The Ringer NFL Show - Top Five Corners and Safeties in the NFL

Episode Date: July 13, 2022

Kevin, Ben, and Steven go through their top five cornerbacks and safeties ahead of the 2022 NFL season. Host: Kevin Clark, Ben Solak, and Steven Ruiz Associate Producer: Stefan Anderson Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome to a golf podcast unlike any other. This is Fairway Rowland on the Ringer podcast network. I am your starter. Joe House every week on Fairway Rowland. It is myself and our PGA tour correspondent on the ground, Nathan Hubbard, talking all things, professional golf, amateur golf, amateur betting, professional betting, amateur drinking, professional drinking, by Birdie Buddies.

If you want to hit them straight out there, please check out Fairway Rowland every week. Available on Spotify. It is the Ringar NFL show, part of the Ringar Podcast Network. I am Kevin Carr. It's joined by Benjamin Solac. Ben. Hello.

What's up, Kevin? Stephen Ruiz's here. He's got headphones. We had a couple false starts here. You're taking full responsibility, though. I like that. Yeah, I raise my hand. This is what training camps for, right?

We're here to make mistakes. figured out I'd get better. It's like when PFF posted a Vic Beasley stat about how he was like the worst Eddrushar and he like quote tweeted and it was like, yikes. Jamarcus Russell's saying

listen, if you call me a bust, you better throw the biggest on that John, all right, baby? That's me. Jamarcus and Vic Beasley. Do that really happen with Vic Beasley? Yeah. He was like, oh damn.

He's like, yikes, LOL. Hand up, bad season. All right. So guys, it's about that time. Like, football is here. Yeah.

Yeah. All the teams are doing, all the teams are doing the whole like, this meant like this jersey number many days until like this, you know, we start regular season football. And we are officially in like, offensive linemen linebacker territory.

All right? Once we start getting there, that's when you know. Well, it does, it's different for us because like once you're going to training camps, like the season for me starts in 10 days. Right.

Yeah. And so it's a little bit different because you just get into it and it's a tunnel. As Bill Parcell said, Sean Payton says all the time. But Bill Parcell's this whole line that Sean Payton stole was, once you get into training camp, there's a tunnel and there's no light at the end of the tunnel. Right. And like, that's it. And that's how the teams view it.

So, like, you know, I don't think, I think most, most NFL people, their summer is over by now. I'll be leaving on a training camp tour on the 23rd. Believe my first stops in Buffalo. I should probably tell Buffalo about that at some point. guys. Hi, Josh. We're coming. So that's very exciting. And like, you know, the thing about

this time period is we start to realize how incredibly boring offices and content is and it just flips so quickly. And we get actual things to talk about, injuries and trades and position battles. I will say, beg your pardon, Nikiel Harry was traded yesterday. Also, way to sell the show today. Way to sell the show today. No, I'm saying that we are

in season mode. I'm selling the show. We're in season mode, baby. Yeah, we're ranking because we're in season mode. Okay. I will say the field Yates suite yesterday about the three quarterback competitions this summer.

Yeah. Mitch Trubisky versus Kenny Pickett, Baker Mayfield versus Sam Darnold, Gino Smith versus Drew Luck. That's the stuff. It's emergency. Straight into my veins, brother. Heck yeah.

Here we go. Which one's saddest? I mean, it's... No, no, no, no. It's the Steelers. because this is where they tried to get. They knew this was coming, and this is what they designed.

As opposed to the Seahawks being like, all right, we're a little bit like, you know, you have to take a gap year here. Let's just kind of get this done or whatever. No, this is, the Steelers tried to get somewhere, and this is where they arrived. Yeah, but the Seahawks also opted into this. They had options.

They could have had the Baker Mayfield involved here. That's what I'm saying, is I'm saying like, I think the Seahawks entered 2022 with our quarterback situation is not going to be pretty, whereas the Steelers were like, man, we're going to get out of 2021. Rothfiger's going to retire and then here we go. And there here we go is Mr. Trubisky and Kenny Pickett just duping it out in La Trobe, Pennsylvania. Love it. Here we go. It's their hashtag.

Here we go. Yeah. Yep. So, wow. Here we go. Here we go, Steelers. Training Camp quarterback competition. All right, so we're going to rank defensive backs today.

Top five cornerbacks, top five safeties. Cornerbacks pretty easy. It's, first of all, I already whittle it down to, let's say, 15 of, I'm not going to sit here and watch, you know, a couple hundred cornerbacks, not watch all the slots, all that stuff. But you can look at the people who are generally agreed upon to be the best corners of football, and you'll be generally correct. Now, there's people within that.

You can have huge debates on, trade. Yvonne Diggs is one of those guys where you can just look at a different way, say he's valuable, look at another way and say he's not valuable. So it's interesting to take a look at that position. Safety to me, almost impossible because you get into the different roles they play, you get into positional value, what's important if you're a slot matchup, you know, basically a cornerback on some downs. Does that give you more value or less value?

Like I had a really tough time with the safety list. I'm intrigued to see where you guys go on this. start with cornerbacks. Let's just do five through three. We will start with Stephen Ruiz. All right. I'm starting with Patrick Sartan, number five. I fully expect him to be higher on this list when we do it next year. And then number four, AJ Terrell. He was kind of hard for me to slot in just because it doesn't have a long track record, but last year was very good. And I thought his rookie season was promising, so it's trending in the right direction. And number three for me is Jaya Alexander. he didn't play last year and I think that has made some people drop him

on their list but when he plays he's everything you want in a number one cornerback he's a lockdown guy he can travel if he needs to he can play zoner man there isn't a weakness in his game if anything he's just not as good as the two guys I have ahead of him on this list because of size tell me about Certan and why

what makes him the fifth best cornerback of football already just how smooth he moves He's just a, his movement skills are generational, I would say. There's no wasted movement, no wasted steps, whether he's playing off or whether he's playing press, whether he's playing man, playing zone. He's, he's well trained. Like, he looks like a cornerback that was trained by Nick Saban for four years. Nick Sabin is the best defensive back. His father and his father.

