2019 Linebacker and Safety Prospects

After covering wide receivers and cornerbacks a week ago, we’re onto the second week of my NFL Draft Prospect Rankings. As I usually do, I have combined linebackers and safeties into a single group. Partially since their roles overlap so much in the modern NFL game, partially because there aren’t enough first round talents at these positions for me to justify each having their own list.

As always, listed in descending order of how I would select them.

Kenneth Murray, LB, Oklahoma

Murray is a rare sort of linebacker. There are only a handful of players athletic enough to cover the field sideline to sideline, and there are even fewer who bring with it the punch to stuff a running back in a hole. He is freakishly athletic and explosive, and he lays some absolutely devastating hits on ball carriers in space. Each game he makes a couple truly beautiful plays in run defense where he reads the play, scrapes to the hole, and fires downhill to stuff the running back at the line of scrimmage.

Murray is a bit raw in some areas, and it will be a couple years before he can really live up to his potential as one of the best linebackers in football. He makes some phenomenal plays sifting through traffic to get to the ball carrier, but if an opposing lineman gets his hands on Murray the play is basically over. He needs to get a lot better at playing through contact, either shedding the blocker or driving him backwards to muddy up a running lane.

Coverage skills are a crapshoot, as they usually are for young linebackers entering the NFL. He certainly has the athletic ability to keep up in coverage, and he showed flashes in college. He has good awareness on his zone drops, and he alternated great plays in man coverage with some truly ugly missteps. One major thing he has to learn is better recognition of play action, to take only a single step forward before reacting backwards to cut off the passing lane. With his explosive running and leaping ability, I think this development could very easily be in the cards.

Murray isn’t a perfect linebacker prospect, but he’s got a hell of an upside ahead of him. Mostly he just needs reps. He needs to watch more plays develop in front of him, and he needs to slam into more linemen coming downhill. When it all clicks in place for him, his ferocity and closing speed could make him one of the most feared players in the NFL. And even with the downside risk, I’d be fine taking him in the top half of the first round.

Isaiah Simmons, LB/S, Clemson

I have some concerns about Simmons, as you can see from where I have him rated, but there is no questioning his physical gifts. There simply aren’t human beings who are 6-4 and 238 pounds and who run a 4.39 forty yard dash with a 39 inch vertical. The only thing more unique than his athleticism was the role he played in Clemson’s defense. On any given play he was either a linebacker or a slot corner or a deep safety or an edge rusher. Athleticism and versatility, that is what Simmons brings to the table.

Of course, playing a lot of positions only has so much value if a player isn’t actually all that great at most of them. And that’s more or less what I saw from Simmons. As a slot cornerback he was burned repeatedly in man coverage and had a habit of drifting out of his zones. As a linebacker he gave up a lot of ground and got pushed around by blockers. As a pass rusher he brought pretty much nothing to the table but pure straight line speed.

The Simmons that most people seem to be falling in love with is a bigger version of Derwin James, a player who I loved coming out of Florida State in 2018. But the player I saw when I watched him at Clemson was closer to another safety from that draft class, Minkah Fitzpatrick. Specifically Fitzpatrick’s underwhelming rookie year in Miami. With the Dolphins he was asked to do too much too quickly, and he never really figured out his role, leading him to be passive and hesitant as he bounced around the field. That's what I saw a lot from Simmons, a player who rarely seemed comfortable enough with the reads he was making to let himself loose.

Of course after being traded to Pittsburgh early last season, Fitpatrick thrived in a more traditional role as a deep safety, earning first team All Pro honors at the end of the season. And this is what makes Simmons still worth a selection in the mid-to-late first round. Rather than stifling him by asking him to do way too much, keep it simple and let his athleticism come through with aggression. When he does fire downhill he makes plays that no one else can make, using his closing speed and length to feel like he’s covering the entire field in a single moment.

So what position is best for Simmons? I’m not entirely sure, and that gives me some pause (I faced a similar dilemma with Jabrill Peppers a few years ago, and that comparison certainly scares me). If I had to pick one position, I would likely follow the Fitzpatrick model and stick him at deep safety. This likely has the highest learning curve of any position, since it was the one he played the least in college, but it has the highest ceiling as well. With his length and athleticism he could erase huge chunks of the field in coverage, if he ever develops the instincts needed to utilize his gifts.

