Strengths

• Very aggressive attacking receiver blocks and tackles like a safety.
• Has good foot quickness and short-area burst to work well in tight areas.
• Extremely aggressive to come up and put his body in traffic to make tackles.
• Aware zone cornerback who is also adept in man coverage, flashing physical hand punch at the line and straight-line speed to stay with receivers downfield.
• Alert defender for zone coverage, showing good understanding of route progressions occurring behind him and a quick burst downhill to break on underneath passes in front of him.

Weaknesses

• Inconsistent getting off of blocks. Can be a step slow to react when a quarterback comes back to his side of the field late in progression.
• Vulnerable to big plays trying to bait the quarterback.
• Will slip off tackles and needs to finish more consistently.
• Has a high backpedal and loses a step in transition. Plays with adequate speed but there are concerns about his ability to handle the truly explosive speedsters of the NFL.
• Questionable technique and he gets lazy with fundamentals, sometimes getting high in his backpedal and will breach the coverage call seeking flashy plays

Chris Steele percentiles vs other Cornerback's (NFL Combine historically - higher value represents better perfomance)