Clark
Phillips.
Clark
Phillips.
Utah· 5'9"· 184 lb· 4.51s 40
"The tape said top-50 corner and the tape measure said fourth round, and the fourth round won: nine college interceptions could not outweigh 184 pounds and the shortest arms of any corner drafted that spring."Pre-draft read
Phillips is a 5-foot-9 corner who plays like a route-runner in reverse. He mirrors from press or off, keeps disciplined eyes in match coverage, and triggers downhill on hitches and flats instantly. The mechanic that carries him is hip fluidity paired with anticipation: he opens without wasted steps and arrives at the catch point before the receiver settles.
The secondary trait is ball production that never looked accidental. Nine interceptions and four return touchdowns came from breaking on throws he had already diagnosed. He is a willing but small run defender who tackles low and on time rather than through contact; the athletic ceiling is quickness-based, not long-speed based. The signature: a corner who takes the ball away in bunches.
A match-quarters and pattern-match zone defense that lets a corner play with his eyes on the quarterback, ideally one that keeps a safety over the top on the boundary side.
Year 1: the third corner who owns the slot on sub-package downs and plays core special teams. Ceiling: a full-time nickel starter whose anticipation produces four-to-six takeaways a season.
A press-heavy, single-high man scheme that asks its outside corners to jam bigger X receivers at the line and win fifty-fifty balls down the sideline with no help, which turns his length limitation into a weekly liability.
His value climbs on defenses that blitz the slot rarely and ask the nickel to cover rather than fill against the run.
Utah's Clark Phillips III picks off three passes, returns one for TD vs Oregon State
The signature 2022 performance: three interceptions and a pick-six in a single afternoon.
Clark Phillips III 2022 Highlights | Utah CB | 2023 NFL Draft Prospect
Full All-America season reel showing the match-coverage eyes and downhill trigger.
Atlanta Falcons Clark Phillips III Ultimate Highlights 2024
His most productive NFL season, including the game-sealing interception against Carolina.
Phillips arrived at Utah as the program's highest-rated recruit of his class and never looked like a developmental piece. He started 31 of the 32 games he played, moving between boundary corner and the nickel, and the tape shows a player who understands route concepts rather than one who simply runs with people.
The production is the argument. Over three seasons he logged 84 tackles, five tackles for loss, nine pass breakups and nine interceptions for 232 return yards and four touchdowns, including a three-interception afternoon against Oregon State in 2022 that ended with a pick-six. That final year produced six interceptions, unanimous All-America honors and a Jim Thorpe Award finalist nod. The flag was never instinct or technique. It was the frame: 184 pounds and 29-and-an-eighth-inch arms, the shortest of any corner drafted that spring, which shows up on contested throws he has diagnosed but cannot physically finish.
Boards split hard. Evaluators grading tape had him in the top 50; evaluators grading length pushed him to a slot-only projection and let him slide into the fourth round. Atlanta took him at 113 as a value swing, betting that a defense already carrying A.J. Terrell outside could hide the size in the slot and cash the ball skills.
- 01
Anticipation
Reads route stems and quarterback shoulders in match coverage, arriving at the catch point instead of chasing it, and that timing is why the ball production repeated every year.
- 02
Ball skills
Nine college interceptions for 232 yards and four touchdowns, including a three-pick, one-touchdown game against Oregon State, with hands that finish contested plays he has already diagnosed.
- 03
Hip fluidity
Opens and flips without wasted motion from press or off alignment, so vertical stems and double moves rarely create separation at the top of the route.
- 04
Trigger downhill
Instant closing burst on hitches, flats and screens, which lets a coordinator play him with cushion and still trust the underneath throw to be contested.
- 05
Football character
A three-year starter from his true freshman season who handled boundary and nickel assignments, unanimous All-America honors and a Thorpe finalist nod without a drop in tape quality.
- 01
Length
Twenty-nine-and-an-eighth-inch arms, the shortest of any corner drafted in his class, and it caps his ability to finish jump balls he has correctly positioned himself for.
- 02
Play strength
At 184 pounds he gets moved by bigger receivers on stalk blocks and slant releases, and he tackles low and on time rather than jarring anyone loose.
- 03
Long speed
A 4.51 forty that never matched the tape, leaving real questions about recovering on true vertical separators without help over the top.
- 04
Boundary projection
The size profile pushes him toward the slot, which narrows his snap ceiling on defenses that want their nickel to be a bigger, blitz-capable body.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.51sp50
- Vertical
- 33inp50
- Broad jump
- —in
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- 4.32sp50
- Bench
- 18repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Utah | 5 | 25 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | Utah | 14 | 38 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| 2022 | Utah | 13 | 21 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 0 |
| Career | — | 32 | 84 | 1 | 9 | 9 | 2 |
Verified against Utah and Sports Reference season pages; per-season games started are not published in the sources checked and are left null rather than zero-filled, though the career figure of 31 starts in 32 games is documented.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Honors
- Unanimous All-American (2022)
- Jim Thorpe Award finalist (2022)
- First-team All-Pac-12 (2022)
- Pac-12 champion (2021)
- Three-year starter (31 of 32 games)
An undersized nickel who carves out a long, useful career as a situational starter rather than an every-down boundary player.
A slot corner whose anticipation and takeaway feel make him one of the most valuable pieces on the defense despite modest size.
Good college ball production that never converts because the size limits the role and injuries keep interrupting the reps.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Atlanta never handed him the job. As a rookie in 2023 he played 11 games behind Terrell and Jeff Okudah, logged 27 tackles and lived mostly on special teams. The 2024 season was the real audition: 16 games, 35 tackles, five passes defensed, two forced fumbles, a fumble recovery and his first NFL interception, a fourth-quarter takeaway against Carolina in Week 6 that closed out the game. That is a functional rotational corner with situational value, which is the honest outcome for a fourth-round pick. Then 2025 stalled. The Falcons opened the nickel job to competition, Phillips barely registered before landing on injured reserve in October, and he was only designated to return in late December.
In hindsight the length concern was real but not disqualifying, and the slide looks defensible rather than embarrassing. He has not become the starter his college tape suggested, but he has not been exposed either: when he plays, the anticipation still shows and the ball still finds him. The pick will ultimately be judged on health and whether Atlanta ever commits the slot to him.
Data note: Profile v8 refresh: stats verified against Utah and Sports Reference season pages, season sums equal career totals. Per-season games started unpublished and left null.