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More is expected and demanded of the modern NFL cornerback than at any time in history. It's why the position is more important, and more difficult to play, than ever. There are still those cornerbacks who hang out on the edge most of the time, trailing an opponent's top receiver wherever he goes, making every passing down its own high-level drama.

But most are more likely to find success doing a host of different things at a high level. On one drive, you might see a cornerback play outside, in the slot, at or near the line in a blitz or fake blitz formation and hang back as a hybrid safety. As teams go more and more to nickel as a base defense—from 43.4 percent in 2008 to 63.4 percent in 2015, per Pro Football Focus (via The MMQB)—slot cornerbacks have become starters, replacing the third linebacker. This is a necessity, as offenses have gone to three-receiver sets as a default.

So, guys who can move from the slot to outside and back again are highly valued. It's harder than you may think, because the slot demands different skills. You're not trailing one receiver and reacting to one route; you could be choosing between two slot receivers and the option routes they run in short areas. You're more worried about "two-way goes" than you ever thought you'd be, and if you're a taller defender who has had trouble changing directions, you're not going to like your slot experience at all, because now here comes a shifty, short receiver who understands option routes (which break depending on a defender's actions) a lot better than you do.

So, it's a complicated position (or series of positions) these days. Which means that if you're a shutdown corner at any of those positions, you're a premium athlete with amazing mental processing skills, ungodly recovery speed and a Zen-like combination of aggressiveness and restraint. In the modern pass-defined NFL, you are also one of the faces of your defense.

The 10 cornerbacks profiled here have different skill sets and ideal positions. None of them are perfect—the definition of the position makes perfection beyond impossible—but these are the players who do the best work when asked to shut down the receivers they face and affect opposing offenses most often.

All advanced cornerback statistics courtesy of NFL.com's NextGen tracking unless otherwise indicated.