The holiday season, after fantasy football's regular season has concluded in most leagues, offers the opportunity to reflect on player results to date and implications for line-ups. Reading the Defense has reviewed defensive tackles this week followed by edge defenders, linebackers, and defensive backs to close out the column for 2023.
Recent History Lessons
Five years ago, the top six defensive backs in fantasy points were all box safeties. Had Budda Baker and Landon Collins stayed healthy, it could have been eight. Cover-3 pass defense dominated usage by defensive coordinators in the second decade of NFL play. Man coverage with one high safety (Cover-1) was also prevalent.
The Seahawks' Legion of Boom defense made Cover-3 famous by dominating the Broncos' high-powered offense led by Peyton Manning in Super Bowl XLVIII. Head coach Pete Carroll's secondary featured potential Hall-of-Famer Earl Thomas at free safety. He was known as a deep centerfielder with tremendous awareness and range. His complement at safety, banger Kam Chancellor, patrolled the box and played shallow zones.
just blessing your TL with some @KamChancellor highlights 😤pic.twitter.com/EMFhcbqhsx
— FanDuel Sportsbook (@FDSportsbook) December 27, 2023
In the summer of 2019, the San Francisco defensive coordinator's seat was hot. Robert Saleh had learned the Cover-3 defense with its 4-3 Under front in Seattle and carried it down the Pacific Coast but was unable to replicate the Seahawks' success. Robert Saleh's unit allowed the fifth-most points in the league in 2018.
Saleh dramatically scaled back the use of the 4-3 Under front in favor of a Double Wide-9 front. The latter deploys two defensive ends who both play well outside of opposing offensive tackles. This change softened the interior of his defense but afforded him another body in coverage. Saleh's 49ers played far less Cover-3 in 2019, opting instead to keep both safeties deep. The team was at the forefront in the growth of Quarters coverage, wherein the two safeties and two cornerbacks are each responsible for a zone covering a deep quarter of the field behind the linebackers. The defensive scheme changes helped propel San Francisco to Super Bowl LIV and Saleh to a head coaching job in New York.
The ramification for fantasy gamers was the loss of a viable defensive back for the game of spreadsheets. Cornerback Richard Sherman paced the group by finishing 57th among fantasy defensive backs in 2019. The two starting safeties, Jimmie Ward and Jaquiski Tartt, combined for 113 tackles in 25 appearances. Three safeties compiled more than 113 combined tackles by themselves in 2019.
2023 Context
The 49ers were one of several teams that led an evolution toward more coverages with two high safeties. While some teams are migrating toward two-high coverages more aggressively than others, almost every team deploys its safeties more interchangeably than the Seahawks a decade ago.
Man coverage is also in decline throughout the league. In 2018, four units played man more than half the time. In 2023, only one defense utilized man coverage even 40 percent of its defensive snaps. That practitioner, Jim Schwartz of Cleveland, hadn't coordinated a defense since 2020.
Safeties spend so much time in coverage that defensive coordinators contemplate moving them into the slot to attack the line of scrimmage and make more plays. Derwin James Jr., perennially drafted as the top fantasy defensive back, began playing STAR for the Chargers late in the season for this reason. The STAR's alignment most often overhangs the line of scrimmage. His duties involve those of a slot cornerback, an outside linebacker, and a safety. Antoine Winfield Jr made a similar switch in the summer of 2022 but eventually moved back to free safety due to injuries elsewhere in the Buccaneers' secondary.
Incidentally, Winfield leads all defensive backs in fantasy points through 17 weeks. Two more free safeties, Jessie Bates III and Camryn Bynum, trail Winfield. The three are on pace for three of the five best fantasy defensive-back seasons of the past five years.
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Volume
Winfield, Bates, and Bynum all rank in the top ten in defensive snaps played through 16 games. Their relative good health and ample opportunities have propelled them to great heights for fantasy gamers.
Unlike a linebacker, a safety can play a high volume of snaps and remain largely irrelevant to fantasy gamers. Quandre Diggs and Tre'Von Moehrig have each played 1,000 snaps and likely languish on most leagues' waiver wires.
