I’m not certain that the Green Bay Packers will make a splash in free agency this offseason, considering that they’ll have limited cap space in 2026 even before extensions start rolling out. Still, one position that would be at the top of the list, if they were to make a move, would be cornerback. With that in mind, I took a look at who is available for the upcoming class.
There is no promise that these players will actually be available in March, since a lot of these top free agents now just end
up re-signing with their teams at the last minute (cough, cough: post-combine tampering once everyone has a number). Clubs are getting very good at manipulating the salary cap, which is leaving less and less talent available on the market, compared to pre-Covid free agency.
The stat I’m going to focus on the most here is yards allowed per coverage snap, data I got via NFL Pro. It’s basically just yards allowed divided by coverage snaps played, specifically at outside cornerback, but it’s one of the more consistent numbers at a high-volatile position.
It also makes more sense, logically, than passer rating. If a cornerback were just targeted once for an 80-yard score on the season, he would have a perfect passer rating allowed. In reality, if a cornerback allowed just 80 yards on a full season of action, we’d build a monument out of him and he’d probably win the league-wide MVP award. This is the flaw of using passer rating for cornerbacks. What happens when a cornerback is targeted is far less valuable than a quarterback not throwing the ball in his direction.
Before we get into the free agents, let’s see where the Packers’ cornerbacks rank in his metric.
Keisean Nixon
- 2025: 1.16 yards allowed per coverage snap (38th percentile, 555 coverage snaps at outside cornerback)
- 2024: 0.94 (66th, 333)
Carrington Valentine
- 2025: 1.14 (42nd, 419)
- 2024: 0.76 (82nd, 314)
Nate Hobbs
- 2025: 1.28 (25th, 148)
- 2024: 1.17 (37th, 46)
Green Bay’s cornerbacks weren’t terrible, but Nixon and Valentine hover around that line of below-average to average, while Hobbs is right on the cutoff of the 25th percentile among qualifiers — which we set as the 89 cornerbacks who received at least as many outside cornerback snaps as Hobbs this season.
If you can believe it, there are many worse cornerbacks in the league, like Amik Robertson, who allowed 2.12 yards per coverage snap over 284 snaps in 2025. Still, Green Bay’s room is not in a good spot. Among those 89 players, Valentine ranks 54th, Nixon ranks 58th and Hobbs ranks 66th in yards per coverage snap allowed. Valentine and Nixon are technically starting quality in the NFL (assuming there are 64 starters, two per NFL team), but they’re closer to average “CB2s” than anything else.
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Okay, let’s talk about the 2026 free agent class. First, I want to slash the board down. For the most part, the Packers haven’t really dipped into the well-aged free agent market, and I don’t think they’ll really want to at a position like cornerback, where things can turn south so quickly because of how much the position relies on athleticism.
Generally, if the player is older than 27 years old, Green Bay isn’t really interested in them, because the Packers are trying to lock down free agents on multi-year deals if they’re giving them a starting role on the team.
Older Cornerbacks
- 35 years old: Darius Slay
- 31: Tre’Davious White
- 30: Rasul Douglas
- 30: Chidobe Awuzie
- 29: Jamel Dean
- 29: James Pierre
- 29: Rock Ya-Sin
- 28: Jack Jones
- 28: Cobie Durant
- 28: Benjamin St-Juste
Of the 53 players who ranked better in yards per coverage snap allowed than any of the Packers’ trio from 2025, 19 of them are scheduled to be free agents in 2026. 10 of them are 28 years or older, which probably takes them out of the running in Green Bay. I’m going to throw in Cordale Flott of the New York Giants on the “won’t be a Packer” list, too, since he’s 175 pounds at a position that Green Bay generally likes to be in the 195 range. Flott also had a season-ending knee injury in 2025.
We’re down to eight viable cornerback targets now. Let’s finally talk about them.
Eric Stokes, Las Vegas Raiders
- 2025: 0.53 (95th, 539)
- 2024: 0.92 (67th, 371)
Hey, remember this guy? The Packers’ 2021 first-round pick took a huge jump in 2025. No one who got any significant playing time in 2025 posted a better number than Eric Stokes’ 0.53 yards per coverage snap allowed.
There’s also been a coaching staff change in Las Vegas, with head coach Pete Carroll being fired and defensive coordinator Patrick Graham following Mike McCarthy to Pittsburgh. Graham was the linebackers coach and run game coordinator on McCarthy’s last staff in Green Bay in 2018.
Maybe there’s room for a possible reunion between the Packers and Stokes, but we’ll just have to see if there’s any mutual interest for him to return. Stokes was originally drafted by Green Bay to play in the quarters-based system (under Joe Barry) that new defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon deploys. Stokes’ best year, by far, with the Packers was as a rookie. The following year, Green Bay started to get out of that quarters system and started to lean more on true spot drop zones, and with the help of a series of injuries, Stokes never found his groove back with the Packers.
Riq Woolen, Seattle Seahawks
- 2025: 0.67 (89th, 510)
- 2024: 0.78 (88th, 487)
By far, the most consistent producer on the market is going to be Tariq Woolen, a 6’4”, 210-pounder who led the NFL in interceptions as a rookie back in 2022. He comes with some attitude concerns, which most recently flashed with his taunting penalty in the NFC Championship Game against the Los Angeles Rams and the sideline exchange following the penalty, but he can play cornerback.
