In the NFL, ‘safety first’ is the cap casualty theme

If you’re a safety and you’re at least 30 years old, you probably just got released.

The Seattle Seahawks released not one, but both starting safeties earlier this week. Jamal Adams was inevitable given his huge salary and deepening, performance-affecting injury history, whereas Quandre Diggs was a little bit more uncertain entering the offseason.

We’re going to leave Adams aside as a special case and focus on a trend that’s happening throughout the NFL, and something I believe more closely impacted Diggs. The roster cuts are coming thick and fast ahead of free agency, and many established safeties are getting hit the hardest:

• Marcus Maye, New Orleans Saints (age 30, one year left on his contract, $7.2 million cap space saved if post-June 1 designated)
• Jordan Poyer, Buffalo Bills (age 32, one year left on his contract, $5.7 million cap space saved)
• Kevin Byard, Philadelphia Eagles (age 30, one year left on his contract, $13.7 million cap space saved)
• Rayshawn Jenkins, Jacksonville Jaguars (age 30, one year left on his contract, $5.15 million cap space saved)
• Justin Simmons, Denver Broncos (age 30, one year left on his contract, $14.5 million cap space saved)

Yes, the Broncos cut Justin Simmons.

Maye and Jenkins have never made a Pro Bowl but they’re both veteran starters spanning multiple teams. Poyer, Byard, and Simmons all made All-Pro teams in 2021 and they’ve all been cut within the past week. Byard and Simmons in particular have been regarded as among the best at their position for several years. Collectively, assuming Maye gets a post-June 1 designation, these five safeties + Quandre will free up in the neighborhood of $60 million in salary cap money.

When adding in Jamal Adams and other safeties (not even including Keanu Neal, who was released on Thursday morning), no position has been subject to cost-cutting measures more than safety.

Diggs is one of a half-dozen safeties who’s both at least 30 years old and had an expiring contract ahead of the 2024 season. It could just be coincidence that there were several players at the position on expiring deals, but there are also much younger free agent safeties on the market such as Xavier McKinney, Geno Stone, Jeremy Chinn, and Julian Blackmon.

CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones had an interesting column about the safety position and the possibility that league front offices may view safeties the same way they currently view running backs.

“There’s so much opportunity to overcome physical talent with high level intellect and intangibles. So you don’t have to overspend to get production,” one NFL personnel executive told CBS Sports. “You can draft these guys Day 3 or put low free-agency resources into them and get production back if they are smart.”

Said another personnel executive: “It’s essentially a similar but not equivalent argument to running backs. So many teams are playing with third-to-fifth-round picks at the position and doing just fine. There are other areas of your team to spend on that impact the game way more.”

To no one’s surprise, coaches see it differently.

“There’s a disconnect between how coaches see the position and how personnel see the position,” one defensive backs coach told CBS Sports. “It’s a very scheme-dependent role so some guys can be a perfect fit for some coaches whereas other guys are not as good of a fit, no fault of their own or even their measurables. That said, trying to gauge production from one scheme to another can then become equally difficult.”

Jones also cites that teams ran two-high safety looks at a 38 percent clip in 2023, up from 30 percent in 2019. Quarterbacks are throwing behind the line of scrimmage more than any other season since the league started tracking that data in 2006, so the theory is that safeties are now less valuable because offenses aren’t attacking them down the field as often.

I’m not convinced about the cause-and-effect, and I’m personally disillusioned with the thought of an increasing number of devalued positions in the sport, but this may be the future of NFL football until further notice. I lean towards Griff Sturgeon’s side on what could happen to safeties.

This sport is too dynamic (both in scheme and rule changes) for me to think this is an irreversible trend. Until then, NFL teams may continue to take a “safety first” mentality when it comes to cap casualties and rethinking draft capital choices.