When the New York Giants selected Deonte Banks in the first round of the 2023 NFL Draft, defensive coordinator Wink Martindale was ecstatic. The reason was clear: Banks has the aggressiveness to be a strong press-man cornerback, something Martindale covets in his defensive backs.
As Ed Valentine cautioned before the season, though, tempering expectations for Banks’ rookie year was the smart move. The Jets’ Sauce Gardner reset the bar for first-year cornerbacks to an unrealistic level. It had always been acknowledged before Gardner that the learning curve at cornerback is one of the steepest in the NFL (in addition to the fact that it’s one of the hardest positions to play, period).