How to Play Cornerback: 11 Skills Every Defensive Back Needs

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By: Chad Wilson
All Eyes DB Camp

Cornerback Is More Than Athletic Ability

Learning how to play cornerback takes more than speed and athletic ability. You need sound technique, disciplined eyes, an understanding of coverage and the ability to finish plays.

A cornerback’s job is to cover receivers, prevent completions and support the defense against the run. Doing that consistently requires both physical skills and football knowledge.

In this guide, I’ll break down 11 skills every cornerback needs, from stance and footwork to leverage, tackling and film study. Whether you’re new to the position or looking to improve, these are the areas to build your game around.

1. Start With Your Stance

Many defensive back coaches will tell you that it starts with your stance. If you’re not in a good stance, you’re not ready to make a play.

If you’re playing zone or off-man coverage, your stance gives you a good start. Defensive backs should begin by lowering their center of gravity. This means bending your knees to position yourself to push off the balls of your feet and move according to your assignment and the offense’s attack.

In addition to having a low center of gravity, a cornerback should have his weight over his toes. Lower your shoulders a bit so that your chin is over your toes. Your feet should be staggered and ready to push off with the front foot and reach with the back foot.

Your upper body should remain loose and relaxed. A tense upper body will lead to a tense lower body and restrict your movements.

Key thought: Your stance should prepare you to move, not simply look like a DB stance.

2. Learn How to Move Like a Defensive Back

When you’re on the field, there are movements you will repeat over and over. Since that is the case, it’s best to master them so you can perform consistently in competition.

The first thing you need to master is the backpedal. Smooth, controlled movements are the name of the game. Equally important are short steps. Many new defensive backs think about backpedaling the same way they think about running forward, where long strides are important. When you’re backpedaling, the opposite is true. Speed comes from rapid taps on the ground with your feet. Keep your arm movements short and your foot movements quick.

The next movement is the weave. Much of the backpedal’s foundation applies here. However, to weave, a cornerback pushes harder off one leg than the other so he can move at a 45-degree angle and maintain leverage.

One of the most important skills a cornerback needs is the ability to flip his hips. Often, a wide receiver will attack your blind spot. When this occurs, you must be able to flip your hips quickly, going from facing one side to the other in as few steps as possible.

Being able to kick slide and move laterally is also important. Your kick slide comes into play in press coverage. Mastering lateral movement while staying square is key to handling a receiver’s release off the line of scrimmage. Proper balance and a solid base are essential to your kick slide.

Moving laterally also helps when making open-field tackles. The ability to move quickly without crossing your feet allows you to maintain proper leverage on the ball carrier and secure a tackle when there’s space all around you.

Finally, a cornerback must be able to get out of his breaks. A receiver’s route will often break off. He may cut inside or outside, stop, or work back toward the quarterback. When this happens, a cornerback must recognize it and react efficiently. Any wasted motion when breaking out of the backpedal creates separation and allows the pass to be completed. Elite cornerbacks master the skill of getting out of their breaks quickly and efficiently.

Footwork is a means to an end. The goal is getting your body where your eyes tell you it needs to go.

3. Understand Leverage

Leverage is a fancy way of saying, “Know where your help is.” On the football field, help can come in several forms. It could come from another defender, the sideline, the end line or a strong pass rush.

When you understand leverage, you can align yourself in a way that reduces the space the quarterback and wide receiver have to work with.

Great cornerbacks know the coverage and understand where the other defenders are supposed to be. This allows them to take a position that improves their ability to make a play when the ball is thrown to a certain part of the field. When it’s thrown elsewhere, another defender or the sideline can help limit the offense’s options. If you want to be an elite cornerback, make it a point to thoroughly understand leverage.

For an example of how this works when a receiver attacks your positioning, read Holding Your Leverage in Your Pedal.

Leverage isn’t just where you line up. It’s what you’re trying to take away.

4. Learn to Play Man Coverage

For a cornerback, two main ways to play man coverage are press man and off man.

Press Man

Cornerbacks playing press-man coverage put several skills to work. One of the most important is the ability to focus and maintain eye discipline. Training yourself to keep your eyes focused on a wide receiver’s waist will help you regardless of the press technique you use.

Training yourself to have quick feet will also help you stay in front of athletic wide receivers trying to gain separation at the line of scrimmage.

