It still amazes me how the cornerback Dimitri Patterson was regarded as playing so poorly for the Eagles, only to play terrific the following year for the Browns. In Pro Football Focus' latest feature, they took a look at the best and worst tackling cornerbacks in the NFL. Two of the Browns' cornerbacks, Joe Haden and Patterson, were among the top ten.
Patterson was ranked 4th in the league at cornerback in tackling efficiency. He played 519 total snaps and had 26 tackling opportunities. Out of those opportunities, he only missed a tackle once (1 miss out of every 26 attempts). Haden ranked 7th in the same category. He played 939 snaps and had 71 tackling opportunities. Out of those opportunities, he only missed three tackles (1 miss out of every 23.7 attempts). I wonder if Haden's missed attempt on Antonio Brown against the Steelers in Pittsburgh at the end of the game counted as one of those three misses.
Is it surprising that the person who was ranked second worst in tackling efficiency was Nnamdi Asomugha? He missed a tackle 1 out of every 4.3 opportunities. In terms of quantity, veteran Ronde Barber might want to think about hanging it up: he missed 22 tackles. To be fair, though, he plays in a different defense that puts him in a position to make those type of plays more than other cornerbacks (Barber had more attempts than most players).