You ask Louis Wright if he looks at Pat Surtain II, whisking to daylight, and sees shades of himself, four decades earlier. He laughs. Different game. Different time. Different knees.
“He is No. 1,” Wright, Denver’s OG shutdown cornerback, said of Surtain’s rank among corners in Broncos history.
“The only thing he hasn’t done (is), he hasn’t done it over a consistent number of years. But if we had to rank everybody (in Denver lore) on their first two years, he’s No. 1. No doubt about it.”
Great corners change game plans. Legendary corners change games. At 23, Surtain has already locked down the former. And to Wright’s eyes, the kid’s closing in on the latter with 4.4 speed.
“Everything I would say and teach, (Surtain) already does,” said Louis, an “Orange Crush” icon who anchored the Broncos’ secondary from 1975- to ’86, and is arguably the greatest defensive back not to own one of Canton’s gold jackets.
“I’m serious. You’re (talking) straight backpedals and (cuts), (and) he’s already full-speed. He’s one of the few people who can do that. All his fundamentals fit just perfect.”
Before Champ Bailey’s eight Pro Bowl berths raised the bar for Broncos cornerbacks, Wright set it with five of his own (1977, ’78, ’79, ’83 and ’85). Before Bailey and Aqib Talib and the No-Fly Zone, there was the great “Lou-dini,” a Texan who made John Madden kvetch and Dan Fouts shudder.
Smart. Tall. Physical. Fast. Long reach. Quick twitch. A 200-pound package of mess-around-and-find-out. Sound like anybody we know?
“(Surtain) doesn’t run his mouth all the time. He’s got some respect for his opponents,” Wright said of his spiritual successor. “He doesn’t talk smack. Everything about him is great. (He’s) everything you should be.”
Quarterbacks avoid PS2 like he’s a dentist, tax collector and great white shark, all rolled into one. Once they spot the dorsal fin, the smart cookies know how the rest of the story goes. Keep a safe distance and swim the other way.
“One thing I do like about (him), is so many DBs go up and bump-and-run in bump coverage and press coverage but they never (adjust) the receiver. They just let them run,” said Wright, who turned 70 in January and recently retired from teaching.
“I remember my (coach) said, ‘If you’re not going to hit him, what’s the point of going up there?’ Because you give them that advantage. Surtain, at least he hits receivers. … If you don’t knock them off, there are going to be perfectly timed routes. And if you hit them, their timing’s off. He seems to be the only DB in the NFL who (understands that).”
PS2 ranked fourth in the league last fall, per Pro Football Focus, among qualified corners in terms of the percentage of opponents who wind up getting open (just 28.8%; the Chargers’ Michael Davis was No. 1, at 26.2%). Among cornerbacks who made 17 starts last fall, Surtain’s average yards-allowed-per-target — as in, how yardage opponents gained whenever a ball got thrown his way — was 6.1 and bested in the AFC by only the Jags’ Tyson Campbell (5.2), the Jets’ Sauce Gardner (5.3) and Gardner’s teammate D.J. Reed (5.8).
Like gunslingers and dragons, the legend of a great cornerback gets passed first by word of mouth, from locker room to locker room. When ESPN.com’s Jeremy Fowler published a poll of NFL GMs and personnel types last month asking who they pegged as the top corner in the league, PS2 edged out Gardner, last fall’s Defensive Rookie of the Year. In the most recent NFL Top 100, Surtain checked in at No. 49, highest of any Broncos player.
“I always tell myself, ‘I’ve got to get better, get better than the year before,’” PS2 reflected recently. “So I’m looking to get higher in those rankings.”
As the son of a three-time Pro Bowler, Surtain straddles the line between technician and ninja, artist and perfectionist. Long hours of prep make bad days in the office rare.
But grill marks such as the ones Davante Adams left on PS2 last November — seven catches, 141 yards, two scores — at Empower Field, well, those get seared into the soul.
“We talked after (that) game and I told him, ‘Don’t ignore the feeling that you’re feeling right now. OK? Embrace this, internalize it, harness it,’” Broncos defensive backs coach Christian Parker recalled.
“Every young player has had those (games). … Michael Jordan was getting his (backside) kicked by the Pistons early. Even Peyton (Manning), you know, he started his career in Indianapolis (slow). And it’s how you can push through those moments, trust yourself, trust the coach and (trust the) environment around you.
“If he gives up a pass or whatever, there’s a look in his eye. He’s developed that killer instinct.”
Bailey needed six seasons to land on the NFL’s All-Pro first team. It took Wright four years. Surtain did it in two. The riddle, like the stride, is pure poetry: What’s 6-foot-2 and sticks like glue?
“If (PS2) continues (like this),” Wright said, “he’ll definitely be at the top. He’s the best.”