The number of times opposing quarterbacks target defensive backs in coverage fuels fantasy production for both cornerbacks and safeties. The 15 most frequently targeted players are cornerbacks. All but one (James Bradberry) rank in the top 32 cornerbacks on the Footballguys leaderboard for the position.
Camryn Bynum easily leads the NFL's safeties in targets and has allowed almost three-quarters of them to become completed passes. Bynum has recorded more combined tackles than all but one defensive back in part because he has to tackle a receiver he allows to catch the ball. The 15 most frequently targeted safeties all rank within the top 27 safeties for fantasy points by Footballguys' scoring.
Camryn Bynum picks off Purdy!
— NFL (@NFL) October 24, 2023
📺: #SFvsMIN on ESPN/ABC
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/riDUhbzXkK pic.twitter.com/8FQQduDBcs
Tackles
Pro Football Focus reports that Jessie Bates III and Antoine Winfield Jr rank first and fifth in combined tackles in run defense. Each player's average depth of tackle in run defense is below 7.0 yards. Box safeties like Grant Delpit and Julian Blackmon, also among league leaders in run stops, make tackles at an average depth of less than 5.0 yards, while their complements, Juan Thornhill and Rodney Thomas II, are making tackles more than 15.0 yards downfield on average.
Jessie Bates with the nice tackle and then shrugs on em 🤷ðŸ»â™‚ï¸ pic.twitter.com/EKIf8nEoz2
— ð™ð™–ð™¡ð™˜ð™¤ð™£ð™¨ ð™ˆð™ªð™¨ð™š (@ATLFalconsMuse) October 12, 2023
Big Plays
Winfield, Bates, and Bynum have all been successful at making drive-altering plays in addition to piling up tackles. Each has broken up at least nine passes, among league leaders at safety. Each has forced at least three fumbles; only seven other defensive backs have done that. Winfield leads all defensive backs with 5.0 quarterback sacks, and Bates's six interceptions ranks third among all players.
Antoine Winfield Jr has been a jack of all trades this season:
— NFL (@NFL) December 30, 2023
5 sacks + 5 TFLs
3 INTs + 12 passes defended
5 forced fumbles + 5 fumble recoveries
📺: #NOvsTB — Sunday 1pm ET on FOX
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/xuv1PmUkue
In Conclusion
Five years ago, fantasy gamers merely needed to anticipate which players would be deployed as box safeties to gain a free square at defensive back. This writer's off-season series, Reading the New Defense, was born elsewhere to investigate that topic. Players drafted as box safeties like Derwin James Jr. and Kamren Curl have been adequate, albeit unspectacular in 2023, while Grant Delpit and Julian Blackmon were lost to injury. Delpit would have been quite good on a per-game basis had he not missed every fifth tackle in run defense (per PFF).
Winfield, Bates, and Bynum all have different formulas for their huge fantasy seasons. Their commonalities are that they play in more aggressive defenses that lean MOFC in coverage. (MOFC or middle-of-field-closed indicates one high safety in coverage.) While all three players are free safeties in base defense, each alternates with his strong safety to be relatively interchangeable for his defense.
Winfield and Bates both play in defenses that rely on man coverage at above-average rates. Each player demonstrates good play recognition and is trusted to trigger downhill when he sees run. Winfield has rushed the passer 53 times, according to Pro Football Focus, tied for third most often in the league.
Both Winfield and Bates are good players. They possess the top two PFF grades at the safety position for the season. The notion that IDP fantasy gamers can capitalize by drafting talent at defensive back is attractive indeed. This spring, Reading the New Defense will seek to forecast which new defensive coordinators will deploy safeties in the box and will prefer Cover-1/Cover-3 to two-high shells in 2024. The hunt for the next upstart like Camryn Bynum is on.
Many thanks are offered to those reading this column this week and interacting with the writer @DynastyTripp on the website formerly known as Twitter. The 2023 season has been fun and fascinating as ever. It's my pleasure and honor to share thoughts and player ranks at Footballguys.com.