Biggest risers and fallers from the 2023 NFL Combine

Safeties

Illinois' Jartavius Martin

Riser: Jartavius Martin, Illinois

As far as safety goes, there are a couple of names that looked pretty good, but none made noise like Illinois’ Jartavius Martin.

He absolutely jumped out of the gym as well. His 44-inch vertical jump tied him for fourth-best all-time for any position, and he also led the safety group with an 11-1 broad jump, along with being just three-hundredths off the top mark in the 40 at 4.46.

During on-field drills, I thought he covered good ground and had a couple of nice high-point grabs. Watching him go through the W and one of the other transition drills, I thought the foot-fire to change directions was very impressive, too. He also got out of the gauntlet clean, without any drops, at the end of the session.

I liked Martin from the limited tape I watched on him, but I was more so tracking him while studying his teammates, Sydney Brown and Devon Witherspoon, whom I both absolutely adore. I’ll have to go back to the tape for him specifically and see if I may like his skill set to play more in the post with those kind of explosive numbers, along with being an effective slot already for the Illini.

Martin’s former teammate, Sydney Brown, of course, had an excellent performance, with top-level testing numbers and a smooth workout. And Cal’s Daniel Scott had a really nice performance as well, in terms of the testing and how loose his hips looked.

Notre Dame's Brandon Joseph

Faller: Brandon Joseph, Notre Dame

With his 4.62 in the 40, Joseph was tied for the fourth-slowest time among safeties. And two of the three guys he finished ahead of are players I would certainly define as box safeties or big nickels. He's not somebody who people looked at as a potential first-rounder as a true center-fielding free safety a couple of years ago.

I didn’t think Joseph was making up a whole lot of ground when having his hips flipped and trying to gain depth, and for somebody whose calling cards are his range and ball-skills, having four passes (!) come off his hands during the drills was unacceptable.

That’s not including the gauntlet, where he caught every ball. But the pure speed, ability to make up ground when his body isn’t fully committed and lack of security hauling in passes will definitely cost him. I feel it’s been a constant fall for him across a year-and-a-half. He may ultimately not hear his name called until Day Three.

Florida’s Trey Dean running a 4.75 limits what teams project him as at the next level, of course, but I think he was looked at as a tight end matchup player or down-safety anyway. For his size, he was able to flip and run really well, along with making some tremendous grabs. Plus, he repped off a DB-best 25 on the bench press.