Tennessee Football: Kamal Hadden Ranks Among the Best 2024 NFL Corner Prospects
Tennessee Volunteers corner Kamal Hadden went into NFL Combine weekend ranked at the top of all FBS prospects in this year's draft.
Kamal Hadden was graded as the best player in the Tennessee Volunteers' secondary in 2023. Pro Football Focus also grades Hadden as one of the best corner prospects in this year's draft.
PFF grades Hadden 1st among all FBS corners in single coverage with a 92.4 grade. That means there is not a single corner in this year's draft or all of college football that grades better in one-on-one coverage than Tennessee's Hadden.
The NFL grades draft prospects on a different scale. Prospects are graded from 5.50 to 8.00. Hadden received a grade of 6.20, which means he is projected to eventually be a starting corner in the NFL.
Hadden had a solid senior season on Rocky Top before suffering a season-ending injury. He ranks in the top 25 in four main categories among his fellow corners. AtoZ Sports writer James Foster found that Hadden is underrated at the corner position based on his college stats.
Yards/Tgt: 2.91 (3rd)
Yds/Snap: 0.52 (20th)
Passer Rtg Allowed: 7.0 (1st)
Forced Incompletion %: 24.2% (21st)
This comes after a rough Junior season, where he fell in popularity among Vol fans due to some of his on-field performances late in the season. Hadden discussed his jump in production from Junior to Senior season when speaking with reporters and acknowledged he had to make big changes to become a better player in his final year on Rocky Top.
"I learned to slow things down. ... Once I got more in-tune with the game, I kind of focused more on that rather than just talking things up and getting loud all the time."
- Kamal Hadden
Hadden is only focusing on position drills during the combine rather than going through the full combine experience. He mentioned he would be able to do everything during Pro Day, which leads us to believe he may not be 100% ready to go through all that the NFL Combine offers as he is still recovering from his shoulder injury.
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Hadden is the only member of Tennessee's defense who was invited to the NFL Draft Combine, which is a great opportunity for him to spend some time with NFL franchises in Indianapolis. He mentions that some NFL scouts have focused on his physicality and play-making ability. Undoubtedly, he showed what he could do in both of those categories on Rocky Top last fall.