Can Bradley McDougald fill Jamal Adams’ shoes? | New York Jets training camp primer

Bradley McDougald's career strengths and weaknesses as told by the advanced analytics and film. New York Jets training camp primers: Avery Williamson Blake Cashman Bless Austin Chris Herndon Connor McGovern Foley Fatukasi Greg Van Roten Sam Ficken vs. Brett Maher Quincy Wilson Quinnen Williams Here's everything you need to know about Bradley McDougald as he looks to provide stability at the safety position in the wake of Jamal Adams' exit. Five positive stats to maintain Overall coverage McDougald has a track record of solid coverage. In Seattle, his career average Pro Football Focus coverage grade was 72.2. That mark would have ranked at the 59th percentile among qualified safeties in 2019. In addition, he has only allowed 11 touchdowns over 3,010 career coverage snaps, an average of one touchdown every 273.6 snaps, well beyond the 2019 positional average of 224.5. Slot coverage Including the playoffs, Seattle deployed McDougald in slot coverage on 204 snaps over the past two seasons, 14th-most among safeties. McDougald has done an excellent job in that role. Among the 52 safeties with at least 100 snaps in slot coverage since 2018, McDougald has allowed the 10th-fewest yards per target (5.0), 10th-fewest yards per cover snap (0.69), and second-fewest yards per reception (7.0) out of the slot. He gave up no touchdowns while picking off one pass. Pass game tackling You can count on McDougald to clean up efficiently in the passing game. As a Seahawk, McDougald made 135 tackles against the pass while missing only 10, a minuscule miss rate of 6.9%. That ranked as the eighth-lowest rate among qualified safeties over that span. The 2019 positional average was 11.2%. In 2018, McDougald was the league's most efficient tackling safety against the pass, making 55 tackles and missing one throughout 19 regular season and playoff games (1.8% miss rate). Finishing underneath in passing game From 2017-18 (including playoffs), McDougald allowed only 9.0 yards per reception, third-best out of 46 safeties that were tagged with at least 40 receptions in their direction. McDougald ballooned to an average of 14.0 yards per reception allowed in the 2019 regular season, which ranked at the 20th percentile, so turning this stat around will be key in 2020. McDougald made 38 "stops" (tackles that constitute a positive result for the defense) in the passing game from 2017-19, which ranked as the seventh-most among safeties over that span even though McDougald played the 25th-most passing game snaps (1,596). Low penalty count McDougald has been called for only 10 penalties over 5,044 career defensive snaps (including playoffs), an average of 1.98 per 1,000 snaps that checks in below the 2019 positional average of 2.44. Two negative stats to improve Run defense McDougald struggled against the run in 2019. In the regular season, he ranked at the 16th percentile among safeties with a PFF run defense grade of 52.5, while his missed tackle rate of 25.0% against the run (27 tackles, 9 missed) ranked at the 10th percentile. McDougald's career average run defense grade is 62.9, which would have ranked at the 40th percentile among safeties in 2019. His performance in this phase has been all over the map, with solid rankings in 2016 and 2018 but poor rankings in 2017 and 2019. Typically, McDougald ranks decently in racking up stops against the run, but near the very top of the leaderboard in missed tackles. Pass-rushing McDougald's lack of production as a blitzer will likely mean that Gregg Williams will have to find someone else to take on the rush reps left open by Jamal Adams. Over the course of his seven-year career, McDougald has rushed the passer on 70 snaps, picking up a sack or knockdown only four times (5.7%). In 2019 alone, Adams rushed on 101 snaps and picked up 14 sacks-plus-knockdowns (13.9%). On the plus side, McDougald took a step forward here in 2019. Over his first six seasons, McDougald had picked up zero sacks and one hit over 48 rush attempts. In 2019, McDougald was sent after the quarterback on a career-high 22 snaps and delivered with two sacks and a knockdown (plus three hurries). Including the playoffs, McDougald's career-high PFF pass-rush grade of 72.7 ranked seventh-best out of 49 safeties to rush at least 10 times. Five plays that showcase McDougald's ceiling McDougald's man coverage in the slot - particularly against tight ends - may be his best attribute. McDougald presses Arizona tight end Dan Arnold on