The Cleveland Browns locked up their young secondary for another season after the team extended Greg Newsome II’s rookie contract by picking up his fifth-year option.
Newsome joins a strong secondary that includes veteran Denzel Ward and third-year player Martin Emerson Jr. this year.
CBS Sports praised the trio in a recent ranking of the best cornerbacks in the NFL, including a top-10 ranking for one of these players.
Writer Jared Dubin – who authored the article – named both Newsome and Emerson as honorable mentions for the Top 20 ranking while Ward was selected as the ninth-best cornerback in the NFL for the 2024 regular season.
“Ward finally had some really strong cornerback play across from him last season, and he put together yet another excellent season,” Dubin wrote, praising both Newsome and Emerson.
The veteran corner has been dominant in his career as Ward has not allowed more than 44 catches in any season and kept quarterbacks from completing 60 percent of their passes against him in all but one of the six NFL seasons he has played.
Ward has yielded a 75.1 passer rating throughout his time in the NFL, Dubin noted.
The writer praised Ward’s size, length, and physicality as the attributes that make the cornerback one of the best in the NFL.
Dubin’s ranking placed New York Jets’ cornerback Sauce Gardner as the top overall cornerback while he named Denver’s Patrick Surtain II and Miami’s Jalen Ramsey as the second- and third-best, respectively, in the league for the 2024 season.
NEXT: ESPN Gives Intriguing Ranking To Young Browns Players
