Cincinnati Bengals cornerback Eli Apple might be one of the most polarizing players in the NFL.
To Bengals fans, he’s the guy who came over on a low-cost deal with minimal expectations and dramatically exceeded them, experiencing a career rebound year while helping the team to the Super Bowl.
To…pretty much everyone else, he’s a hate-magnet. To his credit though, Apple seems to enjoy playing the villain, as evidenced by his trash talk on social media.
What those who discredit Apple typically fail to miss are the facts around his rebound season. He allowed just 39 catches on 66 targets with two interceptions this year.
The on-field success of his season might be no better summed up than with this advanced metric from Pro Football Focus:
Lowest passer-rating allowed in man-coverage
🥇 Eli Apple- 22.6 pic.twitter.com/BzDgOzxYdd
— PFF (@PFF) February 27, 2022
We’ll see if that was enough for the Bengals to bring back Apple as he heads to free agency. But on a one-year deal worth $1.2 million, he stepped up huge when the team couldn’t get anything out of Trae Waynes and was a low-key big part of the postseason run.
