NFC South Rankings: Safeties

In an ongoing summer series, Pewter Report looks at and ranks each position group in the NFC South. So far, we’ve chronicled and ranked the NFC South quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, offensive lines, defensive lines, linebackers and cornerbacks. Now, it’s on to the NFC South’s safeties.

We now finish up the defensive side of the ball with safeties before moving on to specialists, coaching staffs, and finally, overall team rankings.

The NFC South has one of the best safety groups in the league.  They feature three of Pro Football Focus’ Top 10 safeties and four in the Top 32. Each team has a good mix of young, emerging talent along with steady veteran stalwarts giving each team a solid back end of their defense.

Tampa Bay Bucs

While I probably wouldn’t argue any order that one might want to go with on these rankings, I am giving a slight edge for safety rooms in the NFC South to the Bucs. It all starts with free safety Antoine Winfield Jr., who in his first three years in the league has ascended to one of the five best safeties in all of football.

Winfield has the versatility to play every role but is truly elite as a single-high centerfielder. This allows head coach Todd Bowles to deploy a heavy Cover-1/Cover3 system while the rest of the league tries to limit explosive passing plays with two-high shells. Winfield is a rare breed in this regard, which gives him a leg up on other talented safeties in the NFC South.

Next to Winfield, the Bucs have signed free agent Ryan Neal. The former 2018 undrafted free agent out of Southern Illinois failed to get on the field as a defensive player in his first two years with Atlanta and Seattle. He finally got some playing time in 2020 and 2021 before breaking out as an injury-replacement starter in 2022.

Last year Neal posted the best season in the league for a safety with an 85.6 PFF grade while filling in for Jamal Adams. This included an incredible 85.7 coverage grade over 380 coverage snaps.

Neal is big and physical and profiles best as a box safety who can play a two-high shell when needed. That amounts to the perfect complement to Winfield in Bowles’ defense. The most glaring knock on Neal is the lack of extended production. He may be a one-hit-wonder.

Neal’s lack of market in free agency certainly points to most of the league at least having question marks about whether he can repeat his phenomenal 2022 campaign. The Bucs took a flyer that he can repeat, and PFF seems to think he has a good chance at having another solid to great season, ranking him 28th in the NFL at the safety position.

The Bucs had better hope neither Winfield Jr. nor Neal succumbs to injury because the depth they have built is nondescript. Nolan Turner, a 2022 undrafted free agent, is currently penciled in as the No. 3 safety with his lone career defensive snap. Kaevon Merriweather and Christian Izien, 2023 undrafted free agents, are also in the mix for the third and fourth spots. Personally, I think sixth-round cornerback Josh Hayes should really be made into a box safety in the mold of Neal, and he can operate best there, but the team for now has him working primarily as a slot corner.

If the starting two can stay on the field, the Bucs could own not only the best safety tandem in the NFC South, but the NFL as a whole.

New Orleans Saints

The Saints have a legitimate argument for the top spot in the NFC South safety rankings. Tyrann Mathieu is still a Top 10 safety in the league and is coming off of his best season in several years. His pairing with the defensive mind of head coach Dennis Allen led to an 87.9 coverage grade and an 81.2 grade overall. Mathieu, like Winfield, is a versatile chess piece who can be effective no matter where he is lined up. But unlike Winfield, he is at his best in the box as opposed to lined up at the top.

Opposite the former Cardinals and Chiefs star is Marcus Maye. A former Todd Bowles draft pick, Maye was on his way (no assonance intended) to becoming a premier safety in the league until an injury in 2021 derailed that trajectory. Maye rebounded in 2022 with a solid, if unspectacular, season. Another year removed from injury and there is a chance he can reclaim the high-level of play he displayed previously with the Jets.

JT Gray provides interesting depth for the Saints. With only 111 career defensive snaps, he is far from a veteran presence, but in his limited playing time, he has consistently graded out well as a solid tackler. In 2022 the Saints used him in a very limited pass rush work, and he responded with incredible plays in every snap.

