Christian
Braswell.
Christian
Braswell.
Rutgers
"One healthy season was enough to make the case: a sixth-year corner who plays the quarterback instead of the receiver, and who turned that habit into breakups, interceptions and a game-sealing pick-six."Pre-draft read
A press-capable outside corner who played almost entirely on the boundary at Rutgers, with the ball skills of a converted playmaker rather than a pure cover technician. His best trait is anticipation: he reads the quarterback's shoulders from off-coverage, drives on the throw and gets his hands to the football instead of arriving late for a tackle.
That ball production is the signature. In his one healthy season as a Scarlet Knight he led the team in pass breakups and turned an interception into a game-sealing pick-six against Indiana. He is willing but slight in run support, and the athletic profile is good rather than special, so the projection always came down to whether the instincts would translate against NFL route detail.
Zone-heavy defense with quarters and Cover 3 principles, where he can keep his eyes on the quarterback
Year 1 core special-teams player and fourth or fifth corner; ceiling is a zone-scheme starter on the boundary whose ball production makes up for average recovery speed
A man-heavy, press-and-trail defense that asks its corners to travel with big X receivers and win with length and physicality at the line
His eyes are the asset, so any scheme that turns him away from the quarterback wastes what he does best.
Rutgers DB Christian Braswell #6 /// Highlights of 2022 Season!!!
Full cutup of the senior season that got him drafted, including the pick-six against Indiana.
Christian ”CB” Braswell || 2019-2020 || Highlights || Temple
His Temple tape, showing the off-coverage instincts and ball production before the transfer.
1 on 1 with Christian Braswell | 2023 NFL Draft | Jacksonville Jaguars
Draft-weekend interview after Jacksonville took him 202nd overall.
Braswell arrived in the 2023 class as a 23-year-old sixth-year corner with a strange resume: three seasons at Temple, a lost year at Rutgers, and one loud senior campaign that put him on every Big Ten opponent's board. Evaluators graded him on instincts and hands, not on measurables.
The 2022 tape was the whole case. He played all 12 games with five starts, led Rutgers in pass breakups, picked off three passes and was voted honorable mention All-Big Ten, adding a blocked punt for good measure. His best day was a career-high four breakups at Maryland; his most memorable was the fourth-quarter pick-six that beat Indiana. The flags were real too: a knee injury in the summer of 2021 cost him the entire season, his frame is on the lean side for a boundary corner, and the body of work outside 2022 was thin, with only six games in the 2020 Temple season before the transfer.
Boards had him as a late Day 3 name — a developmental corner with special-teams value and one obvious translatable skill. Jacksonville, restocking the secondary with volume rather than certainty, took him at 202 as the fifth defender of its draft. At that price the bet is cheap: if the ball skills carry, you have a nickel; if they do not, you have a coverage teams player.
- 01
Ball skills
Finishes the play at the catch point rather than settling for the tackle, leading Rutgers in pass breakups and turning three 2022 interceptions into real damage.
- 02
Route anticipation
Reads quarterback shoulders and stem tempo from off-coverage, letting him drive on comebacks and curls before the ball is out of the hand.
- 03
Big-game production
Four breakups at Maryland, eight tackles at No. 3 Ohio State and a game-sealing pick-six against Indiana in the same senior season.
- 04
Special-teams value
Blocked a punt against Wagner and carried real coverage-unit experience, the exact profile that keeps a late pick employed as a rookie.
- 05
Football maturity
Sixth-year grad transfer, All-Academic in two conferences, who absorbed a new scheme fast enough to intercept a pass in his first Rutgers game.
- 01
Play strength
Lean build for a boundary corner; he can be stacked at the line by bigger receivers and gets moved out of position on the perimeter run game.
- 02
Injury history
A knee injury in the summer of 2021 wiped out an entire season, and the 2020 Temple year was only six games, leaving a thin verified sample.
- 03
Recovery speed
Good rather than rare athlete; when the anticipation guess is wrong he does not have the burst to close the gap on a vertical route.
- 04
Age and sample
Turned 24 in his rookie season with essentially one full year of high-level tape, so there is little projection runway left to develop on.
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Temple | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | Temple | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | Temple | 6 | 21 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| 2022 | Rutgers | 12 | 36 | 0 | 3 | 9 | 0 |
| Career | — | 42 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
cfbstats.com hosts only two of his seasons: 2020 at Temple (6 G, 21 tackles, 1 INT, 2 PBU, 2 FF) and 2022 at Rutgers (12 G, 36 tackles, 1.0 TFL, 3 INT for 13 yards and a TD, 9 PBU, 1 blocked kick); those figures are used verbatim. He appears on the 2021 Rutgers roster with no statistics because a summer knee injury cost him the entire season, so 2021 is omitted rather than entered as zeros. cfbstats does not publish 2018 or 2019 Temple pages at all, so games for those years come from his official Rutgers biography (12 each) and every other 2018-2019 category is left null rather than zero. Career games therefore sum cleanly to 42 across the four seasons he played, while career tackle, interception and breakup totals stay null because two of the four seasons are unverified. Documented discrepancies: his Rutgers bio credits 37 tackles and 11 pass breakups in 2022 where cfbstats has 36 and 9, and StatMuse shows a 34-game career that does not match the four verified seasons; cfbstats was followed for stat lines and the official bio for games played.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Depth corner who sticks on a roster for years through scheme familiarity and coverage-unit work, starting only when injuries force it.
Undersized defensive back who carved out a long career on instincts, disruption and special teams rather than measurables.
Late-round corner whose contribution stays on special teams and never converts into a defensive role.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
The pro career has been almost entirely about survival and special teams. His rookie year lasted three games before Jacksonville placed him on injured reserve in mid-October; he played nine snaps, all on special teams. In 2024 the Jaguars released him at the final cut and re-signed him to the practice squad, and he got on the field through three game-day elevations, appearing in three games for 42 defensive and 11 special-teams snaps. He signed a futures deal in January 2025 and finally stuck: all 17 games in 2025, 159 defensive snaps mostly as a nickel body, 168 on special teams, 14 tackles, two tackles for loss and three pass breakups. Three seasons in, he has 23 games, no starts and 19 career tackles.
In hindsight it is a fair sixth-round return, not a miss and not a win. The Jaguars paid nothing for a player who has stayed on the roster through a coaching change and turned into a full-season coverage-teams contributor. What has not shown up is the trait that got him drafted: the ball production from that 2022 Rutgers season has produced zero NFL interceptions, because the anticipation that worked in the Big Ten needs more snaps in a defined role than he has been given. He remains a roster-bubble corner whose value lives on the kicking units.