Josh
Newton.
Josh
Newton.
TCU· 5'11"· 190 lb· 4.51s 40
"A six-year corner who traded the Sun Belt for the Big 12 and got better: not long, not fast, but always in phase and always around the football."Pre-draft read
Newton played outside and in the slot for TCU, a compact press-and-trail corner who lived in the receiver's hip pocket. He jammed with quick, accurate hands at the line, flipped cleanly, and stayed attached through the stem without grabbing late. Ball production was the calling card: he found the football in phase and finished plays other corners only contested.
He was also a willing run defender who came downhill off the edge and tackled bigger receivers without hesitation. Long speed and size were merely adequate, so vertical separators could stack him, but the football IQ in zone — reading the quarterback, driving on the dig — plus the takeaway instincts gave him a defined role in either coverage family.
Match-zone defense with quarters and Cover 3 rules that lets him play the route concept and the quarterback instead of chasing vertical islands.
Year 1: fourth corner who plays nickel in sub packages and starts on the outside when the CB2 goes down. Ceiling: full-time slot starter whose takeaway rate is the reason he is on the field.
A press-man defense that leaves corners alone on outside islands against 6-3 X receivers — no safety help means his length and recovery speed get exposed on the deep ball.
Value climbs in a two-high defense; falls fast in single-high man where the CB is on his own down the sideline.
NFL Draft Film Ep 871: Josh Newton / CB / TCU / 2023 Full Highlights
Full-season cutup of his press technique and trail coverage at TCU.
TCU 62, Iowa State 14: Josh Newton pick six
The signature takeaway from his 2022 breakout season.
2024 NFL Draft: Josh Newton | Cincinnati Bengals
Draft-day reel framing his projection as a slot-first NFL corner.
A six-year college player who arrived at TCU from Louisiana-Monroe, Newton was the rare transfer who upgraded the level of competition and got better. He was a sticky, competitive corner with real technique: patient feet in press, clean transitions, and the confidence to play tight to the route rather than sit back and tackle.
The 2022 season put him on the map. He started every game of TCU's run to the national title game, posting 35 tackles, 3 interceptions for 114 yards with a touchdown, and 12 pass breakups — one of the best ball-production seasons of any Big 12 corner. He backed it up in 2023 as a captain with 33 tackles, an interception and 9 breakups over 12 games, though quarterbacks were far more careful about testing him.
The board liked the tape and hesitated at the frame. At 5-11, 190 with a 4.51 forty, he did not have the length teams demand outside or the recovery burst to survive a vertical mistake, and evaluators projected him into the slot. That pushed him to the middle of Day 3, where Cincinnati took a starter-experienced, ball-hawking corner at 149 with nothing but upside on the price.
- 01
Ball production
Twenty-one pass breakups and 4 interceptions across two TCU seasons, including a 114-yard interception year with a pick-six in 2022.
- 02
Press technique
Patient, accurate hands at the line with clean footwork out of the jam, rarely opening the gate early against outside releases.
- 03
Route anticipation
Reads route combinations and quarterback eyes in zone, driving on digs and comebacks before the ball is out.
- 04
Competitive toughness
Plays through contact at the catch point and never concedes a rep, a trait he showed against Big 12 size mismatches.
- 05
Run support willingness
Comes downhill off the edge, sets a firm edge against the perimeter run and tackles without waiting for help.
- 01
Size and length
At 5-11, 190 he can be boxed out at the catch point by bigger outside receivers who high-point over the top of him.
- 02
Recovery speed
A 4.51 forty leaves little margin for a false step; once he loses the stem vertically he cannot make up the ground.
- 03
Play strength at the top
Bigger receivers can wall him off on back-shoulder throws and stack him through contact down the sideline.
- 04
Grabby in trail
Relies on hand contact when a receiver gets a step, which drew flags and will keep drawing them against NFL officiating.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.51sp50
- Vertical
- 34inp50
- Broad jump
- 124inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- 4.15sp50
- Bench
- 15repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Louisiana-Monroe | 10 | 16 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 0 |
| 2021 | Louisiana-Monroe | 12 | 48 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 0 |
| 2022 | TCU | 15 | 35 | 0 | 3 | 12 | 0 |
| 2023 | TCU | 12 | 33 | 0 | 1 | 9 | 0 |
| Career | — | 49 | 132 | 0 | 7 | 34 | 0 |
Per cfbstats.com season pages (ULM 2020-2021, TCU 2022-2023); season totals sum exactly to the career line shown. His 2018-2019 ULM years are not covered by cfbstats player pages, so they are omitted rather than estimated. Fumble recoveries not verified by season, left null.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Tough, scheme-dependent nickel who plays real snaps without ever being a matchup answer outside.
Ceiling as an undersized slot who turns instincts into takeaways and becomes a defensive core piece.
Depth corner who bounces between the back of the roster and the practice squad.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Cincinnati got real snaps out of him quickly. Injuries in front of him opened the door as a rookie in 2024, and he started the final six games of the season, finishing with 31 tackles, an interception and 7 pass breakups across 17 appearances — respectable production for a fifth-rounder thrown into an AFC North secondary. He won a Week 1 job in 2025, but the season went sideways: his role shrank as the year went on, he finished with 15 tackles and 3 breakups, and a hamstring injury cost him the last two regular-season games. By the summer of 2026 he was fighting for a job in a crowded room, competing with Jalen Davis, Ja'Sir Taylor and Bralyn Lux while reports out of camp described him as out of favor with the staff.
In hindsight the pre-draft concern was the exact thing that stalled him. The instincts and ball skills were real, but the size and recovery speed meant NFL offenses could attack him vertically once they had tape, and he never locked down the outside job those rookie starts hinted at. Fifth-round corners who start six games and hold a roster spot into a third season are not misses — this was fair value that simply topped out where the scouts said it would.
Data note: Per cfbstats.com season pages (ULM 2020-2021, TCU 2022-2023); season totals sum exactly to the career line shown. His 2018-2019 ULM years are not covered by cfbstats player pages, so they are omitted rather than estimated. Fumble recoveries not verified by season, left null.