{"id":695638,"date":"2026-05-26T12:19:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T12:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/695638\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T12:19:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T12:19:17","slug":"early-predictions-for-nfls-top-2026-position-battles-with-otas-underway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/695638\/","title":{"rendered":"Early Predictions for NFL’s Top 2026 Position Battles with OTAs Underway"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carrington Valentine vs. Benjamin St-Juste vs. Brandon Cisse<\/p>\n

The Green Bay Packers were a playoff team last year, but they limped into the postseason, and the play of third-year cornerback Carrington Valentine was an issue. <\/p>\n

In 780 snaps, he allowed almost 60 percent of the passes thrown in his direction to be completed and had a passer rating against<\/a> of over 120. <\/p>\n

The team addressed that issue in both free agency and this year’s draft, adding veteran Benjamin St-Juste and using its first selection on South Carolina’s Brandon Cisse. <\/p>\n

Those additions have done more than just create a position battle at corner. Per Bleacher Report’s Moe Moton<\/a>, it could cost Valentine his roster spot altogether.<\/p>\n

“In 2025, Valentine saw an uptick in defensive snaps compared to his first two years, lining up for 70 percent of the plays,” he wrote. “He recorded 31 tackles and four pass breakups, but that isn’t enough to secure a lead role. Under new defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon, rookie second-rounder Brandon Cisse, sixth-year veteran Benjamin St-Juste and rookie sixth-rounder Domani Jackson could compete for snaps on the boundary of the secondary, leading to questions about Valentine’s short-term future.”<\/p>\n

Unless Cisse is stellar in training camp, it’s not especially likely that the Packers are going to start a rookie at cornerback. The acquisitions the team made would certainly appear to indicate a reluctance to start Valentine again. That leaves St-Juste, a 28-year-old who played sparingly last year with the Los Angeles Chargers but made 45 starts over four seasons in Washington.<\/p>\n

He’ll open the season as the starter opposite Keisean Nixon, but his margin for error will be slim. <\/p>\n

Projected Winner: St-Juste<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carrington Valentine vs. Benjamin St-Juste vs. Brandon Cisse The Green Bay Packers were a playoff team last year,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":["post-695638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}