Eagles Film Review: Quinyon Mitchell has the potential to be an elite cornerback

A closer look at Philadelphia’s first-round pick.

With the 2024 NFL Draft over, it’s time for some film rooms on the Philadelphia Eagles’ rookie class. I will try and get to all nine draft picks and some UDFAs over the next few weeks. Loads of scouting reports will say very similar things, so I have tried to include film clips to back up everything and I will talk about the player’s fit with the Eagles at the end of the piece. I manage to get the all22 on several rookies, but I can’t share those clips on my own Twitter accounts (or I risk getting blocked), so I’ve used a few other accounts here. Let’s go!

RAS

Yeah, this will do… a 4.33 is no joke in the 40-yard dash is it?

Strengths

+ An extremely athletic prospect. He runs really well and showed this at the combine. Elite speed score with 4.33 40. He is seriously fast.

+ He excels at covering deep posts and vertical routes. He has a great understanding of body position and the ability to knock the football away. He has fantastic feet when he backpedals and has no problem flipping his hips and running vertically with receivers down the field.

+ Plays the ball at the catch point extremely well. His length is slightly below average but it does not look it on film. He times his contact with the receiver so well and does a great job playing through a receiver’s hands to force an incompletion. 44 pass breakups in the past 2 years is legitimately absurd.

+ He only had 1 pick last year, but 5 the year before. He has good ball skills for a corner.

+ He’s Mr. Reliable. No penalties in 2023 and only 1 pass interference penalty in 2022. And he hasn’t missed a game in 3 years, with 40 straight starts.

+ He’s not just a height/weight/speed prospect who can play the ball. His route recognition is excellent and he can anticipate a receiver’s route.

+ Excels in off coverage. His click-and-close speed in off-coverage is as good as it gets.

+ He is very fluid with loose hips and can be sticky in coverage. The Senior Bowl film is awesome to watch. He moves so well.

+ He is willing in run defense and doesn’t have a number of missed tackles.

+ He was asked to press a lot at the Senior Bowl and looked good doing it. This part of his game feels untapped.

Weaknesses

– Didn’t face many high-level prospects. There is always some projection involved when looking at small-school players.

– The stats say he doesn’t miss a lot of tackles. But in the games I watched, I wasn’t convinced by his tackling technique. He dives at ankles quite a lot which will lead to some misses at the next level.

– Comes from a scheme where he does give up a lot of free space at the line of scrimmage. When you watch him for a while, it’s obvious that he is giving up 5/10 yards of cushion consistently.

– Minimal slot experience, but I can’t see why his skillset wouldn’t translate if asked to follow a star receiver inside.

– Needs to work on his hands in press coverage. Better in off-coverage right now, but this is partly because he didn’t get the chance to press.

Overall

My goodness, I love this pick. Quinyon Mitchell is an elite talent, and if he played at Alabama instead of Toledo, I think he would have been a surefire top-15 pick. You don’t get many corners who run like he does, can play the ball in the air, and move as fluidly. He has the potential to be an elite cornerback as he has all the tools that you want to see from a top prospect.

There are not any real weaknesses to his game, and I honestly believe he only fell out of the top 20 because he played at Toledo and not at a big school. The only knock on him I have is that I didn’t see him press much and he did play with a lot of cushion, but he showed at the Senior Bowl that he can do this if asked.

In terms of scheme fit, he is a match made in heaven for Vic Fangio’s defense. You can line him up outside and he should be able to play one-on-one coverage on isolated receivers and has the length to carry receivers vertically down the field. He will love playing off-coverage where he can show off his click-and-close speed and he shows outstanding route recognition in zone coverage already, which is something very important in this defense. What stands out about Mitchell’s game, is how comfortable he is when the ball is in the air. A lot of recent draft busts at cornerback have been because teams have overdrafted fantastic athletes who can’t compete at the catch point. Mitchell will not have this issue.

Fangio’s defense is complicated, and there will be a learning curve as there is with all rookie cornerbacks, but I would be disappointed if Mitchell is not starting the vast majority of games this year. I think he can make an impact on this defense next year as a starting outside corner opposite Darius Slay. Long-term, he has the potential to be one of the very best at this position if he can translate his current game to Fangio’s defense. I’m so excited about this one. I would have traded up for both Terrion Arnold and Mitchell, and I’m pretty amazed the Eagles were able to sit at 22 and choose the latter.