2020 NFL Draft: Grading every first-round pick after rookie year

Grading every rookie from the 2020 NFL Draft: 3. Jeff Okudah, CB, Detroit Lions

2020 stats:

• 47 tackles
• 2 passes defended
• 1 interception

Great things were expected of Jeff Okudah.

With Matthew Stafford slinging the ball around on the offensive end, their defense has always been an issue. Helping to mitigate those problems in a big way was thought to be the highly touted Corner out of Ohio State.

More than anything, now-former head coach Matt Patricia was thought to be an excellent defensive mind that would pair great with his new high first-round draft pick. With that said, nothing appeared to go right for the young corner. Cast aside the groin injury that ended his season early, let’s just take a look at the numbers he was putting on the field before he was hurt.

With nine games under his belt, he only managed to grab one interception. For a corner as highly praised as he was coming out, it doesn’t appear that anyone feared his reputation as quarterbacks targeted his matchup 50 times, 38 of those were caught by the way, not a good ratio.

And although it isn’t his fault entirely that his Lions team ranked dead last in terms of yards allowed per game and third to last when were discussing passing yards allowed through the air, he still takes some of that blame.

There’s still plenty of time for him to turn things around, but for now, we simply have to grade what we saw on the field this past season.

Grade: C-