Houston Texans select LSU CB Derek Stingley Jr. with the 3rd pick. Grade: B

With the third pick in the 2022 NFL draft, the Houston Texans select LSU CB Derek Stingley Jr.

GRADE: B.

This is a bit of a surprise, as Cincinnati’s Sauce Gardner is still on the board, and I think that Gardner has been the better and more consistent cornerback of late. The Texans obviously hope that Stingley can capitalize on his 2019 tape, which was first-overall pick stuff, and get past the last two seasons of injuries and relative ineffectiveness.

Mark Schofield’s scouting report:

Height: 6’0″ (70th) Weight: 190 (42nd)
40-Yard Dash: 4.37 seconds*
Bench Press: N/A
Vertical Jump: 38.5 inches*
Broad Jump: 10’2″*
3-Cone Drill: 6.98 seconds*
20-Yard Shuttle: 4.19 seconds*

*Denotes Pro Day testing numbers (unofficial)

Bio: Derek Stingley Jr. comes from a family of athletes. His grandfather Darryl Stingley was a wide receiver in the NFL whose career was cut short after a hit from Jack Tatum in a preseason game caused a spinal cord injury. Stingley’s father, Derek, played both baseball and football professionally. He played nine seasons in the Arena League, and also played in the Philadelphia Phillies organization, before becoming a football coach.

Stingley himself was a highly-recruited cornerback coming out of The Dunham School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He was graded as a consensus five-star recruit, and the top player in the entire 2019 recruiting class by Rivals. He chose to stay close to home and play for the LSU Tigers, and walked right onto the field as as starter for a team that would go on to win the national championship. As a true freshman, Stingley was named a Consensus All-American and a First-Team All-SEC selection. He led the SEC with six interceptions that year, again as a true freshman.

Stat to Know: I mentioned the six interceptions in the SEC as a true freshman, right? Just wanted to make sure…

Strengths: If you turn on that 2019 film, you see a player that looks every bit the part of CB1. Stingley was a true lock-down cornerback that season, and showed the press coverage chops, change-of-direction skills, and all-around game you want to see from a player many believed would be the first-overall selection at some point in his career.

Take this interception against Georgia in the SEC Championship game:

Stingley plays this vertical route extremely well, showing patience off the snap, the speed to match the vertical release and then the ball skills at the catch point, as he gets his head around for the interception.

Stingley also has the ability to run the receiver’s route, based perhaps on his extensive experience. On this play from 2020 against Texas A&M, watch as he mirrors the corner route from the receiver:

The corner sees and mirrors the inside release, but gets himself to the lower hip off of the break, and is in perfect position to prevent the completion.

While not to the level of Gardner — perhaps due to the injuries the past two seasons — Stingley also offers a wealth of experience in press alignment. Pro Football Focus charted him with nearly 50% of his career snaps in press-man.

Weaknesses: We start with the injuries. After that first season, where he was a consensus All-American, Stingley played in just ten games over the next two seasons. He missed the season-opener in 2020 with an illness, and then the final two games of the season with a leg injury. Then his 2021 campaign was cut short due to a Lisfranc injury.

Now, Stingley recovered from that Lisfranc injury and put up an impressive performance at the LSU Pro Day, but that injury history might have some wary.

Then there is what we saw on film from Stingley in 2020 when he was healthy. It was not the same level of play, or at least as consistent, as we saw from him in 2019. Now, LSU did take a step back after winning that national championship, as players like Joe Burrow and Justin Jefferson were in the NFL and Ja’Marr Chase sat out due to COVID, but Stingley did not match what he did as a true freshman. His game against Alabama that season was not his finest hour, and my notes from that game are filled with remarks like “seems to lack urgency.” As PFF noted in their draft guide, however, that was not unique to Stingley on LSU’s roster that season…

Conclusion: Is the injury history and sub-par play the past two seasons enough to overshadow what we saw in 2019? Probably not. If a team believes they can get that kind of performance from Stingley on a consistent level as he transitions to the league, they might have him as CB1 on their board. If, however, a team is uncertain whether they are getting the 2019 version or the 2020-2021 version, they might be more skeptical.

Comparison: The Draft Network went with Stephon Gilmore, and the 2019 version of Stingley makes that comparison apt.