And his father. Yeah, that's a pretty good education. But I think Nick Saban is the best DB coach ever. And this is one of his more impressive productions. Yeah. So I have Sartan 4 and I had to work really hard to not prove Sartan at 3. And I did not commit, when I did my rankings before I watched, yesterday I had my mouth out of the top 5.

And then the more I watched, I was like, oh, shoot. He, yeah, he moves, he's a different cat. Like, it's just, you watch AJ 12 move and you watch Denzel Ward move and you watch Marshall and Lannibor move and you watch Marlon Humphrey move and you watch Trey White move and they're all top 10 corners. And then you watch Pats are 10 move and you go, that looks a little. little bit different and it and it reminds you of the dude that we're all going to have it one just in terms of a body that big being that explosive from those angles it just it just

looks a little different and so i'll only put him before but but sir tan was the guy who the guy knew he was good and then i watched him that that week 17 game against the chargers the week like 12 game against the bangles holy smoke baby it's a good football player so what go through your five through through three so then you would three can stretch to meet each other. Yeah. Five for me is AJ Terrell. Four for me is Patrick Soutan.

Three for me is Marshawn-Ladamor. There's a lot of guys who's going to have made it in this second tier. Terrell, I think, is a guy who's massively jumped up inappropriately so. Kevin, we were talking about him a little bit before the show. Unbelievable season for him in terms of, you know, yards per coverage sample out from Xen stats,

you know, when the closest defender from PFF, which I don't really love the closest defender stats, but like, they do for, I think, corners provide some good insight in terms of when a guy's manned up. Terrell also, I think, deserves a note. He was the only good player on the Falcons defense. It's him and Grady Jared.

That's part of it. Yeah. And D&P, is the Devin's coordinator there, talked throughout the course of the year about they just had to, like, change everything they did, everything they wanted to do. And they were constantly like, one week, Blitz Heavy, one week now, Blitz Heavy. Just like trying to figure out what could really work for this team.

And you saw that with Terrell in terms of like, he's just making, he's making incredible on the ball, plays as like a cover two corner in the flat. And that's like not regular. That usually when a corner is there, he is being protected from having a large responsibility. Trell's like finding work. He's baiting Tom Brady into throws and then breaking up passes to Mike Evans.

Like it's, it's really impressive stuff. Talk to already about Soutan. And then Marshall and Lattimore. Latimore had that unbelievable dawn in his first couple of years, right, that rookie season and then that sophomore season, got injured. And I think needed more time to get back up to 100% than we.

allowed for. Watching him back now this 2021 film was much more reminiscent of like the 2017-2018 film where you're like that he is aggressive without being risk prone, which is really, really difficult to do. He can cover a wide variety of receivers

all in man coverage, right? I think like a lot of these outside man cover guys are good, but it's clear like, all right, they're at their best against these guys. Like Sartan, for example, struggles a little bit with the top route runners, right? So a little bit like the really shifty guys. Latimore's just quick enough for the Hunter Redfros. He's big enough for the Mike Evans and everything in between, which is really, really impressive.

And then the last thing about Lattimore is, I think Torel can be a little bit picky as a tackler. And I think Sertan is high effort, but is the best tackler. Lattimore is big, physical, can hit you, and he can bring you down in critical situations. And run defense absolutely matters in the modern NFL for a corner. So that's my 5-3-3. Who's the best run defender of cornerback? It's Jail. Overall, Ramsey.

Yeah. Yeah. He's a lime back here. Number two, by the way, is. linebacker for us. Yeah. Number two, by the way, is 5'11, 190 pounds Denzel Ward. But I wanted more than anything in the world to get on this list because I love them to death.

Actually, Jaya is probably up there too, Frank. But there's my Denzo Ward shoutout that I wanted to get in. Moving on. You know, it's because of the top five list, I'm not going to get upset that you're just going to start naming guys on the outside. So Denzo. I also really like Denzel Ward. And I wanted to do something with him. So I want to argue about AJ Terrell here for a second.

I think you have to give him points for being the best player on the Falcons by a wide margin. Kevin, you might be the best player in the Falcons right now. It's AJ, Grady Jarrett, and then who's the third best player on the Falcons? Kyle Pitts. Oh, excuse me. All right. I was thinking the other side of the ball. Great shout.

And Kyle Pitts is probably the second best player on the Falcons. Yeah. The building blocks are there. 49 guys to go. You're better than Grady Jared. Give yourself some credit. I agree with that. No, we have massive respect

for the Falcon's roster. Bottom three roster? Oh, bottom one roster. With a bullet. Man, it's ugly. Is anybody else? Who's in the mix there? Texan's roster is still really bad.

There was another one I was looking at the other day. Jaguars is bad. I think they're a little bit upgraded. They're out of that zone, the bottom two zone. so bottom 10 yeah I think they're bottom five but yeah

alright but AJ Terrell 43% okay no sorry but there's not matter anymore yeah okay

you've gone looking at the metrics looking at the tape first but then the metric second and you know so like we talked a little bit a couple months ago about finding the next generation

of superstars and AJ Terrell is offline we talked about that and AJ Terrell was the first person that we brought up. And when I look at some of the metrics here, 43% completion percentage against best in the NFL, but nobody else is below 50% in the NFL among players who played 50% of the snaps last year.

6.9 yards per reception best in the NFL. By the way, Latimore is second most in the NFL when he allows to catch as far as yards. This is different style of play, different player, all that stuff. Thought it was interesting. Second best NFL rating against AJ Terrell. Second best snaps per target. To me, playing cornerback is what the ball does.

How often it comes to you? What happens when it does come to you? And when that happens, AJ Terrell is a top three guy for me. Here's my thing. Now I'm going to sound like I'm hating on AJ Terrell. I think he's a really good player. And I think he's fantastic and sound like soul accents.

