• Position: Cornerback
• College: Maryland
• Class: Senior
• Number: 4
• Drafted at: Round 5 Pick 2 (137th overall)
• Age when drafted: 21.28

Production

Games Watched:

• Michigan State – 9.23.2023
• Michigan – 11.18.2023

Positives:

Still has twitchy movement skills that can get him across short areas quickly without having to be in perfect technique meaning he can make adjustments on the fly. Absorbed the two hand reach block and threw it off his body aggressively to fill and replace his blockers outside shoulder. Love the violence he attacks the block with. He covers a lot of ground with a natural low foot spring step going in either direction meaning he can easily get depth or attack downhill. Nice sideline tattoo finish early in the game to let his man know it won’t be an easy day. Has good pattern match and cross field reads to climb and maintain deepest threat principles, keeps his eyes up and works for depth. Fantastic vision to pursue the run inside then bail out and use his speed to bubble back over to the naked side he abandoned to beat Corum to the edge and stop him by himself. He shouldn’t have dived inside but wow what a recovery. Next play he makes another run stop where he bounces his feet despite the line drifting towards him and steps through at the right time to take down the backs legs through the side with solid technique. Stayed tied to a dig route where the non-explosive receiver stacked him vertically and pushed off at the top of his stem, he stayed tight using physicality with his arms extended to control the route as best he could. He showed good hip recovery here too to get back in position after opening up the wrong way. Played a toss to perfection as he widened with the bubbling RT before reading the two way go to launch himself inside beating the blocker for speed, the dive caused the back to jump but Still made contact and tipped off the backs balance in midair, the second defender then planted the back in the air but this was all Still. Played the iso TE comeback route well, used his arms to keep the big man out of his chest, keeping his leverage all the way to the top of the route. Then he countered the push off well with a slight grab before getting under the tight ends arms to disrupt the catch attempt. The DPI call was a bad one from my perspective. He has good zone principles installed already, he sees one route leaving and gets his eyes up to the one replacing and he does well to position himself to make the throw harder during the transition between zones.

Negatives:

Poor shuffle technique as he crosses over his feet with his downfield foot first which means he can’t plant off of it if needed. His coverage technique is untidy, he plays high and out of control. Looks like his natural movement skills have made him lazy, needs to build in proper play height and technique to stay at pro speed and be ready for tempo switch ups. He isn’t the most natural cover corner, in man he opened up early from a narrow square position and if this was a better receiver he would have been dusted inside. Despite the DPI call being a bad one on the TE comeback he still arrived a little early on the thrown and will invite yellow flags doing this. This is part of playing a physical style of disruptive coverage so I’m sure his coach can live with it. Allowed a completion out of his outside quarter where he didn’t feel the route tempo well enough to close the spacing before the WR cut the stem off, then went too narrow and tall into the tackle. This looked like match principles to me so I get why he stayed over the top scheme wise but at some point he has to play football. Got beaten badly on a swim move at the top of inside bending stem which sent him sailing past, his footwork in tight areas is awful and he really needs to sink his hips to have some control over directional changes. Tarheeb doesn’t have a natural feel for coverage where he can slide into receivers like seasoned vets can, overall his man coverage is sloppy and whilst he doesn’t allow a lot of separation down low this is mostly down to his aggression and athleticism.

Overall Grade:

CB14 / Tier 4 / Round 4

Summary:

Still is going to be a better pro than he was a prospect, I’m willing to bet big on this. His athleticism might not spring off the page but it’s sufficient enough to keep him within range to make the kind of splash plays he has the potential to make with his anticipation and aggressive mentality. It’s slightly odd to say that a zone corner has a tough dog mentality but Still has that in buckets, he is aggressive in all the right ways but his prowess is found in his ability to read and react to route concepts in a zone or pattern match coverage scheme. Why he will be drafted though is his work in the run game, he is a genuine threat to rushing concepts with his ability to play the apex or naked side even from an off coverage perch. I really like this side of his game but the other side of it has some real areas for growth. He is not a natural corner that flows backwards with ease, he is better when playing downhill and this limits his system landing spot. He has the profile to play either inside or outside the numbers having played 60% of his snaps in the slot for his sophomore and junior years, this flexibility will serve him well as a depth piece but I think his true role should be in a zone system that can allow him to play aggressively with his back protecting the sideline. Overall I have big questions over his man coverage outside but he has the movement skills and attitude to improve in this area but his zone match abilities and run game work make me want to bet on him.

System Fit:

Jesse Minter’s defense uses corners in a different way than most corners entering into the NFL will be utilized. His corners act in almost exclusively vertical scheme that moves them between a deep quarter down and a cover 2 underneath flat and then down into man with very little requirement to chase in-breaking routes as a traditional zone system might ask them to do. Therefore how the off-season has gone so far is reaffirming that this stance will be seen in SoCal this season as the Chargers lack of heavy investment indicates corners will see their roles reduced. Minter has seen offenses nullify premium corners with quick game from tight formations and he proved his method to counteract this was successful during Michigan’s championship season. This means players like Tarheeb who excel at coming downhill to close quickly on short concepts and dominate the outside run lane have not only a chance to be a role player early but I genuinely think Still has a chance to start from Week 1 because he is a better for this system than any other corner on the roster. Minter likes his apex players to be more interior focused but with Still’s experience playing in the slot plus his confident reads and downhill mentality he could end up playing there however I see him playing primarily outside.

System Player Comp:

Looking for an appropriate player comparison for a first time defensive coordination isn’t a simple task with projections for Jesse Minter’s system either having to be based on the very few secondary players that have made it from Michigan to the NFL or having to examine the coaches who have influenced Minter’s scheme to date. I found a good body type alignment in Rock Ya-Sin who played under Mike Macdonald, the now head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, during the 2023 season. An old draft crush of mine, Rock Ya-Sin was taken in the second round of the 2019 draft before failing to live up to expectations as a tough nosed zone corner that has since bounced around the league. He may have only played a minimal role for Baltimore however the fact that Macdonald recruited him during free agency gave some insight into how this coaching tree sees the corner position. Tarheeb and Rock have remarkably similar testing data but when you watch the tape you see that whilst Rock was resilient or “Temple Tuff”, he wasn’t a naturally aggressive player like Still has shown he is. He could tackle but he never came downhill to find extra work and Still to me seems to be the natural next step in where Jesse Minter could look to better the position.

Pick Assessment:

As a prospect I think Still has some very interesting traits that you can see aligning with Jesse Minter’s vision for how he wants to transform this cornerback room however the pick did seem like a reach at the time. Arif Hasan’s consensus board had Tarheeb ranked at 265th overall and he was the 29th corner listed, the Chargers took him at pick 137 overall as the 18th corner. Whilst these are never directly comparable when you add in real world context the disparity between expectations and results shows that the Bolts could most likely have afforded to wait and get some value by moving further down the board if they were insistent on getting Still on the books. I personally liked D.J. James and Kalen King more than Tarheeb as overall prospects however whilst James is a good Quarters corner he doesn’t quite have the same combative disposition as Still. King does have that approach to the game nailed down but his lack of play speed may have meant the Chargers had him off their board completely. Therefore whilst a first look may have shown this as a reach, the play style match and the context of the remaining draft board made it clear why the Chargers chose to take Still and prosper rather than risk him slipping through their hands.