Free Agent Safety Options

[ravens533]

Because, for one, James Ihedigbo is still a strong safety and the idea is to get Matt Elam shifted-over to SS, as it's his natural position. Now, granted, Ihedigbo overachieved in 2013; no one thought that he was going to be capable of replacing Bernard Pollard and actually outplay Pollard's performance from 2012 (thanks in large part to not committing as many costly penalties).

 

Also, most expect James Ihedigbo will get a nice contract from some team that is in need for a quality strong safety. In fact, the guy has never made more than a million dollars in a year, I believe.

 

Thus, it's believed that Elam will be the only starting safety from this year that will return next season. Plus, it only makes sense to get him to play closer to the line, now that there will be no other SS on the team. And, with that, that's why the Ravens need a new free safety.

 

While it would nice for Diggz to return, we all saw that Elam's biggest flaw is covering deep and the easiest way to fix that is to shift him over to strong safety, as I mentioned earlier.

 

Thanks for the info. I thought I heard Harbs in one of his interviews say that he wanted to change up which safety was playing up and which was back rather than having one always playing up and the other always playing back. If we do that isn't Elam the weak link?

[kassaiscool]

I would like to see Corey Graham brought back and possibly play safety. He has good ball skills, solid tackler not someone who will dive as much and miss tackles. The problem with Webb playing safety is, Matt Elam and Webb are both 5'10. That would be a major mismatch against any tight end height wise. Omar Brown has flashed some, but he ran his 40 in about 4.7 which is linebacker speed. I know speed doesn't determine how good a player is, but that is concerning. Daniel Manning would be an interesting stop gap player, I would like it to be Corey Graham, Daniel Manning, or Diggz for now unless someone else good becomes available that is affordable.

[A Fish Called Yanda]

Not worth it to move him there.  But I don't know what you mean about Webb tackling.  He is a pretty darn good tackler and makes plays in the run game fairly often.  He may not be big, but he knows how to  wrap up.

 

Sorry - I wasn't commenting on his ability to tackle, just that at FS he'd likely have to tackle more players and more awkward angles than at CB, and I'm still wary of his knees.  I wrote that sentence poorly.

[baltimorefan328]

Calvin Pryor, look him up.

depending how our comp picks wind up i would love this pick, guy was very strong for Louisville. If possible my ideal defensive draft would be someone like this guy and then that guy Colvin out of Oklahoma state at corner. I think we could use another young, bigger corner. Guy played like a beast last night in their bowl game. It would be awesome to go some combination of WR/TE/T early on then get these two guys...assuming we keep jimmy smith after this coming year we could have him, elam, pryor, webby, colvin...very young and explosive seconday

[BmoreBird22]

all this makes me believe it even harder that we should've drafted Cyprien last year; he played SS for the Jags this year, but could've been a nice fit for us at FS; given that he was considered a FS coming into the draft, he would've given us a smoother transition to the position than we had all year

This comment makes me certain you didn't watch any Jaguars games. He may have been listed as a FS, but he is certainly a SS. He might be quite possibly the worst coverage safety in the NFL.