Todd Grantham: Chauncey Gardner-Johnson’s versatility boosts his value to NFL teams
By Andrew Olson
Published:
Florida is expected to have some extra roster spots come open before the Jan. 14 deadline to declare for the NFL Draft. For now, however, the only Gator junior to declare is DB Chauncey Gardner-Johnson.
Gardner-Johnson was ranked the No. 4 cornerback and No. 42 prospect overall nationally in the recruiting class of 2016. During his Florida career, he has seen playing time at safety, nickelback and cornerback. Florida defensive coordinator Todd Grantham, who was an NFL defensive coordinator for three seasons (2005-07 with the Cleveland Browns) says that versatility will boost Gardner-Johnson’s value to NFL teams.
“Even when I was in the league, you still had value when you could play, say, outside at corner and then you could move inside on the slot,” Grantham told reporters, per Thomas Goldkamp of Swamp247. “So that gave you value. Now the value has probably increased even more because you’re playing more downs with those kinds of people in the game because of the multiple wideouts people are putting the game. So your ability to play outside and inside as a corner certainly gives you value and is something teams look for.”
Versatile defensive backs like Gardner-Johnson are becoming more necessary with more three-receiver sets in the NFL.
“Just talking to guys in the NFL, if you look now the three-wide receiver sets, they’re probably in those now as much as we are in college,” Grantham said. “So what that means is every team up there is going to be a match team and play with three corners. So your ability to play inside adds value to yourself and what you can do. So it’s certainly something that’s going to be advantageous to him to have done and it’s definitely a trend in the league right now.”
More from Florida’s assistant coaches on potential draftees such as Martez Ivey, Jachai Polite and Jawaan Taylor can be found in Goldkamp’s full article.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
