Tag Archives: Safeties

NFL Draft

Top 10 safeties of the 2025 NFL Draft:

In our final defensive segment of this positional draft rankings series, we’re looking at safeties. With the modern NFL being so much more against spacing the field with interchangable skill-sets and being in two-high looks at the snap, differentiating between free and strong safety is obviously an antiquated view at the position. Instead, I will reference the different roles certain players are capable of filling – do they profile as someone who can extensively play in the high post, as part of the box, be a big nickel in three-safety packages, etc.

Personally, I wasn’t particularly high on this group on the surface, but as I started to dive into names lower on consensus boards, I did find some guys with redeemable qualities down the line. To me, there’s one standout who simply isn’t being discussed enough and ultimately will end up in my top-ten overall prospects. The order of the next few names is rather different to what you generally see because one other guy has simply been forgotten about it seems like. And while ten seems to be pretty much the ceiling of safeties we’ll see selected over the first two days, there are plenty of role players and potential core special teamers beyond that, who’ll probably make active rosters.

This is my list:


Continue reading →
Standard
NFL Draft

Top 10 safeties of the 2024 NFL Draft:

We’ve arrived at the final defensive edition of our positional draft breakdown series. Earlier this week, we discussed the tight-end class, so now it’s time to look at their counterpart – the safeties. With nickel being the most common personnel grouping these days, the body/player type you choose in the slot is crucial for how you can structure the rest of your defense, which I’ll reference the term “big nickel” for, meaning what on paper is a safety being put in that spot, whether that’s for matchup purposes or more importantly run defense on early downs in particular. The labels “strong” and “free safety” are inadequate for today’s game, since barely any teams use them in anymore. More common now is to split the field into boundary (short side) and field/wide side.

This safety group lacks big names at the top, where the two that were commonly found in way too early mock drafts have since slid down the board and it seems highly unlikely we’ll see one selected in the first round. I do still believe there is one that belongs in the early second range at least and this class is surprisingly deep I’d argue, where altogether I believe we see eight or nine taken on day two and then there’s a bunch of package/role players and designated special teamers with plenty of experience on defense, to some degree with pretty diverse roles.

Here’s how I have them stacked up:


Continue reading →
Standard
NFL Draft

Top 10 safeties of the 2023 NFL Draft:

We have arrived at the final defensive segment of our positional draft breakdowns! In this edition, we’ll look at the top safeties available, which is always a somewhat challenging group, just because of where you project guys to play at the next level already. Whether it’s cornerbacks who will make the transition or some guys who could be seen as safeties or pure sub-packagelinebackers.

This class includes three names just in my personal top five, who primarily played nickel at the collegiate level and actually project best to stay there as they move on to the NFL, but otherwise their skill-set lends itself more to safety than outside corner. The rest of the list consists of a bunch of combo safeties, who can fill a multitude of roles and will offer their future defensive coordinators flexibility in terms of how they’re deployed, even though they aren’t necessarily great in one specific area. That’s sort of a sign of the NFL becoming more split-safety centric, where those guys are asked to fill a lot of different shoes.

Here’s what the top-ten looks like for me, along with a couple of guys that just missed the cut:


Continue reading →
Standard
NFL Draft

Top 10 safeties in the 2022 NFL Draft:

We have reached our final defensive unit of our positional draft rankings series, before we finish up with the quarterbacks next week. Evaluating the safety spot throughout the years, we have largely gone away from the classic distinction of the center-fielding free safety and more of your in-the-box strong safety, which the Seattle cover-three bail system made so popular, to more do-it-all type of players on the backend, as more teams transition to two-high structures.

In this class, there’s a bunch of guys who offer that kind of versatile skill-set, while there’s a bunch of guys further down who could be plugged into more defined roles and find their way onto the field. To me there’s a name at the top that I think has received too much of the hype, which kind of takes away from what I believe is a very close second tier, as I have five total names currently inside my top-50 overall prospects. And I’ll have a couple of sleepers towards the bottom of the group.

So without further ado, here’s my list:


Continue reading →
Standard
NFL Draft

Top 10 safeties in the 2021 NFL Draft:

We are back with our final defensive positional breakdowns, as we move on from tight-ends earlier in the week to the safety class. That means we are only one group away – and it’s a big one, talking about quarterbacks – from revealing my combined big board of the top 100 overall prospects in the draft.

As far as this group of safeties goes, the more guys you watch, the more you like it seems. My top ten could all easily go within the first two days, even though there may be only one selected on opening night. Especially with a position like this, there a lot of different skill-sets they may offer and roles they could play at the next level, so I will always try to explain at the end, what I envision them to be.

I also put out a video version of this breakdown. And make sure to check out all the other positional breakdowns I have already put out and come back next Tuesday, for my analysis of the top quarterbacks.


Continue reading →
Standard
NFL Draft

Top 10 safeties in the 2020 NFL Draft:

On the final version of my positional rankings for the defensive side of the ball, we are taking a look at the safety class. I already put out my top tight-ends earlier this week and now it’s just the quarterback that are missing – so check out those other articles and my video breakdown is already on Youtube.

Watching this group of safeties was very interesting. I think there is a pretty clear top three, but everyone of them has some obvious question marks. After that there is a lot of disagreement about who is next and I feel like I differentiate myself more so than at any position maybe. You can find a lot of notable mentions at the end, because I really wanted to be thorough and found a bunch of prospects worth considering.

Here is the list:

Continue reading →

Standard
NFL Draft

Top 10 safeties in the 2019 NFL Draft:

We have reached the final defensive position for the upcoming draft – the safeties. In today’s NFL there is a multitude of players with the same name-tag, but completely different roles. You have true seam-controlling free safeties, the counterpart in-the-box strong safeties, two-high players, guys who play the big nickel and so much more. They can be utilized in one certain role or play multiple ones in one scheme. Some teams may only have one actual safety on the field at times, while others may use four to fit certain game-plans (see Chargers vs. Ravens in the Wildcard Round). So when I put all these prospects in one hat, I don’t feel like doing them a disservice, because there would be way too many ways to differentiate between them and a lot of times, they can fit several roles.

I already said it on my Instagram account – Man, is this safety class fun to watch! When I first went on to the tape to specifically analyze what is available at the position, I didn’t think there was a lot of special talents, especially with some of guys I liked a year ago falling off a little, but there are some absolute ballers in this group. My number one guy should definitely be selected in the first round in my opinion and the second guy is largely regarded as the top safety prospect available. After that there are several guys, who I really enjoyed watching and I think could be long-time playmakers in the NFL. The first nine names I will mention here should all crack the top 100.

Continue reading →

Standard