Sean Bunting Has The Athleticism & Turnover Ability To Make A Difference In The Redskins Secondary

Sean Bunting, CB
School: Central Michigan | Conference: Mid-American
College Experience: RS Junior | Age: 22?
Height / Weight: 6-0 / 195 lbs
Projected Draft Status: 3rd or 4th Round
NFL Comparison: Darius Slay

College Statistics

Player Overview

Sean Bunting was a wide receiver in high school and just a 2-star prospect when he started his recruiting journey. Bunting only got one scholarship offer from a division one school, Central Michigan. The scholarship was put in jeopardy when then and now former Central Michigan Dan Enos resigned and took an offensive coordinator job with Arkansas back in 2015. Bunting had lost his scholarship as a result and could have signed with several division II schools but he believed and wanted to play in division I. The new CMU head coach John Bonomego (Now with the Detroit Lions) offered Bunting a grayshirt which he gladly accepted. Bunting started his college career at safety and did not like it. He talked to coach Bonomego about switching back to receiver. His coach told him he could be a mediocre receiver or he could potentially be an NFL quality cornerback, Bunting made the switch to corner and now he is an NFL caliber corner prospect with talk of him going in the first 40 picks.

Strengths

• Good size, speed, length, and athleticism for the position.
• Awareness throughout route is good, can time his breaks and adjustments well. Contests the catch point and is a highly competitive player.
• Fluidity looks good enough and his mirror ability is good. Uses his physicality to disrupt routes early and challenges timing based offenses. Excels in man coverage and can run stride for stride with most receivers.
• Often took away his man and looked as having potential to be a lockdown corner. He is sticky in coverage and allowed just a 39% completion rate on throws targeted to him this past season.
• Solid hands and has had consistent production in regard to interceptions and passes defended.

Weaknesses

• Not a lot of production for someone garnering the level of hype he’s getting considering the conference he played in.
• Tackling needs a lot of improvement. He lunges and doesn’t always wrap up he can get dragged and is more of a speed bump right now than someone who is reliable in this area.
• Sometimes is too physical and likes to fight with receivers the entire route will draw penalties in the NFL if he doesn’t reign it in.
• May be limited to specific schemes in the NFL because of some of his limitations.

Let’s see his work:

More Sean Bunting videos

How Would He Fit On The Redskins?

The man coverage corner question is at play again for the Skins. It seems like the Redskins have drafted man coverage guys in the past and have been confident that their skills can translate just as well in the many zone concepts the Redskins employ on defense. This strategy has arguably had limited success. The reality is as long as the Redskins are using a mix of zone and man coverage in their defense and they need cornerbacks who can do both. It’s up to the coaches to make sure the right guys with the right skills are in the right coverages. If there has been a refocus in this area in the secondary during the offseason we just may see improved decision making on the part of coaches. With that said while some are talking about Bunting’s future on the boundary I’m really interesting what he could do the the Redskins in the slot especially in light of his athletic testing. He would have really good size and athleticism for that role and it would allow him to play more man coverage than the guys on the boundary in the Redskins scheme. His highly competitive nature and ability in man coverage could especially help the Redskins in the area they have the most trouble with slot receivers - the redzone. I’m not so sure I believe the top 40 hype about Bunting but as I say every year, you can never have too many corners, and if he’s still on the board in the 3rd round I think the Redskins should take a look.