Valentine: ‘I’ve Never Backed Down From Challenge in My Life’

Allen, who gets the ball early and often with fellow receivers Mike Williams and Joshua Palmer on injured reserve, leads the NFL with 73 receptions. That’s 50 more than any other player on the team. If not for missing seven games due to injury last season, he’d be on pace for a seventh consecutive season of 97-plus catches.

Allen enters Sunday with 869 career receptions for 10,182 yards. Among active players, those numbers rank fourth and sixth, respectively.

He’s the NFL’s all-time leader in 15-catch games, not to mention 14-, 13-, 12- and 11-catch games. He’s also the all-time leader in games of 11-plus catches for 100-plus yards. Allen needed the fewest games in reach 600 and 700 receptions and almost certainly will be the fastest to 900.

That’s quite a resume, but Valentine won’t be intimidated.

“I’m a competitor,” he said. “I’m not going to back down to nobody. I don’t really care who you are. I’m just going to fight to the bitter end. That’s who I am.”

That’s not just false bravado. That’s truly his demeanor.

“To play that position, you do have to have self-confidence, and that’s one thing he does have,” position coach and defensive passing game coordinator Greg Williams said. “It’s not falsely generated. It is truly who he is. He is confident in what he can do.”

For good reason. According to Pro Football Focus and its best guess at coverage responsibilities, Valentine has allowed 10 completions in 23 targets. That’s 43.5 percent, which is second-best of all corners with at least 150 coverage snaps.

“To a confident person, once you have prepared the proper way, now your confidence can truly go sky-high,” Williams continued, “and I think he’s put himself in a position where he prepares so much for what’s going to happen and what could possibly happen on Sunday, that you take that self-confidence he already has and you can take it up a notch because he feels like he’s prepared properly for what he’s going to see. It’s all encompassing with him, and it’s exciting.”

With a decade coaching NFL defensive backs – including with the Chargers during Allen’s first three years in the NFL – Williams has run across a lot of rookies, ranging from first-round picks to seventh-rounders like Valentine.

What’s stood out about the 30th cornerback selected and the 232nd pick overall that’s allowed him to thrive while others are trying to survive?

“He allows himself to be coached, and then he tries to apply it, and he trusts me to give him the tools to try to win when he goes out there,” Williams said. “The more he wins and the more success he has, the more comfortable he is with his techniques. I’m really happy to see him actually have an opportunity to play, and then to have a little bit of success.

“Now, obviously, there’s going to be some learning curves, and I’m a coach, I always want to see better, so he has plenty to work on and we’re going to keep working on it.

Some of those bumps in the road and learning curves figure to happen with Justin Herbert throwing passes to Allen on Sunday. Allen caught 18 passes for 215 yards against the Vikings in Week 3 and is coming off a game of 11 catches for 175 yards against the Lions.

Much like Davante Adams during his elite years in Green Bay, there’s little any defensive back can do to stop an elite talent.

“I’ve never backed down from a challenge in my life,” Valentine said. “No matter what it’s been, what aspect of it, and I’m not going to start now. No matter who I line up against, who’s across from me, I feel like I’m going to try to give them a problem. That’s just who I am. I’m a fighter. I’m going to go out swinging, no matter what happens.”