A Possible Change to the Safety Position (Idea)

[WarGhost21]

The safety has long been a position of great importance in the NFL. The two men are the final line of defense, and are often some of the better sideline-to-sideline athletes in football. But the two safety positions are very different, with the Strong Safety being the man to cover the TE on the strong side of the play while also being the main run-support guy. The Free Safety is usually dropped back deep, where he can use his instincts and ball skills to come up with clutch plays when a corner gets beat. These two positions have been this way for as long as football has been around, but what if the safety mold were to change?

 

Here's the theory: Instead of having a Strong Safety and a Free Safety, why doesn't a team with an uber-athletic cover linebacker just use two free safeties? If you have a linebacker that can go man-on-man with any tight end, the Strong Safeties role is shifted purely to run support and some dropping into zone coverage. Get two other high quality run-stuffers at LB, and all of the sudden all the SS has to do is drop into zone. But wait, isn't that what the free safety is best at doing?

 

In practice, two free safeties would split up the field of play in zone, with both being ball-hawking players with great instincts. When Malik Hooker was healthy this year, he dropped into single deep coverage often, and throws on the sideline deep made it difficult for him to cover. Splitting the field in half would allow for much more ground to be covered and, in theory, many more interceptions due to a lack of distance needing to be covered. No team would have faith in going deep on a team that consistently dropped two free safeties into deep coverage. Adding in some high quality short field corners and teams would be virtually unable to pass the ball for any kind of a big gain.

 

As I began to ask this question, I looked to the internet to find if anyone else had any reason for this, but there was nothing on this topic. I wonder why, and if any of you know the reason why a team doesn't use 2 FS, please chime in! Honestly, though, imagining a duo of Hooker and Minkah Fitzpatrick dominating the deep ball makes my mouth water at the prospect. Thoughts?

[aaron11]

we did use the safeties interchangeably back in grigsons early years.  i believe they were landry and bullit, could be wrong about bullit.

 

they were both hybrid types though, and not strictly FS or SS

 

on topic, id rather see a thumper next to hooker because tackling and playing the run are not his strong suits.  two free safeties might make it too easy to run against us 

[SaturdayAllDay]

9 hours ago, WarGhost21 said:

The safety has long been a position of great importance in the NFL. The two men are the final line of defense, and are often some of the better sideline-to-sideline athletes in football. But the two safety positions are very different, with the Strong Safety being the man to cover the TE on the strong side of the play while also being the main run-support guy. The Free Safety is usually dropped back deep, where he can use his instincts and ball skills to come up with clutch plays when a corner gets beat. These two positions have been this way for as long as football has been around, but what if the safety mold were to change?

 

Here's the theory: Instead of having a Strong Safety and a Free Safety, why doesn't a team with an uber-athletic cover linebacker just use two free safeties? If you have a linebacker that can go man-on-man with any tight end, the Strong Safeties role is shifted purely to run support and some dropping into zone coverage. Get two other high quality run-stuffers at LB, and all of the sudden all the SS has to do is drop into zone. But wait, isn't that what the free safety is best at doing?

 

In practice, two free safeties would split up the field of play in zone, with both being ball-hawking players with great instincts. When Malik Hooker was healthy this year, he dropped into single deep coverage often, and throws on the sideline deep made it difficult for him to cover. Splitting the field in half would allow for much more ground to be covered and, in theory, many more interceptions due to a lack of distance needing to be covered. No team would have faith in going deep on a team that consistently dropped two free safeties into deep coverage. Adding in some high quality short field corners and teams would be virtually unable to pass the ball for any kind of a big gain.

 

As I began to ask this question, I looked to the internet to find if anyone else had any reason for this, but there was nothing on this topic. I wonder why, and if any of you know the reason why a team doesn't use 2 FS, please chime in! Honestly, though, imagining a duo of Hooker and Minkah Fitzpatrick dominating the deep ball makes my mouth water at the prospect. Thoughts?

The whole cover 2 zone concept is typically based on 2 safeties dropping back into deep coverage. While teams do still use the designation of SS and FS, in these schemes they typically have 2 safeties who can cover in the back end. At that point it becomes semantics. One is listed as a SS but is asked to do the same thing as the FS (at least in these looks). With us going to a Tampa 2 based defense, this is kind of what we are looking at, at least in our base defense looks. 

[jvan1973]

All you need to do is find the all pro linebacker than can handle those duties.