2009 Denver Broncos - Breaking Down the Roster – Safeties

…and hasn’t fit into a niche yet. He seems to be more of a straight line “point interceptor” than an agile SS, so I would give him more credit as a FS. If we have a good TE coverage LOLB, he could play at SS if whomever plays at FS is more skilled.

Bruton’s current abilities would make him excellent for STs coverage, and that is a point to be considered (as you mentioned). I agree that his current abilities make him more of a FS. But the make-up of the rest of the roster could bump him to a SS role.

Often times the more capable safety goes to FS (football intelligence and speed). But major considerations are always “Who are the other safeties on the roster”, and “what kind of coverage skills does the LOLB have”.

I would think that Dawkins, Hill, McBath, and Barrett would beat Bruton out at this point (relegating Bruton to SS). But camp (or injuries during the season) can change things in a heartbeat.

If all five made it, that would be great. We really don’t have a weak spot in our depth. All of these guys could play or back-up any team. The only problem with keeping five is that I think it will be harder to sort other positions, and we may need more players at positions like OLB, DE, and even WR to sort out who is the best of the best. We can get through a season with four.

But five would be great.

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I’ve been leaning towards this as a solution, but I don’t have high confidence in this projection.

The primary reason, as you point out maritimebronco, for expecting this is Bruton’s STs ability as a gunner, which McDaniels has mentioned so I don’t it’s something we can ignore. Barrett has some spectacular metrics and is bright, although perhaps not highly instinctive, so there’s a virtue in keeping them both, as long as we’ve covered the CB position.

The downside of keeping 5 Safeties is that we have some good CBs farther down in the depth, and I think they’d prefer keeping 5 CBs and 4 Safeties, all other things being equal. D.J. Johnson, Carter and Bell should all warrant strong consideration. I’m especially intrigued by Johnson’s size, and he may provide yet another S/CB hybrid, which seems in vogue.

It’s just too tough to project at this point because there are so many variables. The last DB kept should be able to provide some important skill when called upon (or not inactive). I see the 5 Safety scenario as adding more to coverage on big receivers, as well as giving us more run support. The fact that we have J Will and the ‘phonz’ may provide us with enough depth at CB and allow us the luxury of keeping more Safeties. The only caveat is that the active list doesn’t allow us to play more than 45(*46+3rd QB) so we need to take this into consideration. It can make the added depth superfluous or it can lead to a situation where we alternate.

Just for the boost on special teams would be worth keeping all 5. remember, Josh Barrett is PERHAPS the fastest guy on the team. From memory, he ran a 4.38 in the 40 and before the draft was predicted to go 2nd or 3rd round. You dont punt a guy with his potential to the street.
Bruton could play his whole career as a ST ace….and, yep, we need another Keith Burns.
I say we keep all 5!

Long term, I think he only improves. His impact on STs would be immediate.

I think that any player put on the PS would get pulled by another team in very short order, so I’d hate to see it happen.

A lot of factors hurt the defense (like the offense, which you mentioned). But I also think that there were some talents on the defense that just weren’t, well, talented. Webster never seemed to take off, and Boss was just hurt too much (a fear we had when he arrived in Denver). The line rarely held the point on runs, and our safeties missed a lot of tackles (many of these tackles were from missed tackles by the front seven).

Here’s what I love about the safties this year: no matter how bad we are up front (and I think we’ll be improved) our safeties will be good enough to cover up some of the mistakes that a new scheme and new players are bound to make early on.

Keeping five would be great, and can be justified. I’m being conservative, and guessing four. But I’m not the coach either.

: )

Having to choose between good players is rough, but much easier than picking over scraps!

I’m being conservative, because I think we are deeper at Saf than we are at other positions, and so we might want more players to evaluate at some of the more confused positions.

But your point is very valid. We may very well keep five, because all five can be easily justified.

Recall how Indy went into a steep decline when safety Sanders was out with an injury, and how much they improved when he came back (I think this was two or three years back). It was then that Indy fans realized the critical nature of Sanders in their Tampa 2 system.

He anchored their defense every bit as much as Manning anchors the offense.

Good call on last year. Safeties rule!

Only the best of the best fighter pilots go there, and only the best of those best graduate. What a wonderful opportunity for the DBs coach to have a handful of players ranging from legendary to “awesome potential” to choose from.

