How much difference does an Elite Safety make to a Defense?

[ivotuk]

Just ask the Indianapolis Colts


[youtube]Dj3HQyZQfP8[/youtube]

I firmly believe that the trade of Jamal Adams will put this Defense over the top. It will cut down on the long runs, and the quick passes that don't allow the DL to get to the QB.



Super Bowl Champions and Elite Safeties by Chase Stuart on July 26, 2020

In light of the Jets trading Jamal Adams to Seattle — more on this later — I wanted to take a look at the correlation between top level safety play and Super Bowl champions.

Defensive Player of the Year and Super Bowl Champions (3)

In addition to Polamalu, Rod Woodson, and Ed Reed, Bob Sanders won a Super Bowl with the ’06 Colts and was the AP DPOY in ’07. Dick Anderson was the AP DPOY in ’73, and won Super Bowls with Miami in ’72 and ’73. Both players were huge parts of their team’s titles.

http://www.footballperspective.com/supe ... -safeties/

 

[Grahamhawker]

After observing what the secondary (and entire D) has played like since Earl and Kam, I'd say quite a bit in Pete's D.

 

[Hockey Guy]

Yeah, but we would have drafted 3 future, 12 year, HOFers that were gonna be probowlers every year with those picks we gave up.

 

[Maulbert]

Yeah, but we would have drafted 3 future, 12 year, HOFers that were gonna be probowlers every year with those picks we gave up.

Seriously. When people bitch about those picks, all I can think is that Earl Thomas was the last impact player we got in round 1. Our mileage is much better in rounds 2 & 3. Bobby Wagner, Russell Wilson, Tyler Lockett, D. K. Metcalf, Frank Clark.

 

[DomeHawk]

I can remember sitting in the King Dome and watching Kenny Easley literally take over games at times.

 

[hawkfan68]

Adams was a key piece of a better defense than what the Seahawks fielded last season. Jets ranked 16th in overall defense while the Seahawks were 22nd.
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2019/opp.htm

 

[Jville]

I am so looking forward to watching the fit and chemistry evolve. With the competition that has been assembled for the defensive backfield, we might very well witness the birth of a Seahawks fab five. :2thumbs:

Thanks for the OP link. I enjoyed it.

 

[Mad Dog]

I can remember sitting in the King Dome and watching Kenny Easley literally take over games at times.

Fond memories. He was Kam and Earl rolled into one guy.

 

[FlyingGreg]

We already saw a much different defense just with Diggs roaming the backfield last season, down the stretch.

Diggs + Adams is going to be legit.

 

[Sgt. Largent]

We already saw a much different defense just with Diggs roaming the backfield last season, down the stretch.

Diggs + Adams is going to be legit.

This.

Doesn't mean we still aren't missing a legitimate pass rusher, but we saw how Pete and John masterfully built an all time great defense from the defensive backfield forward.

Having said this, having three All Pro caliber defensive backs on rookie contracts AND your QB on a rookie contract in order to build the rest of your defense is not even close to the same as trying to build your defensive backfield with expensive safeties and your QB soaking up 20% of the salary cap.

 

[TwistedHusky]

We were 26th vs the pass last year.

It had to be done.

 

[ivotuk]

This made me sad. :frown:

[tweet]https://twitter.com/NextGenStats/status/1216538587501481985[/tweet]

 

[ivotuk]

This strengthens the argument for Pass Coverage:

PFF Data Study: Coverage vs. Pass Rush

Next year’s Aaron Donald is likely to be Aaron Donald, but if a team is going to have a ton of success as a result of strong play by their defense, they will likely need to have next year’s Stephon Gilmore on their team (who is probably not going to be Stephon Gilmore himself).

As I said on Kevin Cole’s podcast (link below) a few weeks back: during the PFF era, teams with elite coverage (67th percentile or better) and a poor pass rush (33rd percentile or worse) win, on average, about a game and a half more than teams with the reverse construction.

Thus, is the correct conclusion that coverage > pass rush?

https://www.pff.com/news/pro-pff-data-s ... -pass-rush

Kevin Cole's Podcast: https://predictivefootball.com/podcast/ ... all-focus/

 

[ivotuk]

This is from a very good article (among lots of very good articles) at The Athletic. I bought the subscription, and am very glad I did. It's like reading articles from Pete King clones in a few cases. None of this 5 paragraph, 400 word blurbs on mynorthwest that is filled full of repeated fluff concerning the players height, weight, contract value, years in the league, etc etc. But real stories, with very real, interesting data and stats.


Inside the numbers: Could elite safeties be NFL’s latest market inefficiency?

...And if the market dramatically undervalues safeties, then perhaps trading a king’s ransom and paying a top safety market value isn’t the worst thing in the world, especially relative to recent blockbuster trades for line-of-scrimmage players like Khalil Mack, Frank Clark and Laremy Tunsil.

When honing in on the top 10 players at each position, safeties stand out even more: the average WAR among top safeties is 0.60, the second-highest among non-QBs by a wide margin, trailing only wide receivers.

And while measurements of coverage ability are generally more volatile than other skills from season-to-season, Adams has been so great that his projection for the next two seasons is 0.60 wins, according to PFF’s Timo Riske.

https://theathletic.com/1963242/2020/08 ... ams-trade/

Basically, what he's saying (I think), is that the average QB will give you 1.63 mores wins than a lesser QB, the average WR will give you 0.28 more wins than a lesser WR, and an average Safety will give you 0.23 more wins than a lesser Safety.

Jamal Adams score is 0.60! He adds almost a complete win by himself.

So the most important 3 positions on our field, in order -> Russell Wilson, Tyler Lockett/DK Metcalf/Phillip Dorsett, and Jamal Adams/Quandre Diggs! That's a pretty good lineup!.


PFF CHART:

 

[RW4LIFE]

I can remember sitting in the King Dome and watching Kenny Easley literally take over games at times.

Easley was one bad mother - a tough guy when "tough" was a lot tougher than today's version of "tough".

Nice to see the organization finally reached out to mend fences w/him. Long overdue.

 

[olyfan63]

I can remember sitting in the King Dome and watching Kenny Easley literally take over games at times.

Good God you're old! Me too, watching Easley in the Kingdome days. Kenny Easley--a topic we can 100% agree on.

 

[The Breh]

I think our secondary will be so improved that our pass rushers may look very capable as is.
Mayowa and Irvin produced a respectable amount for rotational pieces and neither had an Adam's behind them
We have no idea what these rookies will provide and Green is very much a man I'm willing to bet could make large strides.
Can't wait to see.

 

[t-yong]

https://www.bulldogsjerseycap.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=333&product_id=12230

 

[chris98251]

Wish I there were Gifs of Easley, he had the same kind of hits.

 

[MontanaHawk05]

Yeah, but we would have drafted 3 future, 12 year, HOFers that were gonna be probowlers every year with those picks we gave up.

Seriously. When people b!@ch about those picks, all I can think is that Earl Thomas was the last impact player we got in round 1. Our mileage is much better in rounds 2 & 3. Bobby Wagner, Russell Wilson, Tyler Lockett, D. K. Metcalf, Frank Clark.

"My last few cars have been duds, so I'm going to bike my 70-mile daily commute from now on."

It was an expensive trade. We're allowed to acknowledge that.

But there's no denying that Adams is going to make a difference. Assignment-correct and physically imposing, somewhere between Kam's 10/10 and McDougald's 7.5/10.