X is not the 111 best corner. That’s sheer stupidity. There’s no other way to say it. Sure, he can improve. But he’s got very good skills. Good size, tremendous strength, good athlete, competitive, aggressive kid.
The Julio Jones thing illustrates a great point. Julio is a physical beast and tremendous player. ESPN jokes about it, but you’re trying to contain him at best. He’s going to get his no matter who’s on him. X battled him very physically and performed against a top flight player. You can’t compare X shadowing Julio relentlessly, play after play, particularly where Atlanta obviously tried to establish him early, with another corner covering some mediocrity like a Brian Hartline-ish guy.
Football just isn’t basketball or football. You can’t measure football with maths the same way. Football is more like a symphony where component parts complement each other. Thus, I’m a heck of a lot more skeptical about PFF than I would be reading Fangraphs analyzing a baseball player’s metrics.