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My prime advice to anyone wanting to learn “strategy” is to go to the local middle school (or jr. high) and ask to sit in on some of the practices. You won’t be in the way as much as you might be with some HS programs, and the programs are much less “secretive” at this level. Hang out and watch the coaching, and ask the assistants questions. Perhaps you can even volunteer to assist a team in some way, and win your way inside even more. Nothing beats face to face learning in this field.

Next (honestly), continue to read MHR. A lot of folks here have either coached or played, and the environment is friendly enough to get answers and opinions.

As for books, I can’t recommend a specific one. I learned on the job, and the advanced concepts I got (history of strategy, for example) came from seminars we had funds to go to. If you have a good library in your area, get any football books they have. One can find books on youth coaching quite often, and I would imagine that titles like “football for Dummies” or “…Idiots” have topics ranging from basic to intermediate.

To be frank, while there are many books containing sections on tactics (such as stance, how to tackle, etc), there doesn’t seem to be a lot of titles on formations, playcalling, and my favorite – systems. If you find a good one, let me know. I get this question every day!

: )

Vince Lombardi on Football edited by George Flynn, and
The Thinking Man’s Guide to Football by Paul Zimmerman (aka Dr Z)

For now I’m leaning towards four for the reasons I gave in comments some moments ago. But five is just as likely.

Of the five, Fox has the worst chances. But as other folks have mentioned, we may very well keep all five.

Amen, Brother.

So true…

Our CBs had two things to contend with. A front seven without a pass rush AND safeties that weren’t covering the top. We either had one safety deep or had safeties that just didn’t provide confidence for the CBs to do their thing.

Those factors made Champ look ordinary and cost Dre Bly (a great CB himself) what could have been a lucrative career in Denver. (Yes, I blame the front seven and the safeties for Bly’s performance even more than I fault him).

With help at Saf, the CBs will show some improvement (look for an increase in INTs). If the pass rush is just “average” in combination with our excellent safeties, watch for our CBs to have a terrific year. If the front seven either has a good pass rush, OR stops the run consistently, our DBs will have a pro bowl season (likely more than one player).

… unless something bad happens, we won’t have to draft a safety for years.

It would have too be a Marshall University level bad thing (plane crash). With our depth, we could lose any two players and keep flying (in my opinion). Remember, we have two rookies in the mix, and the starters (the guys likely to get injured) aren’t the rookies.

Also think 5 is a very real possibility. I went with four to be conservative, but five is just as likely (if not more so).

Dawkins will be a force, but there’s no denying that he’s slowing up a bit.

Don’t know much about Hill other than Miami chose not to re-sign him.

Can anyone remember Atwater/Smith being in the same backfield? I barely do and as great as the duo may sound, I seem to recall that Smith was in a steep decline at that point. But let us not forget the common denominator in two great safety duos that BB mentioned – Atwater! I’ve mentioned it before, but his Superbowl 32 performance—at the end of his career— still is one of the most heroic defensive performances, IMO.

In defense of Dawkins and Hill….

On Dawkins slowing down -

Yes, Dawkins is older. But consider a few points before worrying about passes over his head.

1) I conceed that a 35 year old NFL safety is not going to be as good as he once was. So I’m not in total disagreement.

2) However, consider that in the 46 defense Dawkins (by scheme) was the lone safety in deep pass coverage most of the time. His INTs were not going to be high to begin with given that going for an INT can be suicide if you are the only player covering over the top of the receivers. Suffice it to say that at age 35 (2008 season), Dawkins managed 3 interceptions in a scheme not designed for him to play underneath receivers. Compare that number to elite CBs playing underneath 1 FS coverage (ala Bailey and Bly last year). Not bad at all. Now add in that Dawkins won’t be alone in the deep zones, and you get a recipe for success. (I don’t expect his numbers to be great, but only because he’ll be sharing duties he once had to accomplish all by himself).

3) Not only is he a sure tackler, he excells. Due to his Champ Bailey-like “turn/swivel” hip ability, Dawkins was all over the field, getting tackle numbers not meant for “the last line of defense”. (Defense average in 2008 = 28.3 / Dawkins = 64! And this is when Dawkins is 35, past his prime). Those numbers are even more incredible when you consider that (in the 46 system) Dawkins had 8 guys in the box in front of him to gather most of the run play tackles.

