{"id":759979,"date":"2026-02-18T09:12:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T09:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/759979\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T09:12:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T09:12:19","slug":"espn-names-packers-as-top-fit-for-free-agent-cornerback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/759979\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN names Packers as top fit for free agent cornerback"},"content":{"rendered":"

ESPN\u2019s Matt Bowen updated his top-50 free agents<\/a> currently set to hit the 2026 market, and he included the best team fits for each one of these individual players, too. One of these players, cornerback Greg Newsome II, was given the Green Bay Packers as his best fit, according to Bowen.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what he had to say about Newsome:<\/p>\n

The Packers\u2019 cornerbacks struggled after Micah Parsons\u2019 injury limited the pass rush, and new defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon will install a zone-heavy scheme. That\u2019s a fit for Newsome, who uses his backfield vision in coverage. Re-signing with the Jaguars is also an option.<\/p>\n

The quarters family of coverages is technically a zone scheme, but it\u2019s better described as a match coverage scheme. Really, Gannon\u2019s defenses disproportionately want to play what amounts to man coverage downfield, but only after routes get about five yards of depth (and they use the quarters tree of coverages to get that done). It\u2019ll be less about having eyes on the quarterback and more about having eyes on a receiver, even though the cornerbacks won\u2019t be in press alignments often. To me, that\u2019s different than traditional zone coverages (like Cover 2 or Cover 3), which Jeff Hafley called at the 8th-highest rate in the NFL over the last two years, where defensive backs really are just covering blades of grass instead of receivers and want to make breaks on the ball based on a quarterback\u2019s body language.<\/p>\n

While Newsome ranks as Bowen\u2019s 34th overall free agent of this class, he\u2019s ranked as the 103rd player on the consensus free agent ranking<\/a>. There, he\u2019s the 11th-ranked cornerback in 2026, compared to 4th for Bowen. Jamel Dean, who is the 18th-ranked overall free agent on the consensus board, did not make the cut for Bowen\u2019s top-50 list.<\/p>\n

Bowen also made some landing spot predictions for the Packers\u2019 outgoing free agents:<\/p>\n

All four of those players should net the Packers at least a fifth-round compensatory draft choice in 2027 (with Rasheed Walker likely bringing Green Bay a fourth-round pick), as long as the team doesn\u2019t offset their losses with free agent additions this cycle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ESPN\u2019s Matt Bowen updated his top-50 free agents currently set to hit the 2026 market, and he included…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":759980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,9684,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-759979","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-green-bay-packers-free-agency","10":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116090866703350236","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=759979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/759980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=759979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=759979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=759979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}