PushnPencils

Apparantly Meriweather was a great pick.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...5&sportCat=nfl

maverick4

What a nice find. Good job.

Here is a quick summary pertaining to our interests: In the 1st round of recent drafts, of all positions, safeties have been picked by far the fewest times, yet have had by far the lowest likelihood of being busts (11%), and have the greatest chance of making at least one Pro Bowl (53%).

So yeah, I'd say Meriweather is going to likely be a GOOD ONE.

patchick

No surprise, really...they're presumably safest for the same reason that they're the least chosen. Similarly, if they had broken down the OL by position, guards and centers would have proven far safer than left tackles.

There's an element of self-fulfilling prophesy here. S, G & C are traditionally the lower-paid positions populated by good, smart football players who are not elite athletes. For a player at a traditionally low-rent position to crack the 1st round he's probably an exceptional prospect with polished skills, while teams will roll the dice on a guy with measurables like JaMarcus Russell Ted Ginn at the glamour positions.

Dragda

I saw a pre-draft USA Today article on Safeties being the new glamour position.

maverick4

Safeties are really undervalued, in my opinion. They often have one of the highest tackle totals on the team, and have to be hybrid defenders on any given play against the pass and run.

No great defense has a mediocre safety, and no championship team in recent times has not had a great safety.

chris_in_sunnyvale

Defense up the middle is key. If you have a solid set of DTs (or NT), a stud MLB (or ILBs) and hard-hitting safeties that have some range to cover, that's a damn good foundation to build around. Rodney isn't going to be around forever. Now, let's see how the ILB situations shakes out.

Regards,
Chris

zippo59

That is because of the emergence of the pass catching tight end. You need good safeties to stop players like Gates, Gonzalez, Crumpler, Witten, Heap, and Clark.

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Unofficial Kevin Faulk supporter.

braveht

This is not very analytical; more of poorly interpreted data. Patchick sees thru the fallacies (Post #3) : Only 19 S vs 52 CBs in Rd 1. But the same no of safeties are going to the probowl as CBs each year. The only people worse with data than statisticians are journalists, esp sports variety.

patchick

Yep, that's why I kept saying "traditionally"! As the game evolves, positions rise and fall (bye bye, fullbacks.) The new breed of tight ends are running up the demand for rare athletes at safety, which raises salaries and will eventually attract better prospects to the position. Then more will be taken in the first round...and more will be busts.

maverick4

It's not very analytical, I agree, and I also thought the same things that patchick wrote, but the fact is, it does give some evidence that Meriweather has a very good chance of being a good safety for us. Since safeties are not picked often, when they are picked, they tend to be very good.