What to Expect from Bears CB Tyrique Stevenson

The first step is to find comparable players to Pickens. In order to do this, I weighed NFL Draft measurements, coverage stats, and run defense stats for each player's final year of college (per PFF), as well as game experience. 

Size and Athleticism

These two factors combine to account for 50 percent of the final similarity score. For the "Size" portion, I used height, weight, arm length, and hand size. Hand size has a much lighter weight than the other factors, for obvious reasons.

For the athleticism portion, I used the athletic tests that Stevenson completed between the combine and his pro day. This includes the vertical jump, broad jump, 40-yard dash, 10-yard split, 3-cone drill, and shuttle run. I excluded bench press, because including it tends to cut the player pool down significantly.

Coverage

The "Coverage" factor includes PFF coverage grade, ADOT, target rate, yards per target, yards after catch per reception, forced incompletion rate, and tackle stops per completion allowed for their final year of college. This factor is weighted at 30 percent of the final similarity score.

Run Defense

The "Run Defense" factor includes run defense percentage, PFF run defense grade, run stop percentage, missed tackle percentage, average depth of tackle, and the percent of run snaps where the corner made a tackle attempt. This factor is weighted at only 15 percent of the final similarity score because I believe a cornerback should be judged more heavily on their coverage abilities.

Experience

This factor is here to make more subtle differentiations between the data. It is only weighted at 5 percent of the final similarity grade. This includes the player's age, number of games played at the college level, number of years starting at the college level, and the percentage of snaps played in their final year of college.

Projecting Tyrique Stevenson's Rookie Season

Based on the 10 most comparable players, I would expect to see Stevenson in a starting role with him playing 50% to 80% of the Bears' defensive snaps. Given his skillset, he will likely be used as the starting outside CB opposite Jaylon Johnson. But, only one of the ten players listed above played over 80% of their team's snaps as a rookie, and that was All-Pro Tre'Davious White. And that does not seem like a fair expectation to me.

On this list, we see a few exciting names like Marlon Humphrey, Tre'Davious White, Jamel Dean, and Tyson Campbell. The skillset that Stevenson brings to the table has been a strong one, historically. That being a large, athletic corner with plus straight-line speed and explosion. While he might not be the most agile CB in the league, he likely will not need to be in the Bears' defense. 

Most Comparable Player to Tyrique Stevenson

The most comparable player to Stevenson is Daron Bland. These two players are extremely similar in build and athleticism:

Bland was selected in the 5th round of the 2022 NFL Draft by the Dallas Cowboys. He was thrust into action as a rookie, playing 745 snaps last season. And, surprisingly, the 5th-round pick answered. He played the 12th most snaps of any rookie CB last season and was PFF's 6th highest-graded rookie CB (minimum 600 snaps). The young CB had a knack for making plays, with 5 interceptions on the season.

Final Thoughts on Tyrique Stevenson

Ultimately, I feel like Stevenson is a really strong fit for what the Bears want their cornerbacks to do. He has a strong jam off the line of scrimmage, is aggressive at the catch point, and possesses a quick trigger downhill against short passes and the run. While he is not the player you want to ask to blanket a wide receiver across the field or on double moves, he is a player who can be highly effective in a cover 2 or cover 3 scheme.

And while there are two VERY optimistic comparisons here in Marlon Humphrey and Tre'Davious White, I am setting my hopes on him to becoming a Tyson Campbell or Jamel Dean level of player. Because both of those players did show better agility testing, and because I don't think setting all pro aspirations on a 2nd round pick is fair to the player.