Woolen was floated a lot as a possible trade deadline candidate, but he ultimately ended up being kept by the Seahawks through their Super Bowl run. Seattle is projected to have $72 million in cap space in 2026, but several of their contributors, including three in the secondary, Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker and receiver/return specialist Rashid Shaheed, are set to hit the market this offseason.
Josh Jobe, Seattle Seahawks
- 2025: 0.73 (85th, 489)
- 2024: 1.08 (48th, 274)
Speaking of the Seahawks, there are multiple on the market this year. Unlike Woolen, though, Josh Jobe hasn’t really been a multi-year producer, as he was only a part-time starter for Seattle in 2024 and was basically average in the role before taking a big jump in 2025.
Worth noting, though, is that Jobe got his start in 2022 with the Philadelphia Eagles in Gannon’s final year there as a defensive coordinator. As a rookie undrafted free agent, Jobe played 12 defensive snaps and 220 special teams snaps over 11 games for the Eagles in 2022.
Montaric Brown, Jacksonville Jaguars
- 2025: 0.81 (79th, 453)
- 2024: 1.35 (19th, 608)
Speaking of big jumps, maybe no one’s numbers improved more in 2025 than Montaric Brown, who went from a 19th percentile player in 2024 to a 79th percentile cornerback in 2025. “Buster,” as he sometimes goes by, finally broke out in the final year of his rookie contract after being taken in the seventh round out of Arkansas.
He’s started 29 games with 22 coming in the final two seasons.
Jaylen Watson, Kansas City Chiefs
- 2025: 0.90 (70th, 470)
- 2024: 0.85 (75th, 197)
Jaylen Watson’s 2024 regular season was cut short after he broke his fibula and tibia, but he returned to play in the playoffs, where he and the Kansas City Chiefs went all the way to Super Bowl LIX before being dropped by the Eagles. In 2025, he performed just as well as he did before his leg injuries, which is a positive sign.
In total, he’s been able to play 53 of 68 games on his rookie contract, with 11 of those 15 missed games being due to his 2024 broken fibula and tibia. Two more games were at the end of the 2025 season, with the playoffs already out of reach, when the Chiefs shut him down with a groin injury.
Behind Woolen, Watson is probably the most consistent producer out of this bunch.
Jalyn Armour-Davis
- 2025: 0.97 (62nd, 286)
- 2024: 1.23 (31st, 56)
This is another player who made a big jump in 2025. Jalyn Armour-Davis actually started the season as a Baltimore Raven, the team that took him in the fourth round of the 2022 draft. He was claimed off waivers in August by the Tennessee Titans, whose defensive coordinator, Dennard Wilson, coached him in 2023 while in Baltimore.
Armour-Davis had a solidly above-average year after earning the starting job, but then he tore his Achilles tendon in Week 17. Obviously, there’s an injury concern with any cornerback coming off that particular injury.
Cam Taylor-Britt
- 2025: 1.05 (52nd, 187)
- 2024: 1.26 (28th, 560)
A former second-round pick, Cam Taylor-Britt got to play coverage behind one of the worst, if not the worst, defensive lines in the league this year. Despite that, he jumped from a bottom-quarter-ish cornerback to solidly average, from a production standpoint. The problem is that Taylor-Britt was used in a more rotational role in 2025 (started 2 of 8 games) compared to his first three years in Cincinnati (started 38 of 39 games played).
So, he’s been more productive and even played 61 percent of the snaps despite only starting just one-quarter of his games this year, but he was in a more limited role. He also ended the year needing Lisfranc surgery for a Week 11 injury. Just a couple of weeks before then, Taylor-Britt was floated by many NFL insiders as a potential trade candidate.
Taylor-Britt also recently spent five days in jail as part of his sentencing for a September incident, when he was charged with driving without a license and reckless driving. According to ESPN’s report, Taylor-Britt “did a burnout on the wrong side of the road” after the Bengals’ Week 2 game. Per that story, Taylor-Britt was still on crutches in early January while his case was being heard by the judge.
Trevon Diggs, free agent
- 2025: 1.12 (44th, 256)
- 2024: 0.94 (65th, 336)
Our final cornerback is another familiar name: Trevon Diggs, who was claimed by the Green Bay Packers after Diggs was waived by the Dallas Cowboys. Diggs missed the flight back home with the rest of his team after the Cowboys played the Washington Commanders in his hometown of D.C.
Diggs got a look in the Packers’ junior varsity game against the Minnesota Vikings in Week 18, but only played one snap against the Chicago Bears in Green Bay’s playoff loss. Diggs has since been released by the Packers, as he was due a large non-guaranteed salary in 2026. Currently, he’s able to shop for prices and doesn’t have to wait for the new league year to begin to sign with his next team.
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So, if you’re looking for second-contract-aged cornerbacks who have at least been average in both of the last two years, the list is really three players: Eric Stokes, Tariq Woolen and Jaylen Watson. Currently, Over the Cap projects Watson to make $12.5 million per, Woolen to make $8.2 million per and Stokes to make $7.4 million per, but I think those are extremely conservative estimates.
Last year, second-contract cornerback starters mostly got deals in the range of $18 million per year, including Paulson Adebo, who was coming off a broken femur. Starting nickelbacks got $10 million to $13 million per year in 2025, before Kyle Hamilton signed his mega $25.1 million per year extension. It’s hard to imagine the market ever going down when there’s $25 million per year increases on the salary cap year-to-year now.
