With the emergence of the tight end as an elite passing weapon, there’s no more important defender on your team than a safety. The Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks proved that. Kam Chancellor, even with one leg, held Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski in check. When the Seahawks would line up linebacker K.J. Wright across from Gronk, this happened.
And K.J. Wright isn’t a bad player. He’s actually pretty outstanding, but he can’t match up with the new NFL tight end. So what do you do if you don’t have a guy like Chancellor, well, you make due and get the best guy you can. And if you want a guy you don’t have to spend all summer training to play, you go with a veteran.
The rough thing for the safeties in this market is a lot of teams already have good to at least decent safeties already on their team. And if they want to upgrade, there are younger guys that can be locked in with market-friendly prices. Still, these guys will land somewhere.
The Safeties
Mike Adams, 33, Indianapolis Colts
2014: 87 tackles, 11 passes defended, five interceptions, two forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries
Adams had the best year of his career, which just so happened to be his 11th in the league last year with the Colts. Adams is a complete player, that can tackle and play the run as well as the pass and has even managed five sacks in his career as a blitzer. Health can be a problem for an older player, but Adams has missed all of three games in the last decade, not suiting up just once since 2009.
Where he should end up: Denver Broncos
Adams is a natural fit with a Denver team that needs to win sooner than later. The window for the Broncos is closing faster than Internet Explorer trying to update your flash player. Rahim Moore won’t be back and Adams slides right in and might not give up a 70-yard touchdown in the playoffs.
Dawan Landry, 32, New York Jets
2014: 107 tackles, 1.5 sacks, one pass defended
Landry has been one of the more better safeties in the league for the last six seasons, recording 100-plus tackles four times in that span for three different teams and one of the seasons he didn’t hit 100, he had 97. Landry specializes in run support and few have done it better.
Where he should end up: Buffalo Bills
Not only can Rex Ryan get another one of his players on the Bills’ roster, he can get better production at strong safety than the guy he’s replacing, departing safety Da’Norris Searcy. Landry had nearly twice the production as Searcy last season and will make a good tandem with budding star Aaron Williams.
Antrel Rolle, 32, New York Giants
2014: 87 tackles, nine passes defended, three interceptions, one forced fumble, one fumble recovery
Rolle has been instrumental in helping two NFC championship teams, the 2008 Arizona Cardinals and the 2011 New York Giants. Along the way, he’s put up these kind of numbers every year since he took over the starting safety job in Arizona in 2006. In that span, Rolle has missed just one game and that was back in 2009.
Where he should end up: New York Giants
New defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo doesn’t need to subtract good players from a defense that needs to add good players. Rolle has been an important leader and a productive performer in New York and they need to make sure he finishes his career there.
Jim Leonhard, 32, Cleveland Browns
2014: 43 tackles, one sack, two interceptions, three passes defended
Leonhard has been a journeyman safety for his entire 10-year career, playing for five different teams and the Buffalo Bills twice. This last season with the Browns Leonhard made five starts and played in all 16 games, delivering a starter-level performance each time. For a team looking to upgrade its safety with a rookie, especially, Leonhard is the perfect stop-gap player to not only help the young player develop, but start while the younger guys get up to speed.
Where he should end up: Washington Redskins
The Redskins have all of two safeties on the roster right now and they had 38 tackles and no interceptions combined. Washington is drafting too high in the first round to take Landon Collins out of Alabama, so they need to upgrade the position in free agency and Leonhard does that for a cap-friendly price.
