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Grizzly
3.29 Logjam at SAFETY : Where do we rank them?
Published at 3/29/2016
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    For me, the most interesting and unclear position in the 2016 Draft is the safety. No one seems to be discussing it and that is puzzling. Safety is also a position that has as unique challenges as the last line of defense. Most prospects are labeled at either strong safety or free safety and some are just called the more generic defensive backs. It depends on the defensive scheme what you call these last two lines of defense; others use a hybrid of three corners and one safety so the first challenge is whose playing what and the fit. Here is an example for those of us who enjoy doing mocks: Suppose we are looking at Walt's,CBS, NFL.com and one of my favorites, Drafttek. I like Walt's and Drafttek's because they break out the 3-4 positions vs the 4-3 positions; Drafttek does something that is unique in on their Big Board they have position 1 and position 2 listed and how many places a prospect falls when inserted from position 1 to position 2. If we look at Sheldon Rankins there we would see than he is rated as a 4-3DT however moving him to his second position of a 3-4 DE he drops a whopping 169 places on their big board; that is useful information. Unfortunately they do not break down the difference between SS and FS (if they are reading maybe they will make this improvement) 

The other thing that is key is salaries for safeties are considerably less than those at cornerback so of course prospects would rather be classified as a corner than a safety. Ramsey is a good example, he is pushing back and prefers to be called (and paid) as a corner. I think eventually this will get sorted out, but now it is still an issue. I'm somewhat apprehensive as my Bears are about to have a similar situation as they shift back Kyle Long from RT to RG before his rookie deal expires, tackles obviously make more than guards. Safety though is even more out of whack because safety is a position that is on the upswing, its importance is being redefined in today's NFL. Finally, many corners turn into safeties. 

The 2016 class of safeties is very strong, the same is true with the corners. The corners (in my opinion) are Ramsey and Hargraves (elite) followed by a group that includes (not in any particular order)  Alexander, Apple, Jackson, Burns, Fuller (strong) then about 5 more (decent) and the rest. The safeties are even more bundled in that we have Ramsey (elite) and depending who we listen to or read a (strong- decent ) group that includes (not in any particular order Bell, Neal, Cash, Killebrew, Joseph, Dillon, Kearse, Thompson,Byard, Mills, Bradberry, Green.These are followed by the rest. Therefore not much separation in the safety position. What's your opinion? I don't see many on this list being on the board past round 5 do you?

Here is my opinion of how they break out with the round PLEASE SHARE YOUR OPINIONS, Thanks

Round 1, Ramsey
Round 1-2, Neal, Bell
Round 2 Joseph
Round 2-3 Killebrew, Dillon
Round 3 Cash, 
Round 3-4 Thompson
Round 4 Kearse 
Round 4-5 Bradberry
Round 5- Byard, Mills
Round 5-6 Green 


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