this play and sticks with him over the middle, getting away with a slight pull of the hip to slingshot himself forward for the diving deflection. This may be called every now and then, but it is subtle enough to get away with more often than not. McDougald shows off his improved blitzing instincts here. He anticipates the rollout and is right in Kirk Cousins' grill as he pivots out of the handoff. Thanks to McDougald's recognition, Cousins is forced to immediately dump the ball off, missing out on a potentially huge play downfield to a wide-open Kyle Rudolph (take note of him at the 35-yard line around midfield). McDougald lays a big smack. That should have been a stop shy of the marker for a one-yard loss to bring up 3rd & 2, but K.J. Wright missed the tackle and C.J. Ham picked up 30 yards anyway. Nevertheless, it is a great play by McDougald, who turned an enormous downfield play into a dump-off. With consistent awareness as strong as this, McDougald can be a decent enough blitzer for the Jets. This play is another example of McDougald's excellent man-to-man coverage in the slot against tight ends. McDougald stays square, gets hands-on, and attaches to the back hip, shooting his inside hand for the deflection. McDougald runs accurate routes in pursuit, shooting for the correct spot to meet the ball-carrier in the best position to bring him down. This innate feel is what allows him to rack up so many stops in the passing game. On this 3rd & 8 play, McDougald makes a perfect open-field tackle on running back Tevin Coleman to bring up fourth down. McDougald has his issues against the run, but he does have the ability to knife through lateral/motion blocks on the line of scrimmage. Philadelphia uses the wide receiver in motion to block the back side of this play. McDougald easily recognizes it and skips into the D-gap to make the stop. Four plays that showcase McDougald's floor McDougald certainly has his share of issues in the run game. One key problem is that he too often allows himself to be sucked up by a blocker without providing much resistance. He is easily sealed outside by the fullback (Kyle Juszczyk, the league's best) on this play, contributing to giving up a 17-yard run. McDougald is completely unaware of the ball-carrier's location on this play, drifting away from the play-side and allowing himself to be sealed as Raheem Mostert runs straight by him for a touchdown. Here, McDougald shows a poor feel for his surroundings as he decides to take on the pulling blocker rather than play the outside (his responsibility) to force the runner back towards the traffic on the inside. Nick Chubb sees the uncontested outside lane and takes it for a touchdown. McDougald's processing issues are what position him to miss so many tackles. When you are arriving to the ball late, you are going to be tagged with a lot of diving misses like this one. Defensive usage McDougald was an every-down player for the Seahawks. In 2019, he appeared in 100% of the team's defensive snaps in all but two of his appearances, missing just four snaps in one of those and playing sparingly in the other as he was kept on a pitch count after returning from a back injury. The same was true in 2018. McDougald played every snap in most of his appearances, taking a step back in a few games where he was dealing with injuries. McDougald is rarely used as a blitzer, rushing the quarterback on only 70 of his 3,080 career snaps against the pass (2.3%). He was used as a rusher on a career-high 22 of 689 passing game snaps in 2019 (3.2%), but that jump is too minuscule to mean much. As described earlier, McDougald is used in slot coverage relatively often for a safety. He covered the slot on 204 of his 1,257 cover snaps over the past two seasons (16.2%). McDougald is a versatile player. In addition to man-to-man assignments in the slot, he is capable of handling the flat, intermediate zones, and the deep-half in Cover-2. He even has taken on some single-high alignments. When in man coverage, he usually takes on tight ends, but he has seen some man reps against wide receivers and running backs as well. Typically, McDougald roamed the middle of the field in Seattle. He was not tethered to the box nor the deep range, moving around to wherever Pete Carroll needed him. Health/off-field McDougald has been durable, playing in 97 of 99 possible regular season and playoff games since 2014. However, he has had a tendency to deal with some minor injuries. Back in Weeks 1-3 of 2014, while with the Buccaneers, McDougald suffered a knee