Jets 2021 free agency: Ranking the safeties from best to worst

Ranking 31 impending NFL free agent safeties from best to worst, based on an accumulation of their 2020 statistics. Using an agglomeration of five different key statistics, I ranked the 31 impending NFL free agent safeties that logged at least 200 snaps in 2020. This is the seventh in a series of articles that will rank all of the qualified free agents at key positions of need for the New York Jets. I have already ranked 47 free agent wide receivers, 47 free agent edge rushers, 53 free agent cornerbacks, 30 free agent running backs, 28 free agent tight ends and 33 free agent linebackers. The players were ranked according to their cumulative performance in coverage, against the run and as tacklers. Here are the statistics used: Pro Football Focus coverage grade: PFF’s all-encompassing evaluation of a player’s performance in coverage based on the grading of every coverage snap. This stat’s best attribute is its ability to account for mishaps by the opponent. If a player is burnt in coverage but gets bailed out by a drop or bad throw, his coverage stats will reflect him positively, but PFF’s grading system will give him the negative credit he deserves. Passer rating allowed: Passer rating allowed by the player across all targets in his direction. Yards per target allowed: Average yards gained per target thrown in the player's direction. I decided to include a second per-target efficiency stat for this reason: at the typically lower target volume of the safety position, passer rating can wildly fluctuate based on touchdowns and interceptions. Although touchdowns and interceptions are important, they only make up a small portion of a player's targets, so they can skew a player's passer rating to a very high or very low level. Including yards per target allows us to take into account a player's overall per-target efficiency (in terms of yardage) regardless of touchdowns and interceptions. Passer rating, on the other hand, gives us a stat that heavily values a player's ability to limit the all-important touchdowns and come up with the all-important interceptions. It's a nice balance of two different per-target efficiency stats. If you have been following this series of rankings, you would know that the stat "yards per cover snap" has been a mainstay. There's a key reason I'm not using it for the safeties: target volume varies greatly at this position depending on usage. Safeties who almost always line up deep downfield are bound to post a very low rate of yards allowed per cover snap regardless of how well they perform their role, as they naturally get targeted at an extremely infrequent rate. Meanwhile, versatile safeties who take on a lot of man-to-man assignments near the line of scrimmage are targeted much more often, hurting them in yards per cover snap. Two players who are both listed as "safeties" can play vastly different roles that result in different standards in yards per cover snap, while the other statistics in this study have relatively steady standards between all different types of safeties. Pro Football Focus run defense grade: PFF’s all-encompassing evaluation of a player’s performance as a run defender based on the grading of every snap against the run. The run defense grade captures the bulk of a player’s off-the-stat-sheet impact against the run. Regardless of how many tackles they make, players can grade out well by consistently filling their gaps well and creating strong penetration to shut down running lanes and set up opportunities for teammates. Players can grade poorly by failing to create quality penetration, missing tackles, struggling to fill their assigned gaps, and being sealed out of plays to allow big gains. Missed tackle percentage: A player's ratio of missed tackles to total tackles. Each player's percentile rankings in all five stats are brought together to form a final, overall score. The three coverage stats are averaged together to create a single coverage score, which makes up 50% of the overall score. PFF's run defense grade makes up 30% of the overall score while missed tackle percentage makes up 20%. Here it is, 31 free agent safeties stacked up from best to worst: Also included is a breakdown of each player's usage - the percentage of snaps in which they lined up at free safety, as a slot cornerback, and as either a strong safety or in the box. Takeaways It would be hard to improve upon Marcus Maye Boasting the group's third-best overall score thanks most in part to a PFF coverage grade of 85.8 that ranked third-best at the position and a PFF run defense grade of 73.0 that ranked 19th-best - and doing it while leading all safeties in snaps (1,137) - it can be argued that Maye is the best safety set to hit the free agent market. The only blemish on Maye's resume is his tackling, as he posted a missed tackle rate of 12.8% that was slightly above the positional average (11.7%) and ranked at the 41st percentile. Maye has always been a slightly below-average tackler in the NFL, owning a career miss rate of 12.6%. Regardless, Maye's tackling is not bad enough to cancel out his rise to elite status. His production can be rivaled by few other safeties in the league. Keeping him around should be a top priority for Joe Douglas and the Jets. Small-sample size alert for Matthias Farley Farley still checked in low on the list due to his horrid run defense and tackling, but he managed to put up some gaudy