Press coverage is where your kick slide comes into play. Developing a smooth, efficient kick slide will go a long way toward making you an elite press corner. It allows you to widen the receiver’s release and restrict the space he can use.

Great press-man corners also make good use of their hands. Being able to control your space is important. Good receivers know they can get their best release when they’re allowed to work freely in the space between themselves and the defensive back. Good defensive backs control that space, whether they’re playing hard or soft press.

I cover press technique, eye discipline, footwork, hands and leverage in more detail in The Art of Press.

Off Man

The other approach is off-man coverage. This is where cornerbacks typically align about seven yards off the wide receiver and take either inside or outside leverage.

Cornerbacks who excel in this coverage make good use of their eyes, reading the receiver’s hips or the quarterback’s drop according to their technique and assignment. They use skills such as the backpedal, weave and hip flip to maintain their leverage.

The ability to open efficiently when the receiver breaks your cushion, along with a smooth crossover run, goes a long way toward helping you stay in phase on deep routes.

When a receiver’s route breaks off in off-man coverage, your ability to get out of your breaks comes into play. The quicker you recognize the break through eye discipline, the sooner you can execute your footwork and close the space. Good eye discipline and refined footwork will help you succeed here.

To work through this in more detail, look for Off Man Coverage 101 inside the All Eyes DB Camp Member’s Area. You can also start with my article on proper transition sequences in off-man coverage.

5. Learn to Play Zone Coverage

If you’re going to be an effective cornerback, you must learn to play zone coverage. No matter what defense you’re in, at some point you’ll need to play zone, and you’ll need to be good at it.

Being good in zone starts with understanding your assignment. Beyond that, you must understand where you fit among the players around you in each coverage. This means understanding the entire zone coverage being run.

Another important part of zone coverage is recognizing the routes coming at you. Offenses run concepts. Understanding the route combinations within those concepts gives you the ability to anticipate, communicate and make plays.

Understanding the defense and the combinations coming at you improves your communication. For a team to play zone well, defenders must communicate with one another. In zone, you’re covering with your mouth as much as you are with your feet. Once a player leaves your area, he enters another defender’s area. Communicating that movement helps your teammate recognize the route and take the necessary steps to prevent that player from being targeted.

A complete understanding of the defense will help you in all these areas. That means you need to study. The best zone cornerbacks have high football IQs, developed through studying both the playbook and film.

Don’t just know your assignment. Understand why you have the assignment.

Want to Understand the Position Beyond the Basics?

My book 101 DB Tips takes a closer look at the technique, footwork, coverage and preparation that go into playing defensive back. Use it to study the parts of your game that need work, then take those lessons onto the field.

Take a Look Inside 101 DB Tips

6. Train Your Eyes

As a cornerback, your eyes are your ultimate weapon. Your body reacts to what you see, so seeing the right things is critical. Training your eyes starts with making them a focus in everything you do.

During drill work, the first thing you should concern yourself with is where your eyes are. Everything else is secondary. Great plays start with your eyes. As you play, you use them to take in a lot of information.

As the offense breaks the huddle and approaches the line of scrimmage, here are the things you must see.

Pre-Snap Clues

Personnel
Formation
Receiver split
Down and distance
Field position
Backfield alignment

With that information gathered before the snap, you’re in position to anticipate. Great cornerbacks have great anticipation, and anticipation comes from solid information.

The final part of making plays is reacting to what you see after the snap. Depending on your coverage and assigned keys, these are the clues you should recognize.

Post-Snap Clues

Release
Receiver body language
Quarterback action
Offensive-line action
Tight end or wing movement
Route development

The better your job of gathering information before the snap, the faster you can process what happens afterward. Experience and study also help you make quicker decisions as those clues unfold. Football moves fast. The quicker you can make decisions, the better you’ll be at putting yourself in position to find the football and make plays.

Key concept: Great defensive backs aren’t guessing. They’re eliminating possibilities.

7. Understand Receiver Releases and Route Concepts

Another major part of playing cornerback is understanding what the offense is trying to do to you. You need to understand wide receiver behavior. Receivers use their releases, stems and body movements to gain leverage, create separation and catch the ball.