He just finds work. He's like a great defensive midfielder in soccer. He just knows where to position himself. And I think positioning is like his biggest. strength. I don't think he's ever going to be the guy that shadows people and covers them 101 in man coverage. I think he's like a Richard Sherman who never really had that lockdown thing, and that was like a point of contention whenever there was debates about him and Patrick Peterson and Dorel Rivas. And I do think that kind of pads his numbers a bit. And we saw that with Richard

Sherman where he never really got targeted, but he also played zone. He played a lot of cover three. So he was really never going to get targets just because of the nature of that coverage, unless they were throwing deep balls. And they weren't going to do that because Richard Sherman is Richard Sherman. So he was top 20 man coverage last year. Are you talking about the not shadowing part of it? I mean, when I watch him on film, I don't think he's that he's like a dominant man quarter. I think he's very, very good at it.

And I think he's a dominant zone corner. I just don't think he's on the level of the Marchon Ladin Wars or the Jaylin Ramsey's. And that's just like my preference for. cornerbacks is I like those bully man corners. And I don't think AJ Terrell is there. But I think he's very good. I think he's like an elite corner already. I will say that.

I hate coverage stats. I think they're the worst thing. I think they're so misleading. I think they don't tell you anything about a player. I mean, that's not true. They tell you something about a player. I just think they're so totally flawed. And they only capture like 10% of a player snaps in his performance.

Like a lot happens on the snaps where a corner doesn't get targeted. I think those are actually more. important than the snaps where he does get targeted. Sure. So we've gone back and forth, but the PFF coverage shots in particular, because, again, 10% seems about right because there's just some things that aren't measured when nothing happens on a given play. Having said that, if you're just taking the things that happen, which is completion

percentage against what happens when a guy actually catches the ball, how much the ball is thrown to them, like those to me seem like more real metrics. And AJ Terrell is at worst, bottom. two in the league and nobody else has that level of consistency in my book. Not in my book, in math's book. The consistency thing to me is tough because it is always like a one season sort of a thing, right?

Like I tend to be like, Terrell had a really, really good season. And like I have Patrick's Fertan and Terrell Top 5. So talking about both sides of my mouth here. I do like, you know, if he's going to be a perennial like bottom 5, a yards per coverage snap allowed, which to me like, yeah, yeah, yards per snap allowed. To me like that's interesting. me that's sticky. To me, that's something that I'm going to rank and is going to push him up for me.

I largely do agree with Stephen. Like, anytime I see any sort of like yards loud, when the nearest coverage defender, I just immediately throw that John out. Like that, that, that's, I don't know how to calibrate to that. I don't know what closest defender means. Well, yeah. And that's a lot of that that's a lot of the next gen stats stuff, which is really hard to calibrate. And, and as part of the reason I think that it's, it's failed to catch on in the mainstream is because not only do kind of. casual viewers not understand what it means or know how to quantify that or what's good or what's bad. But like, I think even journalists and analysts like us are kind of just like, eh, I don't know about that one. Like it's better to me. Go ahead. I think on the receiver side, it's more valuable where it's like this guy on average is open by blank. But even that is all about how defense is play.

Oh, that what the rich. The rich who looks like what is being asked to do. But at least it's a little, I learn a little more from the receiver side stats on the next gen stuff. No, I would agree with that. I just think there's like too much nuance in coverage. Like if Jalen Ramsey's playing cover one, he's playing outside leverage because he has help inside and they run an inside slant on him, he's going to give up a catch. And that's not on him. That's on the play call.

He did what he was supposed to do. And I don't know when you're like when you're Jalen Ramsey, for instance. And you gave up a 137.5 pass rating in the Super Bowl because you gave up two big plays when you were targeted. But every other snap, he did a really good job on those receivers for the Bengals. And it's not going to show up in the numbers. That's why I just hate any type of cover. Playing corner is just the worst position to play. It sucks. It's horrible.

It's just, hey, be extremely good for 59 plays. Be less than extremely good for two plays and everyone's going to hate you forever. Right. It's just not, it is a horrible, sad position that we do not know how to react to correctly as football consumers and also, I think, quantify well as football data analysts or whatever. My last thing. I'm sorry. My last thing on Terrell, just to like, you know, finish at that point is that.

one of the ways that I think we are failed by things like, you know, yards for coverage, snap, and whatever, is the fact that if I were facing the Falcons and on one side they were playing AJ Terrell, and on the other side they were playing, does anyone here know who their corner two was? I'm going to look it up. Do you know? It's Fabian Moreau. Yeah, Isaiah Oliver was out for most of the year, right? So that's where we are all at, us professional football people, about Falcons Corner 2. I am just inherently choosing not to throw the ball to AJ Terrell.

I am comfortable enough of 32 NFL offenses have enough pass-catching weapons. They have a sufficient wide receiver too to say, we're just going to throw it at the other guys, man. We don't got to deal with this guy. And I am interested to see what Terrell looks like when challenged more frequently in man coverage. They'll have Casey Hayward this year. Yes. And one of the things about Casey Hayward is talking,

about different play styles, Hayward is a very strong, discouraged targets player, always has been. The way he goes to play man coverage, he undercuts a bunch of routes, he gets up in the hip pocket of guys, he takes risk, because he doesn't,

he's not like the longest, biggest dude. And so he tries to make receivers look covered so quarterbacks don't try him. And I'm very curious to see what it was like for Terrell to Steven's point of like, I think he's a really good man coverage player. I'm not sure he's a Jalen Ramsey, Marshall Ladamore man coverage player.

And I think we'll know more about that when he gets targeted more, quarterbacks throwing to out-receiver ones, when Terrell is in-man coverage with them, when it looks like they're covered, when they're challenging at the catch point, because the alternative is no longer some dude, that it's just always better to throw it that direction.

And I would just add to Ben's point, it's so much easier for teams to choose to throw at Fabian Moreau because A.J. Terrell is parked on the left side. He played 126 snaps on the left side and only 21 on the right side. So I could just put Mike Evans on the, on the other side of the field and get a better matchup rather than putting... So I think that kind of like

gives him credit for discouraging targets when maybe that wouldn't be the case if he did travel with those top receivers more often. I think he'd see a lot more targets. How many left targets did he have? I don't know about left targets, but he had 826 snaps on the left and 21 on the right.

