Top 10 safeties in the 2021 NFL Draft

Just missed the cut:

# 2021 NFL Draft Prospect: Richard LeCounte (Georgia)

5' 11", 190 pounds; SR

Once the number two safety recruit in the country, Richard LeCounte was a backup as a freshman, but then took over as a starter and has been one of the best safeties in the country these last three years.

Over that stretch (33 games), he recorded 161 total tackles, 6.5 of them for loss, eight interceptions, 11 PBUs, four fumbles forced and six recovered. It took him a while to get recognized for his play, but he was finally a first-team All-SEC selection this past season, after he could have easily entered the 2020 NFL draft.

The measurements don’t blow you away at 5’11”, 190 pounds, but if anybody told him so, he didn’t listen. LeCounte has long arms and plays like a 220-pound box safety. This guy is just a flying missile on the field, He does not hesitate to race up the alley and force jet sweep or end-arounds back inside by taking on the outside shoulder of a blocker at full.

He can routinely be see throwing his body around and funneling the ball back to his help, I just love the physicality and energy he plays with, his angles depth really limit the free yardage surrendered and he uses the sideline as that extra defender.

LeCounte rarely takes the worst of collisions and brings down bigger bodies at a high rate, delivering some big shots if he has a runway to the ball-carrier. LeCounte was utilized on several occasions as a blitzer from distance and has a little wiggle to make the back miss, while pursuing the ball with an attitude.

After missing 15 tackles in 2018, he has cut down that number pretty well these last two years, with 14 combined on 87 attempts. LeCounte has experience with pretty much any responsibility in coverage – single high, quarters, matching number three’s in man in trips sets. He is smooth in his pedal and natural with his ability to anticipate route patterns.

He lets the quarterback’s eyes lead him to the ball and blows up several receivers coming across the field from a deep alignment. Plus, he hits across the body of receivers and tight-ends coming down the seams and dislodges the ball that way. And when the target is slightly overthrown on those, he is a threat to catch it himself. LeCounte allowed only half of the ten targets his way to be completed last season, with one touchdown compared to three interceptions.

He came up with the game-sealing pick against Baylor in the 2020 Sugar Bowl and he made a great diving INT to start the Alabama game early in 2020. In man-coverage, he plays with good patience and feels comfortable turning his head against slot fade routes, while Georgia asks their safeties to rotate late a whole bunch, looking to be deceptive to the offense, which put a lot of pressure on those two guys, who were still racing to certain spots, as they read the play develop

However, at times he gets overzealous and doesn’t throttle down to make tackles, which leads to a few misses. He can get a little too aggressive with his angles and gets sucked inside, plus then he doesn’t have that top-end speed to make up for it necessarily.

Lecounte doesn’t have true free safety range and I wouldn’t trust him against really dynamic receivers in man-coverage, because despite being a little undersized, he doesn’t have that twitchy ability to change directions. His feet get stuck in the mud at times, when slot receivers jab to the post and then break on a corner route. I think he had one rep against Jaylen Waddle in the 2020 Alabama and almost tackled him immediately. Running in the high 4.7s at the Georgia pro day might cost him a couple of rounds.

This whole situation reminds me a lot of Rams safety Jordan Fuller coming out of Ohio State last year, who ran in the high 4.6s and made me shy away from quite making him a top ten safety in that class, even though his smarts in coverage rarely put him in bad positions – and he ended up being one of the top rookie safeties in the league. LeCounte is very similar to me and I’m kind of annoyed at myself already for having him just on the outside looking in. Those testing numbers are usually borderline undraftable, but man, do I enjoy watching his brand of football.

# 2021 NFL Draft Prospect: Divine Deablo (Virginia Tech)

6' 3½", 225 pounds; RS SR

A former top-500 overall recruit as a receiver, Divine Deablo saw action in every game as a freshman, but only caught one pass, to go with his work on special teams. He transitioned to defense in year two, but suffered a season-ending injury four games in.

He missed two games each in 2018 and ’20 due to injury and COVID protocols respectively, but started every other one. As a senior, he collected four of his six career interceptions and four additional passes broken up. Over the course of his career, he was also a negative-play specialist from the safety, recording 12.5 tackles for loss.

This is a massive safety prospect, whose height and weight are both in the 98th percentile for the position. Deablo spent 82.5 percent of snaps between box safety and the slot these last three years (slightly more box and slot), as the Hokies’ field-side safety or on the strong side, depending on where the tight-end lines up.

He lays with a good bounce to his step as a box defender and shoots through gaps without hesitation. He’s an outstanding edge-setter when lined up there, shuffling along with wide zone plays, while keeping his shoulders parallel to the line of scrimmage and being able to work against the flow, once the running backs puts his foot in the ground.

When he’s matched up with H-backs, they shift sides and create a new gap in the run game, Deablo has the speed to flow there and still get back under control to make a stop in the hole. He was also blitzed quite a bit on run downs and produced negative plays that way, by being kind of slippery and finding a way to wrap up the ball-carriers.

He is a very effective tackler, breaking down on ball-carriers to his side in split-safety looks, or coming across the field, to limit big plays. Deablo quickly gains ground when widening in cover-two and won’t let anybody get behind him. Overall, he stays under great balance in zone-coverage, while having the burst to quickly close distances when the quarterback locks his eyes on the throw.

Deablo was routinely put over tight-ends and showed the ability to carry them across or down the field with tight coverage in man. He was asked to cover slot receivers with the nickel blitzing quite a bit, where he was playing way off, but displayed a pretty sudden burst to undercut out-routes. When you watch Deablo’s plays on the ball, he attacks it at full extensions and displays natural hands, where those 33" arms are definitely a plus.

