Rookie cornerback Brandon Cisse brings elite athleticism, versatility, and football IQ to the Green Bay Packers. He's ready to lock down receivers, showcasing a confident mindset from day one.
Rookie cornerback Brandon Cisse has a particular set of skills that he's going to be bringing to the table as one of the newest members of the Green Bay Packers.
Cisse thinks highly of himself, but that kind of confidence is crucial in a cornerback. Most people think that the most important mental quality of a cornerback is to get back up and back into the game after giving up a catch, because those things do happen. This is the NFL, after all.
And yes, the ability to have a "next play up" mentality is vital if you want to play cornerback at a high level. There's a deep-seated confidence that has to exist within a player as well, though.
It's not just about getting back off the mat when you get knocked down. For a corner, it's about knowing that you can lock down that elite athlete at wide receiver across the line of scrimmage from you on each and every single play.
It's a mindset. Packers fans saw Jaire Alexander display it at the height of his career, and it's clearly engrained in Cisse.
He was recently asked by an elite great cornerback, Richard Sherman, what makes him so great and what the Packers can expect to get out of him starting in 2026.
"It's the athleticism combined with the versatility and the IQ," was Cisse's answer. "You can move me around. You can play me inside or outside. I can tell you what everybody is doing at all times, so it makes it easy."
Versatility and football IQ are both important traits for a cornerback to have at the NFL level, but let's not forget that Cisse also brings straight-up athleticism with him to Green Bay.
That's clearly why the Packers selected him at No. 52 overall in the 2026 NFL Draft.
He ran a 4.41 40 at his Pro Day. His vertical jump at the NFL Combine was 41 inches, which was fourth best among the 20-plus corners tested. His broad jump of 10'11'' was fourth-best among the 20 corners tested in that metric.
"Cisse is an unrefined, promising cover athlete with the twitched-up movements and speed to become an NFL starter, wrote Dane Brugler in The Beast. "However, his pro ceiling will be determined by the development of his route recognition and ball skills. He offers inside-outside versatility with special teams (gunner) upside."
The Packers can coach-up route recognition and even ball skills. What they can't coach up is athletics and football IQ, and Cisse has plenty of that.
He knows it and the Packers know it, and that's why he's now wearing Green and Gold.
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