Antoine Winfield Jr, S, Minnesota

I’m not going to pretend I can be impartial about a player named Antoine Winfield. His father is one of my favorite players of all time, and there are definitely echoes of the elder Winfield’s style in the younger’s game. He plays a different position, safety rather than cornerback, but he brings a similar combination of physicality and versatility to the table, even if he applies it in a different way.

Winfield spent most of his time at Minnesota playing in a deep zone, and I think that’s where he’ll find his best fit in the NFL. He didn’t show a lot of range from sideline to sideline, but his 4.46 forty and his flashes of closing speed on the field suggest that he could develop more of this, once he gets better at play recognition. And his ball skills are the best in the class. He attacks the football in the air, and he makes plays through traffic to take the ball away from the offense.

Winfield does enough other things well to make him worthy of a pick late in the first round. He fires downhill aggressively in run support, though he has a habit of getting caught up in traffic and probably shouldn’t spend too much time playing in the box. He’s a sure tackler, even if he occasionally gets dragged an extra yard or two. He plays bigger than his 5-9 stature, but this will still be an issue. He’s strong enough to disrupt bigger receivers and tight ends on their routes, but I do worry some about him in man coverage. Fortunately in the right system he won’t have to play much of this, and he’ll be able to develop into a true ball-hawking safety in the deep middle.

Xavier McKinney, S, Alabama

You know what you’re going to get when you draft McKinney. There isn’t much downside here, and not a lot of upside either. He’s a very smart player who makes excellent reads and is always in position. He’s also a subpar athlete who doesn’t cover a lot of ground and makes very few spectacular plays. He’ll be a decent starter from the moment he enters the league, and he’ll never be much more than that.

McKinney’s greatest strength is in man coverage. He excels when lined up over a receiver in the slot, able to match them break for break as they try to get open on underneath routes. I’m a bit worried what will happen when he faces a vertical route, but playing on the inside he’ll at least be in better position to have help from a safety behind him. He’s good enough in coverage that if he was a better athlete I would think about him moving to cornerback full time, but as it is I think defenses won’t want him matched up on an island against most NFL receivers.

Apart from that, he really doesn’t do anything special. He can deliver some good sticks on tackles in tight windows, but he’s a poor tackler in space, playing out of control and often just lunging past the ball carrier. He doesn’t cover much ground laterally in a deep zone, though he makes up for it somewhat by usually making smart reads and getting early breaks on the ball. He can do a variety of things in the NFL, but he won’t really excel at them. Still, his reliability makes him worth a second round pick.

Grant Delpit, S, LSU

We didn’t get testing numbers on Delpit, but we really don’t need them. He’s fast, and he’s explosive, and he is pretty much always putting those skills on display on the field. I criticized Simmons for not being aggressive enough, but Delpit has the opposite problem. He fires out of a cannon on every single play, and seemingly in every single direction. Sometimes it works out and it’s a stunning, explosive play. Other times he runs in completely the wrong direction and lets the defense break down behind him.

It feels like Delpit is on every part of the field at once, but what he does in those parts of the field leaves more than a little to be desired. When he hits someone square, he can deliver a blow that knocks them backwards in time. But more often than not he goes for this blow and gets nothing but air, as a single cut leaves him skidding past across the ground. He’s a dreadful tackler, and he can’t be relied on in run support. Which makes it frustrating that he plays like a run stuffing, lane filling safety.

Delpit is going to need to change his mentality in the NFL. With his length, his ball skills, and his speed, he has all the makings of a terror in a deep zone. But he needs to figure out how to read plays from this position, and how to take proper angles to cut receivers off at the sideline. He also needs to develop in man coverage, but he has the talent to do this as well. He has the talent to do a lot of things, and as many flaws as there are in his game, I can’t see letting him slide far into the second round before taking him on the off chance he can figure it out.

Patrick Queen, LB, LSU

Queen is another athletic, frenetic linebacker. A clear step down from someone as well rounded as Murray, but still a player with some upside to develop into an above average starter. In terms of covering ground he’s as good as any linebacker I can remember watching. There is never a play where he can just be ignored because he’s on the backside, and nothing to the edge that he can’t run down.

