Down below is a chart that matches up wide receivers with cornerbacks. Quite often, we see many casual football fans simply assume that elite cornerbacks follow the opposing team's No. 1 wide receiver around the field. That almost never happens. The below chart will help you determine which cornerbacks your top receivers will see in coverage each week. As you'll see, it's not always cut and dry, but we hope this information will allow you to make the best lineup decisions each week.
Understanding the chart:
The chart is split into three “zones”. The first is Left Wide Receiver (LWR) vs. Right Cornerback (RCB). The second is the exact opposite. The third matches up primary slot recievers with primary slot defenders. The percentage shown is how often the player has lined up in that position so far this season. In some cases, the number is very high and telling. In others, it's low and predictable. Other times it's low because of injury/depth chart movement.
Next to each defender, you'll see three additional columns.
One is ‘T/G', which refers to targets faced-per-game.
The second is ‘Cov', which refers to the coverage grade given to each defender by our fine analysts at PFF. Most don't know what qualifies as a good or bad coverage grade, which is why it's on a 0-to-100 scale. 100 is bad and means its a great (A+) matchup for the receiver. Zero means good coverage and is thus bad news (F) for the receiver. 50 is, of course, an average matchup.
The third column is ‘FP', which identifies how each defender has fared in terms of fantasy points (ppr) per target so far this season.Only defenders who have seen 20-plus targets this season are graded. This is also on a 1-to-100 scale.
Most of us fantasy-football gamers are well aware of which wide receivers are elite, but we aren't quite as familiar with many cornerbacks. These columns help solve that issue.
Note: I wrote up notes for all fantasy relevant wide receivers in my Divisional fantasy football rankings column. Included is each receiver's primary cover corner(s) and an explanation. View it here.
| OFF | DEF | Left WR | % | Right CB | % | T/G | Cov | FP |
| BLT | NE | Torrey Smith | 48% | Brandon Browner | 57% | 6.0 | 68 | 46 |
| NE | BLT | Brandon LaFell | 52% | Rashaan Melvin | 95% | 5.5 | 59 | 1 |
| CAR | SEA | Kelvin Benjamin | 59% | Byron Maxwell | 80% | 5.5 | 59 | 38 |
| SEA | CAR | Paul Richardson | 51% | Josh Norman | 45% | 4.4 | 50 | 8 |
| DAL | GB | Dez Bryant | 46% | Sam Shields | 82% | 5.8 | 65 | 50 |
| GB | DAL | Davante Adams | 51% | Sterling Moore | 64% | 4.2 | 48 | 32 |
| DEN | IND | Emmanuel Sanders | 31% | Vontae Davis | 96% | 4.8 | 14 | 3 |
| IND | DEN | Donte Moncrief | 34% | Bradley Roby | 45% | 5.8 | 60 | 55 |
| OFF | DEF | Right WR | % | Left CB | % | T/G | Cov | FP |
| BLT | NE | Steve L. Smith | 47% | Darrelle Revis | 51% | 4.9 | 27 | 29 |
| NE | BLT | Julian Edelman | 41% | Lardarius Webb | 78% | 6.1 | 77 | 54 |
| CAR | SEA | Philly Brown | 59% | Richard Sherman | 91% | 4.1 | 36 | 19 |
| SEA | CAR | Jermaine Kearse | 32% | Bené Benwikere | 22% | 5.0 | 43 | 21 |
| DAL | GB | Terrance Williams | 51% | Tramon Williams | 77% | 6.1 | 55 | 62 |
| GB | DAL | Jordy Nelson | 46% | Brandon Carr | 84% | 5.5 | 82 | 69 |
| DEN | IND | Demaryius Thomas | 40% | Greg Toler | 85% | 6.6 | 91 | 57 |
| IND | DEN | T.Y. Hilton | 38% | Aqib Talib | 86% | 6.3 | 55 | 33 |
| OFF | DEF | Slot WR | % | Slot CB | % | T/G | Cov | FP |
| BLT | NE | Marlon Brown | 71% | Logan Ryan | 33% | 3.8 | 68 | 44 |
| NE | BLT | Danny Amendola | 80% | Anthony Levine | 42% | 3.6 | 71 | 60 |
| CAR | SEA | Jerricho Cotchery | 71% | Jeremy Lane | 92% | 4.2 | 56 | 15 |
| SEA | CAR | Doug Baldwin | 58% | Colin Jones | 100% | 2.8 | 77 | 54 |
| DAL | GB | Cole Beasley | 91% | Micah Hyde | 94% | 3.8 | 63 | 41 |
| GB | DAL | Randall Cobb | 90% | Orlando Scandrick | 65% | 5.3 | 39 | 37 |
| DEN | IND | Wes Welker | 89% | Darius Butler | 89% | 3.8 | 69 | 48 |
| IND | DEN | Reggie Wayne | 62% | Chris Harris Jr. | 40% | 5.6 | 0 | 0 |
Follow Mike Clay on Twitter: @MikeClayNFL
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