He only allowed 14 of 25 targets his way to be completed last season, with one TD compared to four picks, for a passer rating of 50.7. Among those, he made an incredible interception against Trevor Lawrence in the red-zone last season, where the Hokies were in a two-high shell and he came all the way over to the opposite hash, to high-point it. And he shows nice situational awareness, not blindly driving on quick-breaking routes on third-and-long.

At the same time, Deablo is not nearly the kind of wrecking ball as a deep safety, playing the run overly conservative from those alignments. He appears a little heavy-footed as a tackler, to where you see him struggle with the practical version of the run-shuffle-run drill on the field. He gets his eyes lost in the backfield at times and he only had one year of real ball production.

While the athleticism at his size is impressive, I don’t think you Deablo will cover too many really quick slot receiver or be asked to carry them down the seams. And his testing numbers are better than his on-field speed. He doesn’t look very comfortable pedaling straight back and he doesn’t have that eyes-in-the-back quality, to where he feels routes behind him in shallow zone coverage and drift underneath them. Some teams may look at him as a safety/linebacker tweener and he won’t fit too many two-high heavy defenses.

This pre-draft process has been great for Deablo. First, he showcased quick feet and fluid hips at nearly 220 pounds during Senior Bowl week, and then he ran a 4.42 and had an 10' 6" broad jump at Virginia Tech’s pro day. To me, he is that prototype strong safety in a Seattle-style cover-three defense, who also brings value covering tight-ends in man-coverage on passing downs.

Deablo was a team captain for the Hokies and already was a key member of special team coverage units, with 739 career snaps and 17 tackles in that area.

# 2021 NFL Draft Prospect: Caden Sterns (Texas)

6' 1", 205 pounds; JR

The number one safety recruit in the nation back in 2018, Sterns had a stellar debut season for the Longhorns, recording 62 tackles, three of them for loss, four interceptions and four more passes broken up.

That made him the Big 12 Defensive Freshman of the Year and a first team All-Big 12 honoree. In year two, he was limited to nine games due to a sprained knee and his ball-production dropped off dramatically (one pass defensed), even though he recorded four TFLs. Last season, he played the first seven games, before opting for the rest of the year. At that point he had picked off one pass and broken up another three.

The Longhorns coaches moved this guy more and more away from the ball, to use his play in space, spending 65.5 percent of snaps last season as a deep safety. Sterns has the range and instincts as deep-middle safety to make plays way outside the numbers routinely, while also bringing the ball-skills and leaping ability to high-point passes over the heads of receivers.

At times, he is dead-center in the middle of the field and the offense throws a one-step fade, where the ball comes out immediately, and he puts a hit on the receiver going up for it right on the sideline. Because of that, you see quarterbacks place go routes and slot fades way outside consistently or just pass up opportunities to go down the sideline, when he widens in cover-two.

When the ball is thrown in front of him and the receiver has to elevate for it, that guy better really want it, to be able to hold onto it, as Sterns flips him. The former Texas safety also shows pretty good awareness for underneath routes as a robber and has the explosive burst, to cut underneath throws. That also allows him to make plays when playing man against inside receivers.

While Sterns was used a lot in deep coverage, on passing downs especially, the Longhorns brought him down low from two-high looks at a pretty high rate, to create that plus one in the box, as you see him fill the B-gap without hesitation. From those split-safety looks, you can also watch him charge up the alley against outside runs and not them cross the line of scrimmage, when he’s unaccounted for.

When he arrives to the party late, he makes sure the ball-carrier goes backwards. From a free safety perspective, he has the burst to take away angles to the sideline despite working up rather aggressively against the run. At the same time, he has become reliable at breaking down on ball-carriers in space, and he doesn’t shy away from running into blockers in space. Plus, he also has the quickness to get around them and force ball-carriers to cut back towards the pursuit.

Unfortunately, like it is with a lot of big hitters, Sterns still tends to leave his feet too much and somebody has to tell him that he’s allowed to actually use his arms as a tackler, when racing up from distance. Overall, he has missed 31 of just over 200 career attempts, and he attacks the wrong shoulder of blockers routinely. He is also too aggressive with angles working down when trailing receivers across the field, allowing them to run by him at times, or when he should actually bubble over the top on pick-plays.

In two-high shells, Sterns gets caught flat-footed and allows post routes to get behind him, even though they may be the responsibility of the opposite safety, but he should help deep. And while he has improved in that regard, he still allows quarterbacks to move him with their eyes in single-high duty, to open up throws down the opposite hash. His career PFF grade of 54.6 in man-coverage is very underwhelming. Sterns underwent a procedure on his patellar tendon early in 2019 and shoulder injuries could be common with the way he approaches ball-carriers.

I had this guy as a top-five safety in college football coming off his freshman year. However, while he has improved in some areas, I don’t know that he has objectively gotten better overall since then. I love the range and physicality he presents, he was put in a lot of tough situations and his athletic ability allowed him to still make plays.

His pro day numbers once again reminded us of the athlete he really is, when he ran a 4.4 flat in the 40, had a 42-inch vert and an 11’1” broad jump. So while I wouldn’t count on him as a quality starter year one, he is an investment worth taking at the top of day three, if you can work on his anticipation in coverage.

The next names up:

Darrick Forrest (Cincinnati), Paris Ford & Damar Hamlin (Pittsburgh), Joshuah Bledsoe (Missouri), Talanoa Hufanga (USC), Jamien Sherwood (Auburn) & Shawn Davis (Florida).

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