Queen covers so much ground that he can often get away with taking a path other than the most direct one to the football. He can loop all the way around blockers and then cut back to make a play on the inside. Which is fortunate, because if he can’t go around a blocker, there’s nothing he can do about him. At 229 pounds he is small for a linebacker, and he gets pushed around by linemen moving downfield to him. He’s pretty good at disengaging after initial contact, but initial contact has a habit of knocking him backwards a couple of yards.

The other big concern I have with Queen is in pass coverage. Like Murray he has all the physical tools he needs to develop in that area, but unlike Murray there was never really a moment where he showed that he understood the concepts behind pass coverage. Mostly he just stood there, in a zone without much depth and without even a pretense of looking for a wide receiver. Obviously this is mostly mental, and he can pick up more of these skills after some time in the NFL. But it’s bad enough that I don’t think he can be allowed to learn on the field, at least not as anything more than a first and second down specialist. It will take a couple years to get anything from Queen, and even then he will be limited somewhat by his lack of physicality, which is why I think his value is a better fit in the latter half of the second round.

Ashtyn Davis, S, Cal

If you miss out on McKinney but still want a reliable if unspectacular safety on the back end, Davis is a good option once the third round rolls around. He brings a lot of experience playing in a deep zone, and he knows how to read routes developing underneath him. His positioning is usually excellent, and he rarely makes mental mistakes, which is always a good thing to have from the last line of defense.

Apart from that, there’s not much to say about Davis. He doesn’t cover a lot of ground, either moving laterally to cut off routes or coming up in run support. He’s a consistent tackler in space, but he usually takes the most conservative angle possible, sacrificing a couple extra yards each time. And most notably, he lacks McKinney’s gifts in man coverage. He’s capable of playing that role in a defense, but you wouldn’t want to ask him to do it on every snap.

The one thing I will say about Davis is that his ball skills are sensational. He goes up high, and he always times his leaps perfectly. He tracks the ball well in the air, and he has soft hands to come down with the takeaway. He’ll probably end up putting up decent interception numbers in the NFL, making up somewhat for the sheer number of plays his lack of athleticism prevents him from reaching.

2020 Cornerback Prospects

Earlier this week I walked through the top wide receivers in this year’s draft class. Of course, someone is going to have to cover those receivers. And while this year isn’t as loaded in cornerback talent as it is on the offensive side of the ball, there are still some interesting options worth taking a look at on the first day of the draft.

Jeff Okudah, Ohio State

Okudah is probably the easiest selection for the top player at his position in the draft (or at least tied with a teammate of his, who I will get to in a couple of weeks). In a relatively weak cornerback class, Okudah is the one elite player, a future lockdown star who should go in the top five of the draft.

Okudah has good size and explosiveness for a cornerback, but what really sets him apart is his fluidity. His ability to stay perfectly balanced as he flips his hips and cuts in space is as good as any cornerback I have scouted. He matches the opposing receiver stride for stride and break for break, never looking particularly troubled as he rests in the receiver’s hip pocket. This means he is always in excellent position to make a play on the ball, where his long arms and 41 inch vertical allow him to go around or up over any receiver to play the ball without any risk of penalty.

There’s nothing I really saw Okudah try in college that he wasn’t able to do, and the only real questions I have about him are the things he didn’t do a lot of. His skillset suggests that he would be good playing in the slot as well, and he looked good on the rare occasion he was bumped inside at Ohio State, but I haven’t seen enough to say with complete confidence he can do it on every single play. When he was asked to jam the receiver at the line he was effective at stacking him up, but again I didn’t see enough to say that this can be a major part of his game going forward. The only questions about Okudah are the same questions about every other player you’ll find in the draft, and in all likelihood there won’t be anything holding him back as he jumps to the NFL.

AJ Terrell, Clemson

As I mentioned above there is a big dropoff between number one and number two in this year’s class, but there is a fair group of cornerbacks clustered with value in the late first round. Of these the best is Terrell, another long cornerback who brings good physicality and decent ball skills. He’s a strong tackler, and he shows good promise as an overpowering force in press coverage, though like Okudah he didn’t do much of that in college.

