above. The clip is in there, but it warrants further breakdown because there’s a series of plays leading up to it that led to it.
Before the interception, the Tigers had tried this double move/curl route on Green a handful of times with him in press-man coverage. He’s sticky in man coverage and allowed Nabers to grab just one catch in this sequence, but displayed nice fluidity and speed throughout the process.
By the time Green grabbed his interception, he already processed and collected enough data on Nabers to read and feel his routes and when he would or wouldn’t throw on the brakes to cut back to the ball.
Green shows textbook press-man footwork. His first step is inside to read the release of the receiver, allowing him to stay square and be patient and see where the receiver is going to go. Nabers gets into the core of Green, which helps Green determine how he should jam the release. Into the core of the defender means that Green jams with two hands. Nabers can’t shake the defender off the press, tries to throw on the brakes, and loses his footing.
Pass break-ups
His sticky press coverage allowed him to break up 18 passes over a 2 year period, demonstrating his outstanding response time and skill in synchronizing with the receiver releases at the start. His sticky man coverage skills allowed him to break-up passes all over the field on in-breaking routes, on vertical routes, and in the red zone.
On vertical routes, Green shows impressive speed while staying in phase and never biting on double moves. His feel for deep routes allows him to position himself in ways that are most advantageous to him when the ball is thrown. As stated above, he collects information on vertical routes and can tell when he’s going to be double moved or back-shouldered.
In the clip versus Miami in the above cut-up, he knows they’re going to throw a back shoulder fade because they had been setting up that throw all game. With the game on the line, he stays low inside and underneath and starts to disrupt the receivers timing when his hands go up for the ball. Green knocks it away.
On in-breaking routes, again we see the patience Green has to read the release and react to the route stem.
He uses his speed to stay in phase, reads the receiver’s body language and cues on the hand movement to know when that pass is going to arrive and when he should make a play on the ball. He possesses exceptional lateral agility, allowing him to effectively shadow and keep up with receivers while staying in-phase across the field with them.
His fluid hip movements enable him to swiftly change direction and maintain positioning on the low inside hip with receivers, enabling him to anticipate their routes and bat the ball away.
Against red zone targets, he uses his cues and is able to read out the route stem quickly to make a play on the ball. Again, his patience is key here. He never panics and is always in a position to make a play on the pass if it’s thrown his way.
Run defense
Green is described repeatedly as a willing tackler who can set the edge as the force corner and is fearless when coming up in run support.
Here you can see he takes a good downhill angle outside around the edge and takes down the running back for a loss. He was aided by the initial hit on the back but he came from depth and got to the edge quickly and ended with a good tackle.
Here he is setting the edge and taking down 49ers first round pick Ricky Pearsall on an end around in 2022. While he is a willing tackler in run support and is able to make the play, at the NFL level this might be more difficult for him given his size. It’s not a huge concern but it’s something to watch out for.
Where he needs to improve
In the above pass break-ups, while he is a highly effective man/press coverage corner, this at times can bite him. In two seasons, he had 11 on-field penalties, six of which were pass interference penalties, four of them last season. This isn’t an ideal stat to be taking with him into the NFL given the fact that the 49ers get flagged for defensive pass interference quite often and at the worst times.
On this DPI vs LSU in the season opener last season, Malik Nabers gives him a hard step outside before cutting inside on him. Although Green runs with Nabers step for step initially, he’s out of position in man coverage, doesn’t get a good jam and actually reaches with the wrong arm and can’t maintain leverage on the low outside hip.
Now he has to react to the receiver instead of reading his stem. Once Nabers hard plants with his outside foot to cut inside, Green goes to grab and gets flagged for pass interference.
It’s the same situation on all four of his pass interference penalties last season too. On vertical routes he ends up over the top of the receiver and on curl routes he ends up at the same level fighting for positioning. In the NFL he’ll need to work on maintaining that favorable underneath positioning low and inside and be strategic with hand fighting.
Outlook
Green will get his chance to make his NFL debut at nickel as a rookie but he’ll likely have to beat out Deommodore Lenoir to do it. He could find himself as the starter if Yiadom doesn’t impress the staff enough to start as CB2, which would mean Lenoir would get the nod as CB2 opposite of Ward, penciling in Green in the slot. The rookie said he can play all the defensive back positions. He’ll need that confidence and swagger if he wants to solidify his roster spot as a starter.