4) Speed; Dawkins could sack from the deep Free Safety position (known as a monster blitz) without cheating up to the line of scrimmage. This meant that he covered a long distance in a short time, got through the blockers, and hit his target. Dawkins was getting sack numbers not meant for safeties. (Defense average in 2008 = 2.8 / Dawkins = 3. And this is when Dawkins is 35, past his prime).

On Hill -

Look at his stats in ‘08. Over the course of a career his stats weren’t great (granted). But both he and Goodman had a solid year last year, and system management had a lot to do with it. I don’t think he was brought in to be Superman, but I do think he was brought in to improve the position (no doubt he does) and to buy us time. I am less concerned with a player’s career stats if his most recent stats show a marked upward movement. I don’t think he is blocking an upcoming talent, but is here more to buy that talent time to develop.

Last, we could have a reasonable disagreement on which combo is better (Weapon X and Hill versus Atwater and either Braxton or Smith). But behind our current safeties are two high picks (a 2nd round and a 4th). Who did we get excited about behind Atwater? I don’t recall having greats up front AND viable youth in depth. I’ll take this year’s safeties (depth and all) over the old guard (with zero disrespect meant to Atwater).

Still, I’m glad that you are are bringing a different perspective and backing it up with facts. Our disagreement on how good the current safety group is may be a matter of degree, rather than outright opposite opinions. Whether one buys my opinion (vast improvement) or yours (which I infer as slight improvement), ANY improvement is a good thing as long as it is sustained until excellence is achieved.

All the best to you!

This statement tarnished the rest of the article:

This is the best safety roster that Denver has ever had, including the Atwater era.

In 1991 Atwater and Dennis Smith combined for 260 tackles, 10 interceptions, 1 Forced Fumble and 2 Recovered Fumbles. Not to mention causing several concussions and receivers losing the ability to cross the middle and peeing without blood in their urine.

Still, the last couple of years have made me cringe so much when it comes to defensive lines….

Very well said, TJ. The distances are so exquisitely perfect, as you said above. I read some place that a hitter had to decide whether to swing or not by the time the ball was one/fourth of the way to the plate.
And the changes that have to be made if a runner is on first, or second, or third, and how many outs are there? It’s a fine game for a lazy, hot day in July.

1) I’m not an apologist for the German legal system, and don’t pretend that I can justify how they define the value of a chicken. I don’t endorse, not do I oppose their system. You’ll have to take that up with the German Bundesverfassungsgericht.

2) Someone is reading a basic econ or basic business reading into an example cited in philosophy classes (primarily ethics and morality) as well as criminal justice classes. Tell me, how many pencils do you have to sell to recover the loss of that pencil? No matter how you cut it, you would have to sell 100 pencils if your profit margin is only .01 in order to recover the pencil and to recover the missing profit. I don’t care how the business owner wants to record the loss in his accounting books. The loss is more than a dollar.

(By the way, basic accounting and economics doesn’t take many variables into account in such an example. What about the manpower wasted in having to account for the missing pencil during an audit? How about the impact on the society at large when a “small” criminal conversion such as shoplifting gateways into other crimes?)

Clearly, the illustration can mean different things depending on how it is used. If you look at the world in terms of economics ubber alles (Marxism), you might call a pencil a pencil. If you look at the loss in terms of simple mathmatics or ethics, the true value lost goes beyond a mere ninety-nine cents.

By the way, this illustrates why there are so many jokes about engineers or lawyers. They have a worldview (the law or mechanics) that shapes how they place scenarios in context (and for good reason). If a kid breaks my window, that may be $80 to you. But the time I lose from work to call off and stay at home until the window is repaired factors in.

Another justification for the pencil analogy – Our legal systems provides for damages that go beyond the retailer’s value of a product. Whether it is a civil demand, or a judge rendered fine, “damages” often cover costs that economists can’t quantify. Do you honestly believe that a court will only reward the merchant .99 cents if he pursues a civil demand? In my state, a merchant can file a demand for 50$ or three times the cost of the shoplifted item, whichever is more. If the respondant declines, the matter goes to court. Our legal system doesn’t think a $.99 pencil is only worth $.99 when the respondant shows up in court…

..but perhaps the courts use “bad econ and accounting”.

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