Carolina Panthers cornerback Josh Norman has gained a lot of notoriety this season for being arguably the NFL's top player at his position. He's shut down nearly everyone he's been matched up against, picked off four passes and allowed quarterbacks only a 49.6 passer rating on throws in his direction (per Pro Football Focus).
Just don't let Falcons receivers Julio Jones and Roddy White -- who not-so-coincidentally happen to be members of Carolina's Week 16 opponent -- hear you claiming Norman is up there with the best corners in the NFL. It's safe to say they don't agree.
"I don't get like when people say Josh Norman is tough," Jones said, per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "Don't get me wrong, he's a good player. But they play 'Cover Two' (meaning Norman gets a good deal of safety help)."
"I don't believe he's a tough guy," White said, per ESPN.com. When you say you're out there talking, I don't pay attention to guys like that. I just don't think he's a tough guy. He ain't over there just sitting there locking people up. They don't play defense like that. That's not how they play football."
Rattling off the names of Darrelle Revis, Champ Bailey, Al Harris, Aqib Talib, and Richard Sherman as some of the best corners he's seen during his time in the league, White refused to put Norman in the same class. "Hell no," White said. "You must be trippin'. Of covering people? You've got to man up and go out there and get after people if you're going to be that. You can't sit back and play zone, dropping, playing Cover 2 for half the game and say you're locking people up. Come on, man. Everybody knows that."
It's interesting that White put Sherman in that group, considering the constant refrains about how he just sits back in Seattle's Cover 3 defense and stays to one side of the field (which, for what it's worth, was never all that relevant and has been mostly rendered inaccurate this season), but ridiculed Norman for doing the same thing in Carolina's Cover 2.
Either way, it doesn't particularly matter. Players can only do what they're asked, and Norman has done what he's been asked to do at a higher level than pretty much anyone this year. He's traveled all over the field with six different receivers this season and fared ... preposterously well.
| Josh Norman Shadowing Receivers | ||||||
| Week | WR | REC | TGT | YDS | TD | INT |
| 2 | DeAndre Hopkins | 2 | 7 | 24 | 0 | 0 |
| 4 | Vincent Jackson | 2 | 6 | 31 | 0 | 1 |
| 8 | T.Y. Hilton | 1 | 3 | 15 | 0 | 0 |
| 12 | Dez Bryant | 1 | 5 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| 14 | Julio Jones | 4 | 6 | 33 | 0 | 0 |
| 15 | Odell Beckham | 4 | 7 | 30 | 1 | 0 |
The combined line for QBs throwing at Norman in the six games where he's shadowed a receiver for at least half of his routes: 14 of 34 for 139 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT. That's a passer rating of 51.0, against six of the best receivers in all of football.
One thing Norman doesn't do, though, is bump down into the slot with the receivers he's tracking. He always plays on the outside. If the Falcons want to get Jones a favorable matchup, they'd be wise using him inside unless and until Norman starts following him there, too.
