Why NFL teams are AVOIDING Jaguars S Andre Cisco: Film Breakdown

Disclaimer: The following is a transcript of a YouTube video titled “Why NFL Teams are AVOIDING Jaguars S Andre Cisco” The content is for informational purposes only and was originally presented in video format.

Andre Cisco has already become my favorite NFL safety to watch. He was a third round pick out of Syracuse in 2021, which is turning out to be a phenomenal draft class for Jacksonville. He has good size and elite straight line speed and he finished his college career with 13 pass breakups and 13 interceptions. 

So you'd expect a player with his athletic traits and ball production to get drafted a little bit higher. But he was a very boom-or-bust prospect for several reasons. His playmaking ability came with the drawback that he would pretty much bite on anything, whether it's a double move or a decoy route. He gave up 18 receptions of 15 or more yards in college. He was really inconsistent as a downhill tackler with 27 missed tackles for his career. 

He's always had the closing speed to cover a lot of ground and get to the right spot quickly, but he would take bad angles and he isn't the most fluid athlete when it comes to breaking down an open space and adjusting to shifty ball carriers. So as a prospect, he was viewed as a playmaker that wasn't that great as the last line of defense and couldn't really be trusted to limit big plays. 

And then his third year at Syracuse was cut short after an ACL tear, and he had a lower body injury that caused him to miss four games the year before. So the injury concerns and inconsistencies in coverage caused him to fall to the third round, but in Jacksonville, he stayed healthy, maintained his ability to make big plays, and improved significantly in the areas he struggled with in college.

This first play really highlights Andre Cisco's range as a free safety. The Jags come out in single high, showing cover three. But right when the ball snapped, they're rotating into cover two, so Andre Cisco is responsible for this deep half. And the middle of the field is wide open for Patrick Mahomes to hit this deep post, but Cisco's able to recover enough depth to undercut the post route and get the interception.

He's definitely helped here by Josh Allen getting a hit on Patrick Mahomes and causing him to underthrow it, but this is still an incredible play as the split field safety to get an interception on a deep post. This is another play from the Chiefs game where the Jags are showing cover 3 pre snap, but they're dropping into cover 2. And on the right side of the field, the Chiefs have a cover 2 beater called with this smash concept, where you get a deep corner and a hitch route underneath. 

The hitch holds the flat defender, and then the corner route should be open unless the safety is cheating to the sideline. But at the snap, Cisco widens out to the numbers, breaks on the corner route. This should have been an interception, but the ball goes through his hands. On this play from week 4, the Falcons are running one of the most common deep passing concepts, where you've got play action, max protect, and then 2 routes developing over the middle.

The first route from Kyle Pitts is going to be a dig or a deep over. And then the second route's gonna be a clear out with a deep post or a deep corner depending on the coverage. Usually when the offense comes out in a run heavy look like this. The defense is going to respond by playing cover three. And so the first underneath routes where they're going to be most vulnerable cause you've got a corner playing with outside leverage trying to cover an inbreaking route.

And most free safeties are taught to break on the over and leave the corner one on one with the clear out. So Andre Cisco's reading the receivers. He can tell that Drake London is working vertical. And once he sees Kyle Pitts put his foot in the ground, he knows he's about to cut inside so he breaks on that route, Desmond Ridder doesn't see him and he gets an easy interception. 

Over the last couple years, there hasn't been a safety in the NFL that's better than Andre Cisco at breaking on routes over the middle of the field. On this play from 2022, the Chiefs are running a deep over with Juju Smith-Schuster, and then a corner route from Marquez Valdes-Scantling. Again, he does a great job identifying the route concept. He leaves Tyson Campbell one on one on the outside, breaks on the route over the middle, and lays a huge hit.

You can see the ref throw the flag here, but watching this on NFL Plus, the play description doesn't say that there is a flag. So I'm not sure if this ended up being a penalty. Watching it in slow motion, it looks like a clean hit, but it's always hard to tell with those things. This is another play from the same game, just flattening someone over the middle of the field. Cisco just comes in like a missile and breaks the pass up. 

You see these types of plays all over his tape. If I were an NFL quarterback, I would just start ignoring the middle of the field when I'm playing the Jags. Because even if you get a completion, anything in between the hashes is a hospital ball. This is an incredible play from the wild card round last year. The Chargers are running four Verts and Donald Parham is wide open running down the seam. 

But Cisco's able to read the quarterback's eyes, recover a ton of space over the top, and get a hand on the pass. So, like I said, he's maintained that ball hawk play making ability that he had in college. The ball production hasn't been quite where it was at Syracuse over the last two years he has five interceptions and six pass breakups but in the NFL, when you're playing almost all your snaps at free safety, 15, 20 yards off the line of scrimmage, your ability to rack up stats is basically dependent on quarterbacks targeting you. 

And going through his tape for this video, I would watch entire games where Andre Cisco didn't make an impact, not because of anything he did, just because the quarterback didn't throw his way. But when he does get those opportunities, he's definitely someone that makes his presence felt. And then he hasn't given up nearly as many big plays as he did in College. I mentioned he gave up 18 receptions of 15 or more yards at Syracuse. 

In the NFL he gave up 8. And he's played almost the exact same number of snaps in the NFL versus college. The main area he still needs to improve is tackling. His missed tackle rate is down from 16 percent in college to 12 percent in the NFL, which might not seem that significant, but there is a noticeable difference on tape. It doesn't feel like he's a liability on the back end like it did at times when he was at Syracuse, but there still have been plays where he's missed the tackle as the last line of defense.

Some of this comes down to the fact that he's a much better straight line athlete than he is moving side to side, so once he chooses a path, he can bend his angle to match the ball carrier, but jukes or cuts back. but there were also a few plays where he was coming in at an angle from the backside and instead of just accelerating and meeting the runner head on, he would leave his feet too early and dive at the legs. 

He has the speed on most of these to make up that extra distance. So if he would just stay upright as he initiates contact, I think a lot of this could be fixed. So Trent Baalke is on the extreme end of the spectrum as far as prioritizing athletic traits in the draft. And we've seen that backfire at times, but Andre Cisco has been a hit and he's only getting better. 

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