Terrell moves well for a 6-1 cornerback. He has the speed to keep up down the field, and he is able to make sharp cuts when he needs to break downhill on a stop or other inside route. He doesn’t do a great job mirroring receivers as they release off the line, and he’ll allow some space on quick hitting routes beneath him. But he closes that space quickly, and he allows very little in terms of yards after the catch.

Terrell’s abilities at the point of the catch are a little bit puzzling. At times he does a great job tracking the ball in the air, but at others—particularly near the sideline—he will get a little panicked and be unable to get his head around in time. He does a good job squeezing vertical routes to the boundary to cut off their space, and his height allows him to cover a lot of ground laterally to play the ball. But both his vertical jump and his arm length are below average, and he will consistently lose jump balls against most receivers. It’s a small thing, but it’s enough of a flaw to cause problems against many of the top receivers he will have to face in the NFL.

Damon Arnette, Ohio State

Arnette isn’t the cornerback for everyone. He’s a bit boom-or-bust stylistically, and he’s bound to frustrate a lot over the course of his career. He isn’t as big or athletic as the two cornerbacks I have listed above him, and he’ll never be a pure shutdown cornerback. The biggest question with him will always be whether the positive plays he makes outweigh the negative ones.

Arnette has a habit of keeping his eyes in the backfield whenever he is in coverage. At times this works to his advantage, letting him make tremendous breaks on the ball that turn into passes defensed or interceptions. Other times he’ll get caught with his eyes off the receiver, causing him to bite hard on double moves and be beaten down the field. He didn’t test as a great athlete, but on the field his recovery speed looks decent, and he’s able to close down the windows his aggressiveness opens up. But they’re there, and good quarterbacks will take advantage of them.

Seemingly every play is a swing for the fences with Arnette. When he walks up in press coverage he has the ability to stuff a receiver at the line of scrimmage, but he also will occasionally miss with his initial punch, leaving him off balance and in bad position as the receiver streaks past him down the field. He can play tight coverage and make plays at the point of the catch, but he’s also a bit grabby and will likely draw a lot of penalties over his career. In the end it’s up to each team whether they think he’s worth it, but it’s a chance I would probably take later in the first round.

CJ Henderson, Florida

Henderson is probably the best all around athlete in this year’s cornerback group. He is tall and long, and he excelled in drills of speed and explosiveness at the combine, traits that show up on the field as well. He can turn and run with any receiver across from him, and no one beats him deep on just a straight run. He didn’t do any of the agility drills, but I imagine he would have been successful at those as well, based on the ease with which he changes direction on a football field.

Henderson brings a rare amount of polish and versatility with him to the pro game as well. He’s taken quite a few reps as a slot defender in addition to his time on the outside, and he played a fair bit of zone coverage at Florida as well. He isn’t as effective at this as he is at man-to-man. He plays very soft when he’s in a zone, and on a couple of occasions I saw him chase the wrong receiver and let someone run wide open behind him. But for the most part he understands what he’s doing, and with a little more polish he should slide easily into any NFL system.

There are a few things that hold me back from really embracing Henderson. His ball skills don’t seem particularly great. He loses a lot of throws in the air over his head, and he gets outmuscled at the point of the catch by most receivers he faces. When he does try to contest the throw, he has a habit of playing through the receiver in a way that will draw a lot of penalties. And he’s a poor tackler, meaning any completion against him could break free into a much bigger gain. As good as he is in coverage, if I was a quarterback facing him I wouldn’t be afraid to throw his way. Chances are decent that something good will come of it.

Bryce Hall, Virginia

You know what you’re getting when you draft Hall. He’s a rock solid cornerback who will hold down a starting role for the next eight years, and for the most part he will be fairly invisible. He isn’t going to kill your team being burned over the top, and he isn’t going to make superstar plays on the outside. He has good ball skills that will probably get him a couple interceptions a year, but he’ll never be an All Pro caliber player either.

Hall can do a number of different things on the field. He’s fluid enough to track receivers in man-to-man coverage, and at times he can even disrupt them with physicality at the line of scrimmage. He’s a bit too cautious when he plays off the line, and he doesn’t have fantastic closing speed to make downhill breaks and play the ball. He is fast in a straight line and has the balance and recovery ability to avoid being burned on double moves, and he isn’t going to be beaten over the top. But he will surrender a lot of throws underneath for short gains.