By the way, the other difference in case he were to see he played more his own coverage name but in football last year. Shout out Gus Bradley, baby! 71% only player in the NFL over 70% Did you go through your 5-333? I'm doing it right now. So I want to argue about somebody.

Because I have Terrell hire, I wanted to just start arguing that. I have at 5, J.C. Jackson. So I think it's somebody who, and again, this is an imperfect thing because we're probably, I think we probably do 50% last year 50% this year when we're when we're looking at this and this is a guy who I think I think this Chargers defense is going to be wonderful and great and exciting this year um second most

man coverage in the NFL last year we know what playing cornerback football ballicheck looks like you want to talk about the educational process even like you get that in new england probably didn't get it at the university of florida and then Maryland um I don't know I don't know how that that education process goes at those places um it's pretty good um Just to go back to the stats you guys hate, when he's in man coverage, he has a top five rating, third best rating overall in the NFL, top 10 in completion percentage.

Consistent guy who played a very difficult role is getting paid like it created turnovers at a clip that I think is pretty impressive. And I think there's a pretty good case that he is top 10, and I just wanted to throw him in here because I think he deserves recommendation. He's in my top 10. And I think what he means to the Chargers, like his value to the Chargers specifically outweighs his talent level, if that makes sense.

I think he's going to matter a lot because they needed a guy that, a corner that just wouldn't get bullied when he's isolated. And there isn't a quarterback, a cornerback more scrappy than J.C. Jackson. That guy loves a fight. He's like if Brandon Browner was good. That's like, and had ball skills. That's my cop for him.

Do you remember when Brandon Browner was thought to be good? Yeah. Yeah. Listen, you line up, Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas, Cam Chancellor Walter Thurmond and any son of a gun. Man, that guy's going to look real good. And those two-year period where he was, it was like a six-week period in 2011

where he was spoken in the same breath as Richard Sherman. Yeah. And that no one, this is actually a kind of a funny study. I've actually talked to this a million times when asked about it because it was a good lesson for me early in my career. Scouts and coaches had no idea early on how to assign credit to the Legion of Boom.

and so you there was like there'd be these six-week periods where it's like actually richard sherman is abroad and it well actually ruiz still thinks that but um but then no i don't like it actually it was really interesting to talk because 2012 is my first year on the beat and it was really interesting to talk to scouts and press boxes and stuff because that's all they wanted to talk about a because scouts love defense and they were the only team playing defense back then um like the actual true old school past defense but then also it was just there was such talent back there that I think that we,

it took a long time for everyone to figure out how important the safeties were. I know that sounds completely reductive, but you had to be there. Some of these scout conversations were incredibly stupid back then.

Listen, talk about lessons learned. There was a football team that decided to pay Byron Maxwell like 40 million over five years. And there was a fan of that football team who was really stoked

about Corner One, Byron Maxwell coming in, just dominating, baby. And then it turns out and if you take the man out of Seattle it was so looks a little different it was so funny that that training camp because Maxwell was like yeah in Seattle we only had to like

really worry about two routes just go routes and post routes and everything else you just didn't have to worry about and I was like oh my God he admitted that he's a product of the system he said it he said it out loud before he signed there all the Philly writers would corner him at the Super Bowl and he would just just stoke the flames in a really funny way

I think the exact I have to look it up I think the exact phrase was, I'm the bell of the ball and free agency. And the Philly riders were like, yes, you are. You're going to come save Philadelphia. And it happened. I will forever remember Byron Maxwell

as standing at his locker, hearing the stats, Julio Jones put him against him and going, wow. It's a Vic Beasley moment. He was like, oh, it's a lot. I respect it. God damn.

Didn't they also sign? was that after they signed Carrie Williams. That was post. What say again? Carrie Williams, remember that? No, I thought you were talking about Nomdi. I was like, no, no, Nomdi's a different category, but Nomdi's also a good example of somebody who they weren't throwing at because they didn't have to.

And then it was like, oh, Nomdi hasn't been thrown at whatever, you know, 90 snaps. And it's like, okay, well. Yeah, we should see what you're outside. It's actually not. I'm pretty interested to see how that goes, Tiger. It's actually not that big of a problem. So since we're here And doing

Since we're here in doing the DB pot Who was the most important player In the Legion of Boom? I'm still an I'm still an Earl Thomas Earl. Oh no I was going to do like a countdown We were all going to say it

Pete Carroll Sorry Yeah It's Earl It's Pete Yeah It goes Earl And then Bobby

And then Cam And then I have a question No no no No You think I thought Richard Sherman was a fraud I think

I think I was going to put Sherman at four. I would put Sherman at three. I'd put Bobby at two. You forget what Cam was in terms of like, run defense. He should have won MVP when they won the Super Bowl. That was like one of the greatest box safety performances I've ever seen. Teams took teams a long time that decide that throwing over the middle is worth it against cover three.

And though like on paper, that's always worth it. And it took them a long time because Cam just scared the living bejesus out of everybody. If Kevin, if Kevin thinks like the too high hype is funny, imagine being. Imagine being but listening to back then when everyone was raving about cover three. Yeah, man.

It's like, oh, well, cover three. Innovation. And then everybody, and then we're like, we're going to, we're going to take all the cover three guys and make them head coaches, and that'll be fine.

It did not work. We need a good free safety and then we could just draft crappy big cornerbacks on day three, and everything will be fine. I think that sometimes, I think sometimes people like us get accused of just being a little bit, certainly made,

like a little bit smarmy about like the place, like how we view football as opposed to people inside football. And part of that is coming up through those sort of eras like 2012, 2013, 2014, where the entire league was, there's no delicate way to put this hugely stupid about certain things. Like hugely stupid about certain things.