When you’re playing press, a receiver has two basic choices off the line of scrimmage. He can take an inside release, which often points toward a route that breaks inside. While that isn’t true every time, you need to understand what route may be coming based on the type of inside release he takes.

The other option is an outside release. Good cornerbacks know which routes are likely based on that release. Reading body language and other cues will help you. Much of this comes through experience, but consistently watching receiver film will speed up the process.

Understanding receiver splits also helps you anticipate. Routes often correspond to the splits receivers take. To win on a route, a receiver needs space and separation. Taking the proper split helps him accomplish that. As a cornerback, understanding which splits fit which routes allows you to play with anticipation. That makes you less likely to be fooled by head fakes, body leans and other tactics.

For a closer look at how receiver alignment affects your own positioning, watch Talking Press Man Alignment.

When you’re playing off in zone coverage, you need to understand how one receiver’s route affects the route of another receiver nearby. Routes break at different levels. Knowing which route typically develops from one receiver when another breaks gives you a chance to recognize what’s coming before it happens. Studying route combinations gives you a major advantage here.

8. Develop Ball Skills

Good footwork and football IQ are essential, but they won’t mean much if you can’t finish the play when it comes your way.

Cornerbacks at the top of their game cover well and make interceptions. Covering well doesn’t just mean being on the receiver’s hip. It also means denying him the football when it arrives. That comes in the form of a pass breakup or an interception. To consistently make those plays, you must develop your ball skills.

Tracking the deep ball on routes such as posts, fades and corners is important. Completions on these routes can become big plays for the offense. Defenders who consistently give up explosive plays hurt their teams. Defenders who deny those throws or take them away are the ones offenses fear.

Cornerbacks must spend time learning to judge the flight of the ball, stay calm and get their hands on it when it arrives. Cornerbacks who also play receiver often have experience doing this. If that isn’t you, it’s a skill you must spend time developing. I have plenty of ball drills for defensive backs in the All Eyes DB Camp Member’s Area.

Cornerbacks also need strong catching skills to defend short and intermediate routes. As the competition improves and you move up levels, you’ll often have a receiver right next to you who also wants the ball. The better your ball skills and the more experience you have catching the football, the better your chance of denying him the catch. If your ball skills are underdeveloped and you get nervous when the ball arrives, you’ll find yourself on the losing end of those battles.

When your ball skills are fully developed, you’ll be more comfortable looking back for the ball on deep routes when you’re in phase with the receiver. In phase means you’re at or near his hip as he runs his route. Depending on your positioning and the location of the throw, you may attempt to catch the football with both hands. When the throw is beyond your reach for an interception, you may use your off hand to bat it away. This is commonly called a pass breakup, or PBU.

Highly skilled cornerbacks also know how to play through the receiver’s hands when the throw is too far away or they arrive as the ball reaches him. A strong punch, an aggressive approach and good technique improve your ability to break up the pass in those situations.

Key idea: Good coverage isn’t the goal. Preventing the completion is the goal.

9. Become a Willing Tackler

A common belief about cornerbacks, especially among offensive players, is that they aren’t good tacklers. You can separate yourself by consistently getting the ball carrier to the ground.

To do that, you must learn how to tackle, practice it and apply it. Tackling doesn’t begin at the point of impact. It starts with taking the proper angle and positioning your body to execute.

Many of a cornerback’s tackles occur in open space against an athletic ball carrier. For that reason, you need to learn how to restrict space, use your help and make solid contact. While technique is essential, having a strong body helps. The stronger and more physically developed you are, the easier it is to execute a tackle once you’re in position. When appropriate for your age and development, be consistent with a properly supervised strength program.

For more on setting up these tackles, read How DBs Improve Tackling Angles to Win in the Open Field.

There will be times when you must defeat a blocker before you even get a chance to tackle the ball carrier. Learning effective ways to shed blocks is a must. Strength helps here, too. Good technique includes getting your hands inside the blocker’s pads, extending your arms and working past his shoulder. At cornerback, you can defeat many blocks by reading your keys and sprinting to the football. A slow-moving or stationary cornerback is an easy blocking target.

Running to the football is an A-plus characteristic for a cornerback. Cornerbacks are supposed to be able to run, and that trait should be on full display. Whenever the offense runs a play, your aim should be to get to the ball. That puts you in position to help if a tackle is broken, scoop up a fumble or reach into the ball carrier’s hands to force one. None of those things can happen if you don’t hustle to the football.