Rookie Jordan Howden looks to lock up the No. 4 spot. The former Golden Gopher enjoyed his best season in college last year but failed to really stand out. This led to him being a Day 3 selection.

The Saints can match the Bucs for high-end talent to potentially be the best safety group in the NFC South, but with Mathieu’s age and Maye’s injury concerns, there is a bit more uncertainty than with Tampa Bay.

Atlanta Falcons

The Falcons have spent considerable capital in upgrading their secondary over the past few years. In addition to drafting cornerback A.J. Terrell in the first round of the 2020 NFL draft and safety Richie Grant in the second round of the following draft, they gave a big contract to safety Jessie Bates III and sent a fifth-round pick in this year’s draft for former Top 5 pick Jeff Okudah. The new re-made secondary has the chance to be very good. But there are still question marks.

Bates is an instinctive playmaker who can put his best games against anyone else’s. The trouble for Bates is consistency. He had three games last year with PFF grades of 89 or better and four with a grade of 55 or worse. Still, the former Bengal has nine interceptions in his last three years and will provide a level of play Atlanta hasn’t had in their defensive backfield in quite some time.

Grant has been used in just about every way a safety can be used through his first two years in the NFL, with 23% of his snaps coming from a box alignment, while 34% have come from deep, and 32% have come as a slot defender. The 6-foot, 200-pound safety is at his best as a box safety where his hard-hitting style can best be served.  He had a solid season in coverage last year, earning a 69.0 coverage grade from PFF.

The Falcons have some of the better depth in the NFC South in the form of Jaylinn Hawkins. Hawkins saw extensive action last year and performed admirably showing solid run defense. Behind him the Falcons took a flyer on former Alabama safety DeMarcco Hellams in the seventh round of the 2023 NFL Draft.

The lack of continuity in the Falcons backfield leads to some concern as to whether each player is going to be able to live up to their ceilings, but the talent level in the defensive backfield is certainly improved for Atlanta. This leads to the Falcons ending up third in the NFC South rankings.

Carolina Panthers

The Panthers feature a solid trio atop their depth chart. While none has ascended to a top-tier player in this position group, the floor for this group is perhaps higher than any other top three in the NFC South.

Jeremy Chinn can perhaps best be described as a parallel with Bucs linebacker Devin White. His physical gifts are numerous and plentiful. But he has yet to match his production to those gifts as of yet. After a solid 2021 season, Chinn had a down year in 2022.

He made a splash in his rookie year in 2020 with an unsustainable number of fumble recoveries that led to multiple defensive touchdowns. But this will be a big year for Chinn to see if he can put it all together.

Former Bengal Vonn Bell will play considerably alongside Xavier Woods when Chinn drops to the slot. Bell has been an above-average safety for five years straight now. His calling card is as a high-end run defender. Something that may be especially valuable in the NFC South.

But Bell’s run defense has been falling off for three straight years, as he had the highest missed tackle rate of his career last year (14.8%). But over that time period, Bell has held his own as a solid coverage player.

Woods has been a consistently solid player over his six years. He is not a standout in any one part of his play but is not a liability in any area either. Woods is going to play the traditional free safety role, while Chinn and Bell will rotate into the box safety role.

Many Bucs fans will be familiar with the Panthers’ No. 4 safety, as it is former Florida State Seminole Jammie Robinson. Robinson was thought to be a potential Day 2 pick in the 2023 NFL Draft but fell all the way to the fifth round where the Panthers took him.

The Panthers last-place ranking on this list of NFC South safety rooms is due to the lack of high-end play that they have created thus far. But Chinn has the ability to make the jump and join the ranks of Winfield Jr., Mathieu, and Bates. If he does, the Panthers could end up turning this ranking on its head.

In a division that most are saying is one of, if not the, worst in the NFL, the NFC South boasts one of the best safety groups in the league. And it should be fun watching each work this year.