injury that kept him out of one game and landed him on the injury report over the next two. McDougald stayed off the injury report and played every game in Tampa Bay from 2015-16, until a familiar issue popped up in 2017. That year, McDougald was listed as questionable only one time (playing 100% of snaps in that game), but it was another knee ailment. McDougald again faced knee issues in 2018. He was listed on the injury report due to the knee problems ahead of five games over two separate stints (Weeks 9-10 and 14-16). In three of those five games, McDougald was held to less than his usual 100% portion of the snaps. After the season, it was revealed that McDougald had played through a partially torn patellar tendon. He had surgery in May of 2019 after rehabilitation did not go as smoothly as planned. It is not disclosed whether the knee McDougald had injured in those three separate seasons was the same one, but this tendency is worth keeping an eye on. In 2019, McDougald was listed as questionable heading into the team's Week 7 game against Baltimore and ended up sitting out. He was again listed as questionable the following week, and this time suited up, but was limited to 14% of the defensive snaps. McDougald returned to health the following week and played every snap throughout the rest of the season. So, while McDougald has been reliable so far, his history of frequent small injuries is a bit concerning. Battle for depth chart positioning There does not seem to be any doubt that McDougald will be starting at safety alongside Marcus Maye. The Jets did not have a true strong safety on the roster beyond Jamal Adams, and now, McDougald is the only one. McDougald will most likely continue to play 100% of the defensive snaps as he did in Seattle. He is a jack-of-all-trades veteran who has proven he can be trusted with the responsibility of playing every snap, and is on a team that has razor-thin depth behind him. It is hard to imagine Gregg Williams will ever feel inclined to take McDougald off the field. We'll see what happens, though. Perhaps Williams takes more of an instant liking to Ashtyn Davis than expected and rotates McDougald out for a few snaps per game. Or, Williams could leave McDougald on the field for every snap and use Davis in three-safety sets. The (failed) signing of Marqui Christian was a signal of the Jets' potential interest in making three-safety sets a key part of their defense, and the early selection of Davis doubled down on that theory. Contract/future Entering the third and final year of a deal he signed with Seattle prior to 2018, McDougald will have a cap hit of $5.4 million in 2020, which is currently slated to rank 19th among safeties. He will become an unrestricted free agent in 2021. McDougald will turn 30 in November, so he likely is not a long-term solution. All the Jets need from him is one season of respectable and largely mistake-free play. He does not need to be Jamal Adams or anything resembling an elite play-maker. If he can cover man-to-man and in the slot at a solid level, tackle at a high level against the pass, be decent in the run game, and combine with Maye to keep coverage busts to a minimum, McDougald will do more than enough to keep the Jets defense afloat in 2020. The Jets' ideal future at safety would be to have Davis ready to start in 2021 and extend Maye at a reasonable cost to form the duo of the future. Still, if McDougald proves to be an excellent fit in Williams' defense, the Jets can consider offering to bring him back on a short-term deal with few guarantees. He could provide rock-solid depth or hold the fort down for another year if Davis isn't ready. Acquiring McDougald as a "throw-in" to the Adams package was a massive coup by Joe Douglas. Without getting McDougald, the Jets' situation at safety would have been disastrous enough to potentially sink the entire defense. The starter alongside Maye would be either Davis (who does not seem ready to start and is a rookie in the shortened 2020 offseason), Matthias Farley, one of the fringe players on the roster, a scrapheap pickup, or someone forced to switch positions in order to patch the hole (perhaps Brian Poole would have done it). It would be ugly. A bad safety duo can lose you a game quickly. With Maye and McDougald, the Jets should have a duo that rarely loses them a game. New York Jets training camp primers: Avery Williamson Blake Cashman Bless Austin Chris Herndon Connor McGovern Foley Fatukasi Greg Van Roten Sam Ficken vs. Brett Maher Quincy Wilson Quinnen Williams