And so like I'm like 27 years old and being like, I think you're, I don't think you're right about this. And then like in a weird way in that era, I was more correct. Like just because of how flat-footed every franchise was. And now I think, honestly,

and the reason I think we all have a little more humility is because the, the by and large, most organizations have gotten much, much smarter. Yeah. I also, I think about that all the time in terms of quarterbacks

where the league saw Brady Manning and Breeze. And they were like, oh, we can go get one of those. And then they were just out here draft and wild. Like, when you look back at, like, late 2000s, early 2020s, first-round quarterback picks, what were you people thinking?

But we didn't know... Jipi Lozman? Yeah, I don't want to name names to some of these folks like in sports media. But come on now. And now I think we've seen, like, what big arms and mobility does. But it took us a long time to realize, like,

oh, if the quarterback can move, that's pretty good. That's sick, man. Are you saying Malik Willis should have been drafted higher? I mean, yeah. Well, the whole thing was about The reason the quarterback wasn't allowed to move in 2009 was because the whole thing was quarterback injuries.

No owner, it was that, I remember Hugh Jackson said, it was no owner is going to pay $20 million for quarterback and let him get hurt, so then he's going to become a pocket passer. Like, well, here's the thing about Sam Bradford now. You're just moving around. Carson. Carson Palmer, famously not injured. Famously not injured. He only, listen, he only got hurt because he was standing there, okay?

Like if he, you know, just standing. That's the thing about quarterbacks that move. They often get out of the way. All right, and we're running out of bounds, for instance. Safe place. I was thinking about, wasn't, didn't Lamar take, like, less damage to anybody in history in his MVP year because of how often he ran out of bounds? Turns out of these guys know how to play football. And also, like, the stat, because we're so out of the reservation right now.

But the people keep putting up like the Lamar Jackson's been the most contacted quarterback over the last like two or three years. And that stat drives me insane. Because yeah, that's because of how many tackles he's breaking. The reason he's so contacted it is because the first three guys who touch him don't tackle.

Also, no, but that's also because he has the ball on his hands all the time. Yeah. Like, oh, he's getting hit a lot. No, he's not. He's getting swiped by the forearm of some 245-pound linebacker who has no idea what's happening. Well, it's a bit, I mean, like Kyler Murray's a bit like that too, where he knows.

how to take either fall down or run out of bounce. Like he does that, but then the numbers are still high because he has the ball on his hands a lot. That's just what happens. He's going to finish the play with the ball on his hands

more than Tom Brady is. I will say for me, Kyler's a little bit jump to shark. Kyle's a little bit too far. Or sometimes like, Tyler, you got to forward is the direction. He like, the yards are that way.

He like sits on his butt. He like just pops down. He's like a kindergartner. Yeah. All right. So I'm doing J.C. in five, Lattimore for

A.J. Terrell, three. Let's do two and one, Stephen Ruiz. Marshawn Lattimore and Jailoramson. I think Jaila Ramsey should be everyone's number one. Anyone who doesn't have Jalen Ramsey at number one and hasn't had him over like the last, I would say since 2017, it's just, they're thinking about it too much.

I feel like there's been so many threats to his cornerback one title. And people would, it's like the cooler thing. It's like, actually no, Stefan Gilmore's. better. Oh, I actually know Jeyer Alexander's better. I actually know A.J. Terrell's better. None of these guys have ever been better than Jalen Ramsey.

He's been the best quarterback since he's entered the league. It probably took him until the second year to become the best cornerback. But just a perfect player, perfect football player. He could play any position, but he has the mindset to play corner, so I'm glad that's the one he played. He is

built to play the cornerback position, both mentally and physically, his athleticism, his size, just that the arrogance, I can't think of, he's the best cornerback in NFL history. I have no problem saying that. I feel very confident.

The cornerbacks that compare to him, like Dion Sanders and Dorel Rivas, they weren't tackling like him. They weren't making an impact in every single phase of the game. Their coaches couldn't go, you know what, let's play him at box safety for today

and let him just blow up the 49ers scheme. Chaylin Ramsey can do that. I think he's the best, he's the best cornerback ever. I think he's the best defensive back ever, maybe. He's an upgraded version of Charles Woodson, is what I would do. I want to get into the best defensive back ever discussion here in a second. But first, I want to do something called read it. It's from ESPN.com's top cornerbacks list, which I like,

and I think it's useful to see how executive view it. It's also really funny, like, a guy will be first, and then the first quote will be like, Yeah, I hate this guy's tape, but, you know, he's still the best corner. It's like, what? Still the best safety in the league. Anyway, Jalen Ramsey is ranked number one, obviously. His lowest ranking by an executive was seventh. It was Gus Bradley.

Here's the quote. There's the only explanation. Here's the quote. I think he's falling off and a little overrated at this point. Super Bowl to me is an indication of what it's going to look like moving forward. Stephen Ruiz. A fireable quote, if you're in personnel. I'm not, that's not even a bit.

Like if you are in player evaluation and you say that about Jaila Ramsey, you should be fired. You should not have a job in player evaluation. It's an insane take. Like, it's, you have never watched football before. That's like saying Aaron Donald is washed up. I don't get it. I don't get it.

Even based on the tape of the Super Bowl alone, this is why I hate coverage stats. This directly leads to that type of tape. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I guarantee you the guy who says the tape shows that Jalen Ramsey's overrated is not looking at completion rate on PFF. I guarantee you he's not watching the tape either if he comes to that conclusion. Well, that's true, but none of these guys watch the tape. Ramsey did allow 60% completion percentage against when the next closest defender.

Not great. It's the different category. So the most generous interpretation of this is at the Super Bowl, he got got a couple of times, I guess. I remember saying in the post-game show that we recorded, like, in the stadium, it wasn't Ramsey's best game. Ramsey had some bad plays. Right.

And then I remember watching, like, the L-22 back the next day and tweeting out, like, hey, everybody should ignore anything I said about Jaylon Ramsey during the pot. Because, like, on a very casual brush of that game, I think it is an easy thing to believe that Ramsey had one of his, what a poor game of memory. When you sit down and watch it, it don't hold up. It was actually pretty good.