numbers in coverage. Over four extended appearances in 2020, Farley allowed 2-of-10 passing for just 13 yards, although both completions were touchdowns and he recorded no interceptions. However, over his career prior to 2020, Farley had given up 9.5 yards per target over 58 targets, a brutal number. Despite the impressive tiny-sample numbers, Farley should not be considered anything more than a great veteran leader and solid special teamer. John Johnson, Justin Simmons are big-time stars in their primes At 25 years old, Johnson had a spectacular season for the Rams in 2020, his fourth NFL season. He earned PFF's third-best overall grade (85.6) as he checked in at No. 4 both in coverage and against the run. Over 67 targets, third-most at the position, Johnson allowed only 356 yards, 24th-most, yielding a measly 5.3 yards per target. He was an excellent tackler, missing only seven tackles against 105 total tackles for a 6.3% miss rate. Simmons was PFF's No. 1 safety in 2019 (90.7 grade) and stayed elite in 2020 with a 77.4 overall grade that placed him at No. 9. Over the course of his five-year career, Simmons has more interceptions (16) than allowed touchdowns (15). He has also been a steady tackler throughout his career, owning a miss rate of 8.5%. Marcus Williams leads the pure free safeties Lining up at free safety on 84.5% of his snaps in 2020, Williams is about as exclusive of a deep safety as it gets in the modern NFL. Williams has been a star since day one, posting a 70.0+ PFF grade in all four of his seasons. His coverage numbers in 2020 are a bit misleading, as he only allowed two touchdowns against three interceptions and just 12 receptions in 16 games (regular + playoff), but he let up a gaudy average of 15.8 yards per target with 253 yards on only 16 targets. Yardage totals like that are just the nature of the free safety position - anything completed your way goes for an enormous distance. It's also worth noting that 72 of those yards came on one play. Here are the numbers that really matter for Williams. Over 67 regular season and playoff games, he has given up only eight touchdowns while recording 14 interceptions. He has allowed just 45 receptions in his career, about 0.7 per game. While he rarely gets involved in the run game from his typically deep alignment, Williams is effective in that phase when the ball finds him thanks to his tremendously consistent tackling. In 2020, he made 67 tackles and missed only two, a 2.9% miss rate. Could Keanu Neal reunite with Jeff Ulbrich? Neal, a 2016 first-round pick out of Florida, spent all five of his first NFL seasons in Atlanta alongside now-Jets defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich (although Ulbrich spent the majority of that time coaching linebackers until he was promoted to DC during the 2020 season). One of the purest strong safeties on the list with a 55.2% snap portion in the box or at SS, Neal had a solid all-around 2020 season. He ranked at the 56th percentile on average across the three coverage stats measured in our study while placing at the 64th percentile in PFF's run defense grade and the 65th percentile in missed tackle percentage. Neal gave up just one touchdown over 582 coverage snaps, while his average of 7.8 yards per target (455 yards on 58 targets) was slightly better than the positional average of 8.0. Neal's 2020 success was a continuation of the promise he showed when healthy from 2016-17. In 2016, he posted PFF's 19th-best overall grade among safeties with 500+ snaps (75.9), and in 2017, he crept up to 16th (78.1). Over his first two seasons, Neal racked up an incredible total of eight forced fumbles while coughing up 7.1 yards per target, an impressively low number at his high volume of 156 targets over that span. While Neal will only be 26 years old when the 2021 season begins, injuries are a huge question mark for him. He played only four games from 2018-19, missing most of 2018 with a torn ACL and most of 2019 with a torn Achilles. Safety could turn out to be a position of need for the Jets. If Maye walks, there will be a gaping hole in the back end - Ashtyn Davis is the only other legitimately starting-caliber safety on the roster. Davis has shown potential as both a deep man and box defender, so he would give the Jets the flexibility to look for the best safety available regardless of position if Maye went elsewhere (provided they do indeed feel good about Davis starting at either FS or SS). Even if Maye stays, there will still be a possibility that a new starting safety is added. If the new coaching staff isn't too high on the prospect of Davis as a full-time starter after a rookie season filled with high peaks and low valleys, perhaps they will look to utilize Davis as a situational Swiss Army knife and find a new starter to place alongside Maye. Should they go that route, they will likely be looking for a strong safety, as Maye hit his stride in 2020 after moving away from Jamal Adams' box role and back to his familiar free safety spot. With the Ulbrich connection and a potential need at strong safety in New York, Neal could quietly have a decent chance of becoming a Jet in March. Injuries are a question mark for him, but he is about as young as an unrestricted free agent can get and has been a very solid starter in all three of his healthy seasons. Safety has seldom been talked about as a top need for the Jets, but keep Neal in the back of your mind. He could be in the mix.