This is a style that can work, though he needs to improve as a tackler if he is going to stick with it at the NFL level. He can’t keep allowing five yard completions that break free for another fifteen after the catch. It would still be better if he could improve at anticipating the route across from him, flashes that do show up in his college tape. He’s a smart player, and at times he does an excellent job reading the receiver and breaking downhill the exact moment his opponent turns on his route. If he can harness this more consistently, he can turn into a better player than I expect. But in all likelihood I think he’s just an average starter, which is still worth taking at the very end of the first round.

Kristian Fulton, LSU

Fulton is at his best playing tight to the line and erasing quick-hitting routes. He does a good job protecting the inside against the releases of opposing wide receivers, and he falls into their hip pocket perfectly to break up quick slant routes. He isn’t the biggest cornerback, but his positioning makes up for that lack of length as he makes great breaks on the ball to shut down these quick windows.

Things go south for Fulton as a play develops. He’s decent when he turns and runs with receivers on vertical routes, able to use the sideline to his advantage to shut down throwing windows. But he doesn’t make great plays on the ball, and receivers can go up over the top of him. More problematic are routes that come across the middle of the field, either drags or deep dig routes where receivers are able to pull away from him if given enough time.

Fulton won’t work in every scheme. He’ll probably be best in a system like Seattle’s or Atlanta’s, where he starts tight to the line but has responsibility for the deep third zone. He can pass off the routes that give him trouble to inside defenders, and he can take advantage of his skills in tight coverage to shut down plays close to the line of scrimmage. For the right team, he probably is worth a first round pick, but it wouldn’t be a mistake if he slid down into the second round.

Jeff Gladney, TCU

Gladney is the shortest and the lightest cornerback of the eight I looked at, and it shows up on the field. He makes fewer plays on the ball than the other cornerbacks listed here, mostly arriving just to wrap up the receiver after the completion is made. He also gets outmuscled physically, knocked back by small shoves at the break point of the route to open up a couple yards of separation between him and a larger receiver.

Smaller cornerbacks can be stars in the NFL, but they have to make up for their lack of stature in other areas, usually with quickness. And while Gladney is certainly capable of making sharp change of direction plays—most notably when throwing on the brakes after being challenged on a vertical release—he doesn’t have the tools to move like a top echelon cornerback. His closing speed isn’t anything special, and even when he rides in a receiver’s hip pocket there is always room above or ahead of him to fit the ball into.

The other concern I have about Gladney is speed. He didn’t run a forty yard dash, so we don’t have a number to put with it, but it looks like an issue on the field. He can be beaten over the top on a straight run, or across the middle on a drag route that sets the opposing receiver up for big yards after the catch. While his technique is good enough to make him an NFL starter, I just don’t see the tools here to be anything more than that.

Trevon Diggs, Alabama

Diggs is the premier press-man cornerback in this year’s class. He has long arms and a strong frame, and he uses them to their full advantage when he is walked up to the line. His hands fire out the moment the ball is snapped, and he strikes a receiver’s chest with enough force to bend him backwards. He can destroy the timing of the play before the receiver can even take a step, and he has the strength to be as effective against tight ends as he is against smaller receivers.

After that is when things get dicey. Diggs struggles transitioning from pressing at the line to pivoting back in coverage. His hips look a bit stiff, and if he doesn’t get turned around instantly he lacks the straight line speed to catch up to a wide receiver that has beaten him off the line. His long arms can close down some passing lanes over the top, but his ball skills are inconsistent, with a few spectacular plays alternating with moments where he can’t find the ball in the air and lets the receiver go up over him.

Diggs can develop into an above average cornerback, but it’s going to take time and experience. He needs to do a better job reading the route in front of him and anticipating where the receiver is setting him up to go, rather than just reacting after the fact and trying to close down the window. And even then I’m not sure how much he can do unless he develops a lot more agility in the NFL. He’ll be a good matchup against longer, more linear receivers, but anyone with decent lateral quickness will eat him alive. I hope he doesn’t go in the first round and is given time to properly develop, and honestly it would be better if he fell down to the end of the second or even into the third round.