He prevented a touchdown on the first drive by breaking up a pass in the end zone, like an amazing play to break it up. He caused the sack on one third down by just swallowing up, Jamar Chase on a go ball. He had that third and short where he just left his route and just sat on Chase, just obnoxious level of film study. Yeah, yeah. it's,

that's just a complete misunderstanding of how the sport works, thinking that. And the plays he gave up, the two plays he gave up, T. Higgins played. The guy grabbed his face mask and threw him to the ground.

Is that what it's going to look like going forward? If that's the case, and I agree, Jailen Ramsey isn't going to be as good as he was. Ben, two one. So, yeah, for me,

my top two were in a separate tier, and that's Jaya Alexander at two, and then Jaylen Ranzi at one. Me too. Ball no-nowers on this side of the Zoom. Yeah. I mean, like, I'm fine with Lamworth. Didn't remember about me too much.

Jair is maybe, maybe it's a little bit of like a nerd take. Maybe it's a little bit of like an aesthetic thing. But as a long time, like, lover of Trey White, I think it's really good and like could have been top five if he was healthy. Shout out Trey White. I would have told you that like a predominant zone corner, a zone heavy corner can only be so good in the league. It can only rank so high.

and then Jair continued to evolve into what he is now which he was playing a ton of press early in his career but then with Joe Barry they've asked him to play more zone and for him to be as impactful as he is in terms of taking away one route and then taking away another route

really really unique player in terms of his ability to play top down and like fill this window and then fill that window with timing with flow like knowing how a quarterback's gonna process and rhythm out these route concepts I always remember the interception

and he had against Garoppolo and George Kittle, where we all, like, sat down as film guys and tried to figure out what the call was. They got him from one quarter of the field to the opposite quarter of the field. And it just wasn't a call. It was just he knew what was happening. Like his field vision, his field sense,

unparalleled, unmatched, unbelievable. And then he plays manned coverage at as high of a level as, as anybody else does. And, like, you know, he's a little bit smaller. And so, okay, you can't put him against the tight ends. But, like, you can put him in the slot and feel better about him there than any other corner not named Jalen Ramsey.

That's hugely, a judge of the factors benefit. So Alexander, to me, deserves to be that second guy, that incredible corner who in any other position of group, yes, would certainly be a conversation for number one overall. But when you have Jalen Ramsey up there,

it's like Stephen said, not really much of a conversation altogether. Yeah, I would say that Jair is the only one that's close to Ramsey in terms of disruption that they create at the catch point. Great way. He makes plays outside of his assignment.

Like Jalen Ramsey, I don't think any other corner on this list does it quite. And both both in run defense too, where it's like, we got everything blocked to play we wanted it too. We got our running back 101 against a corner. Frick, it's Alexander. RPO killers. Yeah.

RPO killers. Great way putting it. All right. Let's get to this. Is Jalen Ramsey the best defensive back of all time, Ben Zolak? I don't know how to answer that. My scope for, like, historical play is just not good. I don't have enough of an understanding of, like, just how good.

good Dorel Rivas was and just how good Dionne Sanders were. It's a different era. This is truly like everybody's 10 years ago everybody said it was the basketball and grass era and that wasn't true and now it's insanely true. It is a different sport for a cornerback who is going

against really great receivers every week. Yeah. So I like that's the thing is like I always struggle with those questions because I just don't have the background for them that people who have just like watched the sport for longer, cover the sport for longer and remember that era and have a hook in that era do. I know a lot of

people and they don't know much more than you do. I think that Ramsey is the second best defensive player of this generation behind Donald. I think that Ramsey is the best defensive back that I have a living memory of having seen plays. That includes Revis. But to me, like him versus Dion, him versus Woodson, I don't really know how to

calibrate to that. If Stephen says Ramsey's the best of them, I generally trust Stephen on these things. I mean, I wasn't watching Dion Sanders in his prime. I wasn't really watching Charles Woodson in his prime. I watched a lot of ESPN classic. did do that. But the one thing is, I think Dion and Revis are probably better, like, pure coverage guys than him.

But they couldn't tackle. Like, Diod Sanders, it was like a bit that he just didn't tackle. He didn't even try to tackle. And Dereo Rivas, I think, was kind of... He made a joke. Like, he really did. He was just, like, business decision. He perfected the art of explaining why he wasn't going to tackle. And Ramsey has just gone the complete other way. He's like, I'm blowing up every receiver I get a chance to hit. I will say, I think I might respect the Dion Sanders approach more than the

Jalen Ramsey approach. just in terms of like vibes. When when greedy Williams was coming out, the knock on him was what they couldn't tackle. And John Dorsey, who does no ball, was asked about it and said, now paying him to tackle,

which I think is a pretty good. But I don't think that's true anymore, though. I don't think it's, I'm just saying that there's a viewpoint of that in the league. I think that if you can tackle, you should tackle. No, I agree. And I think I had the same viewpoint on greedy at the time.

But I think the league has changed where now, that we are, they are playing a lot more too high. Those corners have to tackle. Those corners sometimes are, a lot of the times are the force players on the edge of those run plays and they have to tackle. And having Jailie Ramsey changes the math for you. Because offensive coordinators, what they like to say is like make the corners tackle. You don't want to do that with Jailer Ramsey because he's going to hit you.

He's going to hit you hard and the ball might come out. Let's move on to our top 10 safeties and impossible list. I don't want to do because we have so many different ways to attack this. let's just do five through one and then get into pretty gritty there over the next 15 minutes so like we'll start with you yeah so it's funny like Kevin you hated this because it's so difficult I love this because these things

stress me out and savings is like there's no rules like they're all good and they all do different things is I just get to pick the five that I like the most and everything is defensible and justifiable so number five Antoine Winfield Jr. four for me is Justin Simmons three for me is Kevin Byard my again like I have a little bit of a break and then my top two are to make a

of Fitzpatrick and one Derwin James. I would, you know, well, I'm sure we're talking about these guys, you know, in terms of our relative rankings,

but I really value versatility. It's important to me that a guy is able to do different things. I don't, like, to me, ball production for safety is really not super important. It's so situational.

