Bryce Hall Prepared to Take Major Sophomore Leap in Jets Secondary

With the NFL Draft and the bulk of the free agency period in the rearview mirror, the Jets have yet to add a marquee piece at cornerback. It’s the lone head-scratching move in an otherwise abundantly successful offseason by all accounts. 

Listening to Robert Saleh speak after OTAs, it doesn’t look like that addition will come at all. 

“I’ve said it before. I think the difference between player A and player Z in the entire league—I’m not talking about superstars, I’m not talking about the Aaron Donald’s of the world, they’re unique,” Saleh said. “But the difference between player A and player Z is minimal and the only thing that keeps player Z from becoming player A is an opportunity and reps.”

Saleh’s message is clear. He believes the corners already in the locker room can do the job. Or at the very least, he believes in his coaching acumen enough to get them there. A big piece of that belief likely rests on the shoulders of a guy who flashed late last season, and figures to play a major role in the Jets’ secondary in 2021: Bryce Hall.

Sure, general manager Joe Douglas hasn’t selected a corner on the first two days in either of his drafts as New York’s general manager. Saleh’s teams in San Francisco weren’t reliant on first-round talents in the secondary either. This is largely a “scheme over personnel” business decision on Douglas and Saleh’s part. But it’s also because they have a top flight talent already on the roster, one who certainly would have been drafted in the first three rounds had an ankle injury not sidelined him for half of the 2019 college football season and nearly all of pre-draft workouts.

That’s why Hall, the Jets' most talented corner in just his second year, slipped to Round Five. In reality, his draft status is far from indicative of his talent and ability to succeed in New York. 

In college, Hall was indubitably one of the best corners in the country. He led the nation in pass breakups as a junior, posting the top coverage grade, forcing four turnovers and finishing as Pro Football Focus’s top-graded cornerback out of 349 qualifying players.

Once he got accustomed to the Jets defense, he showed flashes of what made him such a dominant player in college. Hall played a lot of off-man coverage and proved extremely difficult to beat on intermediate and deep routes. When he did allow yardage in the short passing game, he was quick to make the tackle and limit the damage. In a defense that gave up big plays with regularity, Hall didn’t.

It was a continuation of the comfort level at the second level that he showed his junior year for Virginia, when he was targeted 44 times on passes 10-plus yards down the field and allowed just 14 catches.

If you’re looking for the deficiencies in Hall’s game, you won’t find too many. He describes himself as “very technically sound” with “very few weaknesses.” He might not be an off-the-charts athlete and his speed is no more than average, but they don’t directly inhibit his ability to find success. Instead, he relies on his length, physicality and instincts. 

That’s what should allow him to thrive even more in Saleh and Jeff Ulbrich’s zone-heavy scheme. He’s not going to have to go one-on-one with Stefon Diggs on the outside, but he’ll find his way into passing lanes when guys like Diggs wander into his territory and let his 6-foot-7 wingspan do the rest. Hall is a former wide-receiver and it shows with his ball-skills. 

“Yeah, he's got length, he's got a great brain and he's got a thirst for the knowledge of the game,” Ulbrich said. “That's where eventually he'll set himself apart I think because he's just so detailed and he's a guy that's like got the callus on his finger from taking notes in practice.”

Excitement About Jets' Defense Continues to Grow For Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich

If Ulbrich is right, it might not take long for Hall to set himself apart. The growth in just a few games once Hall finally got consistent reps was tangible. He played in only half of the games of the 2020 NFL season, but still logged 547 snaps (48.1%) of the total on defense. And with each game, he showed improvement. The Rams game was the ultimate culmination of that. 

Hall played all 59 of the Jets’ defensive snaps in Los Angeles. Over 38 coverage snaps, he allowed just two completions on four attempts for a total of 13 yards. One of those other two attempts resulted in his first career interception. It came in zone coverage, and it was all thanks to those long arms.

"That was really cool," Hall said. "I felt like the coaches were in the zone with the play calls. They were calling Cover 2. I was reading [Jared Goff], saw him plant his feet as he was getting ready to throw. I could sense guys coming across the field. When he threw it I used my long arms to grab it.”

Armed with a full offseason and a chance to get fully healthy for the first time in a while, Hall has the potential—and the Jets might need him to—step into that true CB1 role. while that might seem ambitious on the surface, this was one of the top-ranked corners in college football, who was a Day Two talent and is now fully healthy in a favorable scheme with a year of solid football under his belt. With consistent over-the-top help from one of the best safeties in football, this secondary might not be the weakness many perceive it to be. If one guy is going to turn heads and take a major step up, Bryce Hall is the most likely one to do it.

"I haven't had a true offseason," Hall said. "The biggest jumps happen between the first and second year,” Hall said. "I'm excited now that I've had a year under my belt, seeing what to expect. I'm ready to go to work."

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