Five days before the NFL draft, Arizona State assistant head coach and defensive pass game coordinator Bryan Carrington sent Detroit Lions defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard a text message comparing Sun Devils cornerback Keith Abney’s relative athletic score – a measure of each draft prospect’s overall athletic ability – to that of a similarly undersized cornerback who left college eight years earlier: D.J. Reed.
Abney and Reed had nearly identical testing numbers entering the draft.
Both ran fast enough 40-yard dashes that weren’t quite elite by NFL standards and, at a shade under 5 feet 10, excelled in other ways. They were tough, smart and competitive, and after watching Reed carve out a successful eight-year career and sign to be the Lions’ No. 1 cornerback last spring, Carrington wanted Sheppard to know he could see Abney doing the same.
“I told Deshea Townsend, too,” Carrington said after the draft of the Lions’ defensive backs coach. “I was like, ‘Man, I got a dog.’ I was at the combine just drinking with him, chilling, and I was like, ‘Hey man, I got a dog in Keith Abney, don’t sleep on him.’ So when they drafted him, I FaceTimed Shep and he was like, ‘Man, you called it.’”
Carrington, Texas’ assistant director of player personnel during Reed’s final season at then-Big 12 rival Kansas State, said Abney and Reed have similar play styles, and that Abney may have even better ball skills than his new teammate.
As a prep, Abney was an all-purpose weapon at Waxahachie High School playing in what Carrington called “basically the SEC of high school football” leagues in Texas. He was a cornerback, return man, receiver and sometimes Wildcat quarterback who was overlooked as a recruit because of his size.
At Arizona State, Abney had five interceptions in his two seasons as a starter – two fewer than Reed had in his two years at Kansas State.
“You can go look at his Hudl,” Carrington said. “His high school highlight tape is ridiculous. He played across a five-star [Calvin Simpson-Hunt] that signed to Ohio State, so everybody in the country went to that school and laid eyes on that kid and just thought Keith was the runt. But he ended up being the best player, and that player’s now on the bench at Baylor.”
It would be a stretch to ask Abney, a fifth-round pick, No. 157 overall, in April’s draft, to be the best player in the Lions secondary this fall, where Reed and Terrion Arnold return as starting outside cornerbacks and one of Christian Izien or Roger McCreary should handle the slot.
But Carrington said Abney is smart enough and reliable enough to earn a role before long.
At Arizona State, Abney played primarily as the boundary cornerback in the Sun Devils’ middle-closed scheme. Carrington said that spot is typically reserved for bigger, longer cornerbacks, but he wanted Abney in that position because of his football IQ.
“Because he had such competence, we trusted him more in the boundary because he had to be responsible for run fits,” Carrington said. “We played a lot of hard Cover 2. We did a lot of disguises. We blitzed our corner off the edge, we blitzed him through the B gap, and Keith was somebody that executed it from a flawless standpoint.”
When Abney broke a finger in a game last fall and had surgery to insert what Carrington said was a 4-inch screw in his left hand, the Sun Devils moved him exclusively to left cornerback so he could use his right hand to jam receivers at the line of scrimmage.
Abney did not miss a game with the injury until opting out of Arizona State’s bowl game, and Carrington pointed to a game-clinching interception Abney made in a November win over West Virginia to highlight his smarts and versatility.
“We kind of gave him a little freedom in his disguises,” Carrington said. “It kind of showed forth in that West Virginia game when anytime West Virginia lined up two-by-two with the back to the boundary, they were going slants to the field.
“Keith was somebody on the last play of the game, we’re playing Trap Cover 2. He shows like we’re playing Zorro, which is a Cover 2 progression, which shows that the slant will be open because the corner’s playing thirds and is not playing man. Keith was actually showing zone and then drops into his trap technique, and the quarterback literally looks at him and is already releasing the football, and he picks it to cash the game.”
Lions general manager Brad Holmes said Abney likely will start his NFL career as a slot cornerback, which is how Carrington initially envisioned using Abney, too.
After playing sparingly as a freshman, Abney won a starting outside job with a standout training camp before his sophomore season and left his coach with no doubts about his desire to be great during Arizona State’s annual Camp Tontozona retreat.
As the cornerbacks sat around a bonfire bonding and talking about the season ahead, Abney shared his goals, written on a piece of paper – including all-conference, All-American and “prove to my team/coaches that I’m someone they can count on” – and talked about why Arizona State meant so much to him.
Abney originally committed to Utah State in high school but told the group he wanted to play big-conference football, and prayed for the chance two days before Carrington reached out and offered him a scholarship.
Carrington said that talk is “one of the greatest moments” he shared with Abney and a reminder that “as a man thinketh so is he.”
“This is what I say about people,” Carrington said. “I don’t doubt people, and there’s certain people you should never doubt because some people are dreamers. Some people want to make it to the league, and then they get to the league and they get their ass cut in eight weeks. Keith is somebody that’s going to make it to the NFL and is going to continue dreaming. So you bet your bottom dollar Keith wants to be an All-Pro, he wants to be Pro Bowler, he wants to be a household name. All of that stuff Keith is going to work toward. He may not show it but that’s what he’s working toward.”
Dave Birkett covers the Lions for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Bluesky, X and Instagram at @davebirkett.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Keith Abney is a ‘dog’ who you better believe will boost Detroit Lions
Reporting by Dave Birkett, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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