10. Learn How to Watch Film

Great plays don’t happen by accident. As I’ve mentioned several times, anticipation is the mother of playmaking. Studying is one of the best ways to bring that anticipation into game situations.

The best cornerbacks to play this game were serious students of their opponents. Even Deion Sanders, who was blessed with tremendous physical talent, didn’t rely on his gifts alone. He studied his opponents.

I won’t go in depth on film study here. I have a course on it in the All Eyes DB Camp Member’s Area that can help defensive backs and coaches study with a purpose.

Before you step on the field, you should know the following about your opponent:

Personnel
Formations
Splits
Tendencies
Routes
Quarterback behavior
Down and distance

You can also put yourself ahead of many cornerbacks by watching live football games. As you watch, practice studying the areas listed above. The only football you watch shouldn’t be film of the opponents you face each week. Watching games on television gives you more practice studying offenses, how they operate and how to stop them. One or two games a week can add up over a season. You must watch the game to excel at the game.

Key idea: Film study allows you to start playing the snap before the ball is snapped.

11. Train for the Game, Not the Drill

Now that you understand the areas a cornerback needs to develop, it’s time to train. Many cornerbacks feel that a good workout is simply one that leaves them tired. That isn’t the case.

A good training session develops or improves a technique you will use in a game. It also teaches you to recognize when you need that technique and trains you to react correctly and execute it.

For that to happen, your training must include drills relevant to competition. It’s easy to pull out a ladder and do endless footwork drills. While those may make your feet faster, they won’t automatically improve your ability to recognize, react and execute in a game. To activate the physical, the mental must be in place. Good training brings both parts together. Your drills must have a purpose.

There’s an order to your development during drills. First, your eyes must be trained to look in the right place and see the right things. Second, your feet must be taught to land in the right places, move efficiently and keep your body balanced. Finally, your hands are developed as finishing tools. Whether you’re using them to jam a receiver in press coverage or attack a pass, your hands must be ready to finish the play.

It takes a certain kind of personality to excel at cornerback. The position comes with pressure. Handling that pressure while keeping your mind focused on technique and execution is a major advantage. Your mindset needs training, too.

After reading this, you can see how much goes into becoming a great cornerback. You may also feel a little overwhelmed. That’s normal. Let it remind you that playing the position well requires discipline.

You must commit to physical and mental training. That includes work in the weight room, on the track and on the field. It also requires a thorough understanding of your team’s defense and coverages, along with a working knowledge of how offenses will attack you.

If you’re just starting, no one expects you to have every answer right away. But to get there, you have to start. I hope this article inspires you to take that first step. If you’re already on that path, stay dedicated to reaching your full potential.

Take the Next Step With 101 DB Tips

You now know what playing cornerback requires. The next step is learning the details and putting them to work.

I wrote 101 DB Tips to help you do that. It covers technique, footwork, coverage, ball skills, training, film study and mindset. Each tip gets its own page, with an explanation of what matters and how it applies to your game.

If you’re starting out, use it to build your foundation. If you’re already playing, use it to work on the areas that are holding you back. Keep it close and come back to it as your game develops.

Get Your Copy of 101 DB Tips

Prefer to read on your phone or tablet? Get the digital edition here.

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alleyesdbcamp

Owner at All Eyes DB Camp

Chad Wilson is the founder of All Eyes DB Camp and a former standout defensive back for the Miami Hurricanes. After an elite collegiate career, Wilson spent a season with the Seattle Seahawks before transitioning into coaching. A 3-time Florida state champion defensive coordinator, he has spent over 20 years developing the "All Eyes" blueprint that has produced NFL All-Pros and stars like Xavien Howard, Patrick Surtain II, Tyson Campbell, Minkah Fitzpatrick and more. His coaching system is proven at the highest levels—his own sons, Quincy and Marco Wilson, both excelled as starters in the SEC before being drafted into the NFL.

Chad is the author of "101 DB Tips"—The Ultimate DB Reference Guide. You can find more information on the manual and how to order your copy in the sidebar and footer of this page.

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Cornerback Is More Than Athletic Ability

1. Start With Your Stance

2. Learn How to Move Like a Defensive Back

3. Understand Leverage