By Ross Jackson
Many changes are easy to identify in the New Orleans Saints’ defense following the appointment of defensive coordinator Brandon Staley.
From the team’s odd-man front focus and stand up edge rushers to the unique STAR/slot role and heavy zone coverage, a lot of elements of the team’s defense have dramatically changed from the previous system under former coach Dennis Allen.
Another big change that typical NFL broadcast angles make challenging to notice is the usage of the two safety roles.
From play style and responsibilities to alignments and coverages, a lot has shifted in the way the Saints utilize their safeties in Staley’s defense.
Roles and Responsibilities
In previous Saints defenses, the two safety roles were free safety and strong safety.
The free safety was most often a roaming, coverage post-safety that was expected to drop back, play sideline-to-sideline and be the team’s last line of defense over the top.
Meanwhile, the strong safety was more likely to crash down into the box, play against the line of scrimmage or drop down into robber or invert assignments.
Both overlapped in assignments enough to create a level of disguise aimed at generating uncertainty for opposing passers. But most often, the roles were specialized. Think former Saints safety tandem Marcus Williams and Vonn Bell as an example.
Williams was most often the middle-of-field, single-high safety burdened with deep coverage while Bell was the stronger tackler playing downhill, asked to be disruptive in the underneath areas.
The Change
Now, Staley uses his safeties differently. As opposed to a strong and free safety assignment, Saints safeties play sides: left and right.
At any time, either safety could be tasked to drop back into coverage or tasked with crashing down. Similarly, both could be asked to defend deep or some combination of coverages, run fits or even pass rush.
Saints safety Terrell Burgess explained the benefits to this approach when he spoke with the local media in March after agreeing on a deal to return to the team.
“Being able to see two high safeties and not necessarily know which one’s coming down to cover is definitely an advantage for the defense,” he said. “Because you’re able to disguise different coverages and things like that and allow the quarterback to get scrambled a little bit before the play starts.”
The versatile nature of safety usage is something Allen started to explore late in his tenure as well. The duo of safeties Tyrann Mathieu and Marcus Maye was supposed to provide an eclectic pairing of players that could disguise the defense’s intent pre-snap, but Maye wasn’t available nearly enough for that vision to take hold.
NFL’s Evolving Coverage Landscape
A changing shift in coverages across the NFL plays well into Staley’s safety deployment.
Current NFL trends have defenses moving away from defenses that close the middle of the field with a single defender dropping deep into center-field. Cover 1 (one deep defender) and Cover 3 (three deep defenders). Cover 1 and Cover 3, or “middle-of-field-closed” looks, were once the predominant looks across the league. Especially for man-coverage heavy schemes like Allen’s in New Orleans.
As of late, “middle-of-field-open” looks (deep-center split by two defenders) have become more popular.
Cover 2 looks will split the entirety of the field into two zones, each typically defended by one safety. Cover 4 divides the middle of the field in two zones from center to the seams with an additional pair of zones in the outside, from seams to sidelines, splitting the field into quarters.
Cover 2 and Cover 4 saw its highest usage rates since the 2020 season last year, while Cover 1 looks were used among the lowest in that time span. The former has gained popularity since offenses around the league became more productive in their downfield passing attacks.
The Saints’ more versatile and flexible usage of safeties works well within this trend. Having a pair of safeties that can both operate by covering deep or attacking underneath allows for the occasional middle-of-field-closed look while not creating a liability for the defense when dropping both safeties back into coverage.
Staley’s approach better matches the modern-day NFL trends and matches up well with today’s offenses. As those offenses continue to change and evolve, however, Staley’s system will be put to the test. His ability to adjust and respond can help to keep New Orleans ahead of the curve on defense.
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