Written on chalky candy heart: Stay as close to me as Carrington stays to wide receivers.
There were only three Green Bay Packers corners to play over 300 coverage snaps last season, and the player with the best PFF Grade of those three, at a light green 71.4, was Carrington Valentine. Jaire Alexander did manage to out-grade Valentine, but due to injuries, Alexander only played in seven games. So when push came to shove it all came down to Valentine, Corey Ballentine, Eric Stokes, Keisean Nixon, and a bit of Javon Bullard. And of that group, Valentine was the man. On this day, let us give thanks for our own special Valentine.
The Packers picked Carrington Valentine with the 232nd overall pick (7th round) in the 2023 draft, and he has consistently exceeded expectations ever since. Valentine was projected as a sixth rounder by Dane Brugler in the 2023 version of The Beast, and looking back on Dane’s write-up with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, it’s pretty incredible that Valentine fell instead of moving up. While Brugler did highlight some technique problems and his somewhat thin frame, the positives far outweighed the negatives, especially considering that Valentine was somewhat new to the position, having converted from wide receiver to corner as a junior in high school.
When picking in the later rounds of the draft (especially the sixth and seventh) you usually have to compromise on at least a few traits. You may find a try-hard small school natural-born leader with a three RAS. You may find an 8+ RAS athletic star who just doesn’t have a feel for the game, and if you do find a random leftover great athlete with great on-field skills, they will generally come with some additional red flag.
Valentine had a 9.30 RAS, and like all recent Packers’ corner draft picks, his top RAS comp is Marshon Lattimore, so athleticism wasn’t the issue. (His fourth comp is Robert Rochell, by the way.) Valentine played in the SEC for Kentucky, and so level of competition wasn’t an issue. In the 2022 season, he led the team in passes defended with 11 while recording one interception, and while Brugler notes the lack of picks as an issue, Valentine was consistently around the ball.
The main problem with Carrington Valentine seemed to be a lack of technique in certain situations (high pointing the ball) and a tendency to get grabby (again, Happy Valentine’s Day). But given his lack of experience at the position, there is and was still some projectability in his profile. For a seventh-round pick, that level of athleticism, plus progress on the field in the SEC plus the fact that he is just now entering his age 24 season, makes him as good a seventh-round prospect as I’ve seen over the past four or five seasons.
As previously mentioned, Valentine was also one of the Packers’ best corners this year, and arguably their best (though FTN preferred Keisean Nixon, who also played an additional 200 coverage snaps). He allowed a passer rating against of 82.8 (second only to Alexander on the team), and more than anything, he excelled at keeping his man in front of him, leading the team in ADOT against at 7.8. Some of that is route selection, but Valentine played almost exclusively at boundary corner, and excelled at cutting off or covering deep routes.
And in a more just world, Valentine would be one of the heroes of the 2024 season, because he almost made two of the most important plays of the season. That is to say that he actually made those plays, but the rest of the team wound up letting him down. In the Packers’ second game against the Vikings on December 29th, it was looking pretty grim with Minnesota leading 20-3 with 7:16 remaining in the third quarter, until Sam Darnold dropped back on 2nd and 11 and threw an errant pass to TJ Hockenson that was picked off by Valentine and returned to the Vikings’ 16-yard line. Josh Jacobs punched it in a few plays later, and the comeback was on.
The very next week in the Packers’ loss to the Bears, the Packers were trailing 21-19 with just 1:49 left in the game. The Bears had the ball around midfield, and at worst, were looking to drain the Packers of their timeouts and pin them deep, or ideally, pick up 15 yards and kick a field goal to go up four with likely under a minute remaining. Instead, Valentine read a screen pass perfectly and forced a fumble from DJ Moore, giving the Packers life.
And while the Packer offense sputtered and botched the clock terribly, they actually did go ahead on a long Brandon McManus field goal that, under better circumstances, could and probably should have won them the game. Valentine had a few additional highlights as he also recorded an interception against Seattle and led the team in tackles in their first game against the Bears. When he was on the field, he was generally pretty good.
The story of the season for Valentine was very nearly the story of a plucky seventh rounder who, over time, eclipsed a former first rounder for playing time and made two of the most important plays of the season when it mattered most. But the NFL rarely adheres to a preferred narrative, and so some of Valentine’s heroics will likely fade from the popular consciousness. They shouldn’t fade from our memory when projecting his future as a quality NFL player. Valentine is still learning, still an outstanding athlete, and on the league’s youngest team, he is their fourth youngest player (only Kalen King, Javon Bullard, and Edgerrin Cooper are younger).
Happy Valentine’s Day all. I hope your Valentine is as good as Green Bay’s.