But for guys like Byard and Simmons, who are the two leading play on the ball safeties of the last three years, there is a proven, you know, there's a longevity there where it's like, Byard's ball skills are legit. Byard is an incredible catcher of the football.

And that does matter because he's turning a couple of BPUs and a couple of tip drills a year into actual interceptions. That's an actual possession. So like when it comes to a guy like Bayer, he's just objectively like really good at catching the football and most defensive backs are in, that does matter. So that gives them a little bit of a boost there.

And then like the range of things, your, your capabilities open up for your defense is to me like critical. Right. I think that we're seeing in, in the league, however talented and versatile your safeties are describes how much you're going to be able to do defensively.

What's the menu that you can build out in terms of coverages? It's just safeties and also your Mike backer in that regard. That's like the story behind the Buffalo bills. But it's like neither Jordan Poir and no, Mike Ahide will make this list, but the fact that both are really good and both really versatile just opens up the entire world for Leslie Frazier and Sean McNerman. And so go ahead.

But are you saying that they're not going to make your list or they should make a list? because I have Micahide 5th. Oh, bravo. Well done. They didn't make my list. And it's just because I think, like, who are the good safeties?

They're not there. Like, I think they're top 10 guys. But it's the fact that you have a Micahide and a Jordan employer. And they've been playing together for multiple seasons. That gives you this really wide menu of coverage variety because they can communicate. They can see things.

They know how the other is going to react to certain things. They know how to color in the lines around each other, so on and so forth. So I really valued players that kind of give you. I want to make you. you angry by pointing out that Micah Hyde is number one in the NFL and something next gen stats made up called ball hawk percentage.

Hell yeah, brother. Sounds very useful. Kudos to Micah. I didn't know that until just now. I just Googled next gen stats and Micah Hyde just to make you guys angry. Because I really value a safety's ability to magnify the rest of their team,

that puts Mankan and Derwin just in a different air. Yeah. I know Derwin's banged up. Derwin probably is not the athlete I still remember him as. To be honest, I would understand if somebody's anticipating a bit of a Derwin downturn just for the amount of injuries he's endured. But with that said, there is no safety in the league that I feel more confident putting anywhere on the field and expecting a high caliber play than Derwin James.

Outside corner, inside corner, box, apex, blitz, strong safety, deep safety, doesn't matter. And then Minka is the skeleton key for everything the Steelers do defensive. Right. Their entire package of simulated pressures and rotations and coverages is all based up the idea of like, all right, this Trail Edmunds cat is okay. He's fast and he's big. Joe Hayden's getting a little old, but he can still hang. All right. Cameron Sutton's a good nickel. But it really, we're just going to move everybody around. And we're just going to ask Minka to cover everything that's left, right? Like PFF graded Minka quite poorly. And to me, that is a mistake. And I think the reason why that happens is because Minka is So often, the closest defender is so often the first guy to the ball. Because the Steelers ask him to do more than any other team asks any other back seven defender to do. He just has to fly around the field and process on the fly. He calls checks.

Like, he is the quarterback of the defense in the truest sense of the phrase. And so to me, he belongs up there as well. So we've mentioned everybody who was an all pro last year so far. Kevin Byard, Jordan, we mentioned Jordan Poyer, Derwin James, Micahide, Justin Simmons. did not mention Buda Baker. So Buddha and Antoine Winfield, to me, were a really tough situation. Buddha, to me, is six. I selected Winfield because I do think that in terms of pure coverage,

who do I want on third down lined up against the guy, I do prefer Winfield to Buddha. With that said, both Bance Joseph and Todd Bowles, very blitz-heavy teams, both Buddha and Antoine Winfield, the ability to play three safety positions and the ability to be effective blitzers at small size, really, really, really important. So very similar players, slight edge to wind field, could not be less perturred by somebody having Budo over him.

I would say I don't have Budo on my list, but I do want to say, I think when he signed that contract, we kind of criticized him for his coverage skills, which I think missed the point with him. Tackling's become underrated for some reason. That's how you end every play is you have to tackle the ball carry. And I don't think there's a safety that covers more ground as a tackler than Buda Bakes. And that's like a very valuable skill set that he has. Even if he isn't the greatest player in coverage, even if he isn't Minka or Derwin in coverage, that I do think he's underrated.

And I think I even underrate him because that's his biggest strength. There's a quote from an executive here about Kevin Byrd saying, I wanted to put him number one but didn't, which is extreme Solac behavior. Yeah. Jeremy Fowler accidentally called up Ben Solac and asked him about safety. I wanted to put him number one.

and I didn't. Just wait until you hear my list. I have eight people in my top five. No, I, yeah. Boy, it's a correct way to do it. I cheat it. I, uh, rank the bill's safeties as one entity.

And I put them at number five. And I tied them with Simmons and Winfield. Oh my God. You should be embarrassed. Wait a second. There's not only a four way tie, but, but one of those entities,

you're trying to count as one thing. Yeah. I admitted it. Like we covered at the beginning of the podcast. I own my incompetence. I was supposed to do a top five list. But I got those guys because I feel like they're all in that same style of safety. They're going to play a lot of too high and they're going to come down and drop into the box and make plays.

And I think they're good at coverage. This is Simmons, Poyer, Hyde, and... Winfield. Winfield? Yeah. Yes. You're killing the ringer social team for weeks. sorry, I just put Simmons.

Forget the Bill's safety. Just put Simmons. But no, my top four, though, this is what I care about. I put Marcus Williams and I put Kevin Byrd four and three. I wanted those two guys together because I think they're the preeminent middle of the field, center field type safeties. And Marcus Williams is very good. I don't know if his reputation is caught up to his skill level, but when you watch him on tape, man, he is a smart safety. He's not Ed Reed.

like he doesn't have that range and he's not that smart, but he's like 60% of edread, which is still like the fourth best safety in the NFL right now. So I have him on the list. I wanted to give him some love. And then my top two is Minkin, Derwin. I know Derwin's been hurt, but there's nobody in the league,

no safety in the league that can do what he does. He's a singular talent. 6.3.22. He's basically, he's Jalen Ramsey. If Jalen Ramsey was a little bigger and played safety. I am. I'm glad you have Marcus Williams there because I think Marcus Williams deserves, deserves mention is that sort of a dude. Very interested to see what he looks like in Baltimore.

