Carrington
Valentine.
Carrington
Valentine.
Kentucky· 6'0"· 193 lb
"A lanky Kentucky corner with real speed, Valentine was a seventh-rounder who earned early starts in Green Bay — already more than most picks in his range ever become."Pre-draft read
Valentine is a 6-0, 193-pound corner with legitimate long speed — 4.44 in the forty — who started two seasons in the SEC at Kentucky after converting to defensive back late in his prep career. He plays with confidence and physicality at the catch point, attacks the ball in the air, and was trusted on an island against the SEC's best receivers as a junior, when he broke up 10 passes in 12 games.
The rawness came from late conversion to the position: technique inconsistencies, grabby tendencies at the top of routes, and tackling that ran hot and cold despite respectable production (109 tackles over his final two seasons). What separated him from the seventh-round pack was the combination of SEC starter pedigree, real speed and ball production — traits that usually go off the board two days earlier.
Zone-heavy or match-quarters scheme that lets an athletic outside corner play off and attack the ball
Year 1: special teams and dime packages; ceiling: starting outside corner
Heavy press-man systems that require refined technique and strength at the line from Day 1
He has outplayed the projection — a full-time NFL contributor by mid-rookie season.
Carrington Valentine 2022 Kentucky Highlights
Junior-season reel: 10 pass breakups against SEC receivers.
Carrington Valentine Kentucky CB Highlights
Career tape on the converted corner's ball production.
Carrington Valentine 2023 Highlights — 7th Round Rookie Shines
His rookie-season emergence in Green Bay's secondary.
Valentine was one of the most puzzling slides of the 2023 draft. A two-year starter at Kentucky with 4.44 speed, he broke up 10 passes as a junior in 2022, held up against first-round receivers in the SEC, and carried a legitimate Day 2 grade from multiple evaluators. Green Bay, which had made a habit of seventh-round cornerback finds, took him at 232.
The scouting case was the athletic profile plus the pedigree. He was a Cincinnati kid who only converted to cornerback late in high school, then started 25 of his final 26 games in the SEC, producing 61 tackles as a sophomore and 10 pass breakups as a junior. The ball skills and competitive toughness were never in question.
The knocks were technical. The late position conversion showed in his footwork, he could get grabby downfield, and his play strength against bigger receivers was a projection. Teams also questioned his positional versatility — outside corner only, with no slot or safety flexibility.
Still, the consensus before the draft was that Valentine would go somewhere on Day 2. When he fell to the seventh round, evaluators around the league flagged it immediately as one of the best value picks of the class — a projection the player would go on to prove correct.
- 01
SEC starter pedigree
Two-year starter at Kentucky; 25 starts against the best receivers in college football.
- 02
Real long speed
4.44 forty at 6-0, 193; runs with anyone vertically.
- 03
Ball production
10 pass breakups and an interception as a junior in 2022; attacks the catch point.
- 04
Physical competitor
61 tackles as a sophomore; willing in run support and unafraid of contact.
- 05
Youth and upside
Entered the draft at 21, still early in his development as a converted corner.
- 01
Late conversion
Only played cornerback for a few seasons; footwork and technique were still developing.
- 02
Grabby at the top
Drew flags and could be too handsy downfield against refined route runners.
- 03
Play strength
Lean build could be overwhelmed by bigger NFL receivers at the catch point.
- 04
Outside-only projection
No slot or safety flexibility, limiting his fallback paths.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- —s
- Vertical
- 39inp50
- Broad jump
- 128inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- 9repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Kentucky | 10 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 2021 | Kentucky | 13 | 61 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0 |
| 2022 | Kentucky | 12 | 48 | 1 | 1 | 10 | 0 |
| Career | — | 35 | 119 | 2 | 1 | 16 | 0 |
All season lines verified against cfbstats game logs.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Physical ball-hawking corner who became a quality NFL starter after a slow start.
Late-blooming corner who turned speed and toughness into a high-end starting career.
Kentucky corner with elite testing whose technique never caught up to the traits.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Valentine validated every word of the draft-day steal talk. Thrust into the lineup as a rookie when Jaire Alexander was hurt, he started double-digit games in 2023 and held his own — a remarkable outcome for a seventh-round corner. He followed it with two interceptions in 2024 and has now been a core piece of Green Bay's secondary rotation for three-plus seasons.
The retrospective writes itself: this is what happens when SEC starting experience meets premium speed in the seventh round. Valentine's slide remains one of the great mysteries of the 2023 draft — the tape, the production and the testing all said Day 2. Green Bay's willingness to keep betting on athletic corners late has been one of the league's most reliable draft edges, and Valentine stands as one of Brian Gutekunst's clearest wins.