Seahawks Tariq Woolen or Jets Sauce Gardner: Who's better? We've got the answer.
Ah, but can we trust the stats for Sauce Gardner vs Tariq Woolen?
Here's where it all gets sticky, 12s. According to Pro Football Focus (a pay-walled site), Gardner allowed 34 catches on 74 targets, while Woolen allowed 38 on 68 targets. A visit to another site, playerprofiler.com, yields a third set of statistics. Seems crazy, I know, but see for yourself. Here are Tariq's stats, and here's the link for Sauce's stats. To save you a little time, just check the next table. the first row shows their stats per PFF (subscription required), and the second from Player Profiler.
Player | Targets | Rec | Pct | Yds | Avg | Passer Rating | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Woolen | 61 | 32 | 52.5% | 404 | 12.6 | 88.1 | Player Profiler |
Gardner | 76 | 36 | 47.4% | 418 | 11.6 | 68.4 | Player Profiler |
Woolen | 68 | 38 | 55.9% | 547 | 14.4 | 70.0 | PFF |
Gardner | 74 | 34 | 45.9% | 360 | 10.6 | 53.9 | PFF |
I'll just add here that Pro Football Focus rated Sauce Gardner as the number-one cornerback in the league last year. That's debatable - I mean, that's why we're here, after all - but they also ranked Tariq Woolen at number 34. That, my dear 12s, is beyond laughable.
No one with any sense at all would rank Woolen outside of the top ten at cornerback. That's being conservative. Put it this way - tell me what team in the NFL has two corners better than Woolen, because that's exactly what the ranking by PFF states. Just for context, PFF ranked the Eagles James Bradberry 27th. Most sources have Bradberry ranked in the top five if not number one.
One more point that makes it difficult to determine who's actually better is the presence of random stats taken completely out of context. One tweet making the rounds of a few sites made the wondrous claim that Sauce Gardner only allowed 54 yards in man coverage for the entire 2022 season. The comment helpfully points out that was the lowest yardage among corners with at least 120 snaps in man coverage.
That's great, but it doesn't give the number of snaps Gardner played in man coverage. It's implied he played at least 120 snaps in man, but there's no source given. There's no source given for yardage allowed in man, either, and that's the crux of the issue. Maybe Gardner had two snaps, got burned for 24 and 30 yards, and the Jets kept him in zone after that. That's not what happened, but there's no way to tell from the original statement.