Juju
Brents.
Juju
Brents.
Kansas State· 6'3"· 198 lb· 4.53s 40
"The tools that made him a second-round bet never stopped being real; the health that would have let him use them never showed up for two straight seasons."Pre-draft read
Brents is a 6-foot-3 boundary corner built to live in press, and the tape is organized around his length. He wants contact at the line, lands a strong inside hand on the release, and uses his frame to wall receivers toward the sideline before the stem develops. The mechanics are deliberate rather than twitchy: a patient kick-slide, eyes on the receiver's hips, a long recovery stride.
Downfield he plays the pocket instead of the ball, riding the upfield shoulder and raking through the catch point late. He is an asset in run support, setting an edge and tackling with pop. A 4.53 forty and a 41.5-inch vertical at that height is rare tooling. The signature: a corner who erases the sideline third by taking away space, not by jumping routes.
Press-heavy man coverage defense that lets a long boundary corner jam at the line and squeeze the sideline third, with Cover 3 and Cover 1 as the base shells.
Year 1: outside starter on the boundary in a press-first scheme with safety help over the top. Ceiling: physical CB1 who takes the opponent's X receiver out of the game.
A heavy off-coverage, match-quarters system that asks him to backpedal, open late and mirror quick-twitch slot receivers on option routes in space.
The frame and testing also gave him a real fallback as a big nickel or box safety if the boundary job ever stopped working.
Julius Brents 2022 Kansas State Highlights
His Big 12 championship season at Kansas State: press reps, the length at the catch point and four interceptions.
JuJu Brents vs Calvin Ridley
Rookie-year man coverage tape against a veteran separator, the best look at how the press technique held up in the NFL.
Film Breakdown: JuJu Brents in his first start with the Miami Dolphins
Post-waiver-claim breakdown of his boundary work in Miami after the injuries in Indianapolis.
A long, physical outside corner whose evaluation begins and ends with how well a defense wants to use press-man. Brents is not a mirror-and-match slot type and never pretended to be; he is a boundary player who covers with his frame, his patience and his reach, and he was at his best when the call let him get hands on a receiver at the snap.
The path was winding. He arrived at Iowa in 2018, flashed as a true freshman with 13 tackles, three pass breakups and an interception, then lost 2019 to a redshirt season and managed only four tackles across a limited 2020. The transfer to Kansas State reset everything: 49 tackles and an interception in 2021, then a 2022 season worth 45 tackles, four interceptions and four pass breakups as the Wildcats won the Big 12 championship. Six career interceptions and a habit of showing up in big games — the TCU title game among them — gave evaluators a rising arrow rather than a finished product. The flags were durability and the technical inconsistency that comes with a player who missed development time.
The board had him as a fringe first-round corner with second-round certainty, and Indianapolis taking him at 44 read as a defense buying traits and length for a scheme that wanted to press. It was an aggressive bet on tools over accumulated reps.
- 01
Press technique
Lands a heavy inside hand at the line and uses a 6-foot-3 frame to reroute receivers toward the boundary before the stem can develop.
- 02
Recovery length
A long final stride and 34-inch reach let him close throwing windows late even when the release beats him by a step.
- 03
Run support
Sets a real edge on the perimeter and finishes tackles with weight behind them rather than dragging ball carriers down.
- 04
Rare athletic tooling
A 4.53 forty and a 41.5-inch vertical at that height give him a catch-point radius almost no boundary corner can match.
- 05
Big-game production
Four interceptions in 2022 during a Big 12 title run, including a takeaway in the championship game against TCU.
- 01
Durability
A redshirt 2019, a truncated 2020 and a scattered stat record across five college seasons left him short on continuous developmental reps.
- 02
Change of direction
Hips are long and gather slowly out of the backpedal, which shows up against quick-game and double-move route runners.
- 03
Ball skills
Plays the receiver more than the football; six career interceptions came from positioning more than from a natural tracking instinct.
- 04
Grabbiness
Relies on hand contact deep into the route stem, a habit that draws flags when officials are calling downfield holding tightly.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.53sp50
- Vertical
- 41.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 138inp50
- Three-cone
- 6.63sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.05sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Iowa | 11 | 13 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| 2020 | Iowa | 7 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2021 | Kansas State | — | 49 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| 2022 | Kansas State | 14 | 45 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 1 |
| Career | — | 32 | 111 | 0 | 6 | 10 | 1 |
Four statistical seasons; he redshirted 2019 at Iowa after one appearance with no recorded defensive stats, so that year is omitted rather than zero-filled. Season tackles (13+4+49+45) sum exactly to the 111 career total, interceptions to six and pass breakups to ten. Tackles for loss, sacks and fumble recoveries are not published for every season by the source, so they are left blank rather than zeroed, and 2021 games played could not be verified.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Traits-first boundary corner who flashes early but never converts the tools into a stable starting role.
The version where the length and press work translates into a durable, scheme-proof outside starter.
The floor where the physicality is real but penalties and lost seasons turn him into a rotational depth piece.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Brents played in 9 games, starting 8, for the Indianapolis Colts in his rookie year, recording 24 total tackles and 5 passes defended. He dealt with injuries but showed flashes as a starting cornerback.
Indianapolis gave him the job immediately. Brents started eight of the nine games he appeared in as a rookie in 2023, put up 43 tackles, six pass breakups, an interception, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery, and looked like exactly what the Colts wanted on the boundary — until a quad injury in October cost him the middle of the season. Then 2024 collapsed. A knee injury in the Week 1 opener, reported as meniscus and PCL damage, limited him to two games and seven tackles before injured reserve ended the year. He never got the third season in Indianapolis: the Colts waived him at the 2025 roster cutdown and Miami claimed him the same week. With the Dolphins he played seven games in 2025, recording 14 tackles and a fumble recovery in a rotational and special-teams role, and he remains on Miami's roster.
The evaluation was not wrong about the player. Everything the board liked — the press ability, the length, the willingness in run support — showed up on tape in 2023. What the evaluation underweighted was the durability flag it had already identified. Two injuries in two years cost him the runway a traits-based corner needs. He is still 26 and still has the tools, but the second-round expectation is gone.
Data note: Four statistical seasons; he redshirted 2019 at Iowa after one appearance with no recorded defensive stats, so that year is omitted rather than zero-filled. Season tackles (13+4+49+45) sum exactly to the 111 career total, interceptions to six and pass breakups to ten. Tackles for loss, sacks and fumble recoveries are not published for every season by the source, so they are left blank rather than zeroed, and 2021 games played could not be verified.