Andrew
Booth Jr..
Andrew
Booth Jr..
Clemson· 6'0"· 194 lb
"Clemson's most gifted cover man in years, a fluid press corner with highlight-reel ball skills whose medical file and inconsistent technique split rooms as much as the tape thrilled them."Pre-draft read
Press-man corner who plays with loose hips and rare body control at the catch point. He can mirror off the line, turn and run without a hitch, and his best trait is timing at the ball: he tracks the throw over his shoulder and attacks the receiver's hands late instead of grabbing early, the way few corners in the class can.
Against the run he is willing but inconsistent, coming downhill hard and sometimes overrunning the fit. The athletic ceiling is the reason he was drafted here: he moves like a smaller corner at 6-foot-0 and can carry vertical routes from either alignment. The separator is the ball production when he is right — five interceptions and nine breakups in two seasons of real snaps.
Press-man defense that plays its corners on the boundary with single-high help
Year 1 third corner and sub-package boundary player; ceiling is a starting outside corner who takes the ball away four or five times a season
A zone-heavy defense that asks its corners to tackle in space every snap and keep everything in front, which magnifies his run-fit misses
Needs a defensive backs coach who cleans up the hand usage before contact-downfield penalties become the story.
Andrew Booth Jr. Complete Clemson Highlights (2019-2021)
Full Clemson career reel: press coverage, deep-ball tracking and interceptions.
Andrew Booth Jr. one-handed interception vs Virginia
The signature play of his college career, made in coverage on the boundary.
Andrew Booth Jr. Ultimate Clemson Highlights
Cut-up of his 2021 season: mirror technique, breakups and run support.
Booth is a boundary cover corner built on fluidity and ball skills, the kind of player who wins the rep and the throw on the same snap. He started only two seasons at Clemson and never played a full one, but the flashes are as loud as anyone's in the class.
The production reflects the usage. He rotated as a freshman in 2019, then broke in with 27 tackles, two interceptions and a fumble return for a touchdown in 2020 before a junior year of 37 tackles, three interceptions and five breakups across 11 games. The one-handed interception against Virginia is the play that lives on every reel. The flags were real: a sports hernia that kept him out of the combine and shortened his pre-draft process, missed games in both starting seasons, grabby technique when receivers stacked him and tackling that came and went.
Boards were split between a late first-round grade on the traits and a third-round grade on the medicals and the missed time. Minnesota, in Kwesi Adofo-Mensah's first draft and rebuilding a secondary under a new scheme, traded back into the second round and bet on the ceiling at 42.
- 01
Ball skills
tracks the throw over his shoulder and finishes at the catch point, which produced five interceptions and nine breakups in two starting seasons.
- 02
Hip fluidity
turns and runs with vertical routes without a wasted step, so he can play press on the boundary without needing safety help.
- 03
Press technique
patient hands at the line and the footwork to stay attached through the first two breaks of a route.
- 04
Playmaking range
the one-handed interception against Virginia is one of the best individual plays by a defensive back in the class.
- 05
Competitive edge
challenges bigger receivers at the top of the route and does not concede the catch even when the leverage is lost.
- 01
Medical file
a sports hernia wiped out his combine and he missed games in both of his starting seasons, which pushed him down more than one board.
- 02
Grabby in phase
reaches and holds when a receiver stacks him, and that turns into flags against officials who let less go than the ACC did.
- 03
Tackling
comes downhill with effort but ducks his head and misses in space, and he overruns run fits from the boundary.
- 04
Thin starting sample
only 22 games of real defensive snaps, with the technique still swinging from rep to rep inside the same game.
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Clemson | 13 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | Clemson | 11 | 27 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 0 |
| 2021 | Clemson | 11 | 37 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 0 |
| Career | — | 35 | 68 | 1 | 5 | 9 | 0 |
2020 and 2021 verified on cfbstats (2021: 26 solo + 11 assisted = 37 tackles, 3 interceptions, 5 breakups; 2020 includes a 21-yard fumble return for a touchdown). 2019 is not published on cfbstats and comes from his draft profile ledger, whose season tackle lines sum to the career total (4+27+37 = 68). That ledger lists 3.0 TFL in 2020 where cfbstats has 2.5, so the career TFL figure here follows cfbstats.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Traits-first corner whose technique and availability decide whether he ever starts.
Physical boundary corner with the ball skills and confidence to travel with a top receiver.
Boom-or-bust cover man whose value hangs entirely on health and penalty discipline.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Andrew Booth Jr. has primarily served as a reserve cornerback and special teams player for the Minnesota Vikings. Injuries have limited his playing time and development in his first two seasons.
The NFL career never got going. A knee injury and an appendectomy limited him to six games as a rookie in 2022, and he finished with 12 tackles. He was healthier in 2023 but buried on the depth chart, playing mostly special teams across 17 games with eight tackles. Minnesota traded him to Dallas in August 2024, where he appeared in seven games with 15 tackles. He made the Cowboys' initial 53-man roster in 2025 after returning an interception for a touchdown in the preseason, was waived the next day, and spent the season bouncing between the practice squad and the fringe of a roster.
This is the pick where the medical flags were the whole story, and the rooms that downgraded him were right. Nothing about the coverage traits was a mirage — when he has been on the field he has looked like the same fluid, ball-aware corner Clemson put on tape — but he has never been available or trusted long enough to prove it. Three teams and four seasons in, he has not started an NFL game. At 42, with corners like Tariq Woolen going in the fifth round of the same draft, the cost of betting on a hurt player over a healthy one is exactly what this pick illustrates.
Data note: from Washington via Indianapolis