Very interested to see what all that works as. I am also glad because I don't think anybody has Jesse Bates in the top five. Kevin, no? Nope. Yeah. Jesse Bates has Jesse Bates in the top five. Right. And that's the thing is this Jesse Bates franchise tag situation is, I think, a direct response to the Marcus Williams contract.

and that guy's making $70 million over five. I can make him more than $70 million over five. I'm a better deep middle safety. I'm not sure about that. Jesse Bates, real good ballfire. Marcus Williams, I think, right? I think like there's a public visibility for Bates because of the Bangle success

because of this contract situation. I think, right, Marcus is the better player, and that's an important thing to say. I can't remember where the ESPN guys had those two. I also think Bates was like the hipster guy early in his career. is like, oh, if you're watching film, like you know how good Jesse Bates is. Yeah, yeah.

Here's the SPS list. Justin Simmons 1, Minka, Kevin Byrd, Derwin James, Buda Baker, Jesse Bates is 6th. Harrison Smith 7. We haven't mentioned Harrison Smith. We're doing Harrison Smith in 2022? Marcus Williams 8.

Antoine Winfield 9. Jamal Adams 10. Hmm. Justin Simmons at 1? Say the line, Ruiz. They don't know ball. Justin Simmons at one. Like I like Justin Simmons.

He's a good player. He's like an eight out of ten, eight point five out of ten. He is not the best safety in the league. You're out of your mind. Listen, it's the ball production. It is,

it is, it's the same thing as a quarterback list. Let's count numbers. Who's got big numbers, right? Justin Simmons has like nine more pass breakups than any other safety for the last three or four years,

something like that. I said, I said, I hate coverage stats for cornerbacks? I hate all stats for safety. I won't talk to you. I will disown you if you use coverage stats for safeties. Coverage stats for safeties had people thinking that Anthony Harris was the best safety in the NFL for two years in a row.

Guess what? He was bad. He wasn't the best safety. He was not good. How do you even measure it? Like you just wait until they play cornerbacks in which case is the cornerback stats. I don't know how they do it. No, but like I guess if like someone throws a...

coverage staff, like actual coverage stuff. It's impossible. Yeah, but I'm guessing, like, if they're playing like in the deep middle and someone throws like a pass over the deep middle, it counts as a target for them. I don't know. Right, but that doesn't... It doesn't at all. Right. That's what I'm saying. It's... We're in agreement.

Yeah, it's very perplexing to understand how safety play is consumed in terms of, like, data and charting. Because it is the most important thing functionally on the field to understand where the safeties are going and what they're doing. and it's the most difficult thing to quantify.

And that's, I think, the biggest gap right now in how public-facing analytics, what it tells us about defense, is that when you're a quarterback, the first thing you do is figure out where the weak safety is going. And right now, the hardest thing for a machine to do right now is to, like, chart coverage relative

for what the weak safety did. Like, when you look at, like, just like, this is charted as cover three, cover six, whatever. It's always just, like, perplexing in terms of how, like, my understanding of the coverage relative for what it's being charted as, that's the biggest gap right now in the world of football analytics,

at least public-facing. Those cover three where the safety drops into like the linebacker area and cover six has charters in absolute hell. Yeah. An absolute hell. PFF, sports info, solution to all of them. Just got him in a full analysis, baby. Just tough look.

Anything else about the safety position you guys want to bring up? Should we talk about Jamal Adams? I am Listen Safety in the NFL According to I am fine With Jamal Adams

Being a fringe Top 10 safety Same I'm fine with him Being in the top 10 I think Yeah I'm okay with it Yeah

He does have a unique skill set In the sense Has he gotten Has he gotten worse Or did we just all discover What he has always been

We all discover What he's always been He was incorrectly given The trade package Was too big In the contract was big because of the trade package. The Seahawks spent too much on Jamal Adams

and then did it again because they spent too much on him the first time. That doesn't mean he's a bad player. It means they spent too much on it, right? I do think that as the Seahawks transition to a world in which they main split field coverage, which is something that they intend on doing this year and they kind of put those tea leaves out last year,

the limitations of Adams would become even more prevalent than they were when he was like being blitzed on 30% of passing downs and had 10 and a half sacks or whatever it was. But he is in terms of safeties that I like on running downs within 10 yards of line of scrimmage, one of the best in the league. And that is not the most valuable skill set of safety can have, but it is an impactful skill set.

Yeah, I agree with all that. Cool. The thing I would say with safety is this. The thing I would say with safety is this. if trends continue forecasting out. When we do this next year, Devon Holland's going to be top five, baby. That's going to be fun as that.

He was right on the edge for the executive list. I knew I wasn't going to rank him, but I just watched him for a little bit, like back half of the season. Yeah, Doug McHen play a little ball. Fucking flying around, man. Dude, the dolphins might be good. Am I overstating this?

Yep. Okay, just making sure. I disagree. I think they might be good. Nope Okay All right We'll be back next week

I think we might have a ball pit next week Boys with one of the most famous people in football Heck yeah I think we might get them to break down Kind of what we do with Justin Jefferson We'll do a position group We'll have them break it down We'll see how it goes

Either that they're going to be a solo on a week We're still kind of negotiating that I'm going to LA today in about an hour To see everybody plan our NFL season We'll be back next week And then at some point, during camp, pretty soon, we're going to start going more than once a week. So we've got some real cool news coming down the pipeline,

and we'll see you then. Thank you, just to find Anderson for production help. Additional production supervision by our Juna Rample. It's been the Renner-Refel show on the Ringer Podcast Network.