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By John Clayton
ESPN.com
Updated: October 27, 2007
The Miami Dolphins made an interesting move Wednesday by bringing back Lance Schulters from what inaccurately might be considered the scrap heap of discarded veteran safeties.
Schulters, if you remember, was always a force at safety in his formative years with the San Francisco 49ers and Tennessee Titans. He was old school. He could step up into the tackle box and be a force against the run. He could punish any receiver venturing into the middle of the field on crossing routes. But once he reached the age of 30, he got that dreaded label of being just an "eight-in-the-box'" safety, which turned him into a minimum-salary hired gun with no job security.
Over the past couple of years, teams have tried to add more speed and coverage ability to the safety position, putting safeties who play like linebackers on the outs. It's understandable. Offenses are spreading the field with more receivers. Defenses have to counter with more athletic players who can cover them.
But I'm starting to wonder if the trend is being a little shortsighted. What we're seeing is teams taking cornerbacks and turning them into safeties, not giving real safeties the chance to come to training camp. Believe it or not, there is safety in hiring the "real" safeties.
Just the other day I talked to Tony Parrish, a top-level safety who was a star in Chicago and San Francisco. The 49ers tried to get a little younger at safety and let Parrish go and he finished last season with the Dallas Cowboys. His phone was silent during the offseason. For the life of me, I don't know why.
Parrish is a real safety. He can hit and he can cover. To prove that point, he linked up with one of the most respected trainers in the business, Tom Shaw. According to Parrish and Shaw, he's running 4.4 40s, which is cornerback speed. With that kind of speed and with his ability to anticipate plays by reading quarterbacks -- he has 30 career interceptions -- Parrish can help out in some man-to-man situations if necessary. Heck, some of the converted cornerbacks don't have 4.4 speed.
But the only stat general managers seem to care about in regard to him is his age. He's 31. He's sent tapes of his workouts to general managers and he's still awaiting a phone call.
Another safety on the streets is veteran Robert Griffith. The former Viking, Brown and Cardinal is 36, but he's played 100 percent of the snaps for the past two seasons. Despite that, he's sitting at home training and waiting for a chance. The phones are unfortunately silent.
Safeties are going down at an alarming pace.
Since the start of the regular season, teams have lost eight starting safeties. The Dolphins have been hit hard. They lost Yeremiah Bell and Renaldo Hill for the season. Travares Tillman will miss his fifth consecutive game after knee surgery. They brought in Donovin Darius for help but let him go because of injuries to his calf. The Bears have lost safeties Mike Brown and Kevin Payne for the season. The Bills lost Ko Simpson. The list goes on and on.
In getting younger and quicker at the safety position, teams might be getting less durable. Coaches have a real dilemma. Matching a quick tight end against a slow safety is an advantage to the offense, but it's also a lot to ask of some coverage safeties to help out too much against the run. Big collisions with small bodies lead to injuries.
"The game is becoming more vertical, so you don't need those type of safeties as much who need to roll up to the line of scrimmage,'' said Titans coach Jeff Fisher, a former NFL safety. "The cornerbacks who covert to safety aren't as big as the traditional safety so it's tough to get them too involved in stopping the run."
Of the 64 starting safeties, only 14 are older than 30 and two of those older safeties -- Sammy Knight of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Deke Cooper of the Carolina Panthers -- were signed or promoted because of injuries.
Knight is 32 and he's in rare company. Only four safeties are older than him, and one of those older safeties (34-year-old Brian Dawkins of the Philadelphia Eagles) hasn't played in a month because of a neck injury.
Age isn't the only surprising stat about the safeties. There's also their weight. A total of 19 safeties weigh less than 205 pounds. More than half of the starting safeties (33) are lighter than 210 pounds. Scouts don't give great ratings to backs who weigh 205 or 210 pounds, so imagine the problems of the safeties coming up to stop those 220-to-240-pound running backs. Ouch.
"For safeties, it's a game of speed and explosion," Indianapolis Colts general manager Bill Polian said. "You don't have to have the greatest athletes, but you need good athletes. But there is so much run support in the Cover 2 that you have guys running and getting caught in awkward positions. If you have an athlete who is stiff and not fluid, he could get hurt. It's a game of speed and blowing people up."
Teams need to cover themselves. If they are going for the Lance Schulters-type eight weeks into the season, they need to bring safeties like Schulters, Parrish and Griffith into camp. General managers seem to turn on safeties after they turn 30. Aging safeties lose speed but they gain experience and savvy. The game slows down for them.
Too many safeties end up out of work at an early age, but it's not as though many of the converted cornerbacks hold up any better. Don't forget not to forget the vet.
This is a golden age for top safeties. Ed Reed, Troy Polamalu and Bob Sanders have taken the position to new levels. They have cornerback speed and instincts and simply make plays.
I have contended for years that the two positions with the shortest life span are halfback and safety. Teams start questioning running backs once they get past the age of 28 and once those ball carriers surpass 1,600 totes. Safeties start to lose favor when they are 28 and 29, so it's hard for safeties to hold jobs in their 30s.
Times are a little different now. The league is coming down on teams that try to hide concussions, so more and more safeties are going to miss games because of that type of injury. With the number of safety injuries increasing, teams can't completely ignore safeties just because of their age.
These veteran free-agent safeties at least should be invited to training camp instead of training on their own hoping to continue their dreams of playing. They are known as "eight in the box" safeties. They shouldn't be excluded from this box when they still have some hits in them.
John Clayton, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame writers' wing, is a senior writer for ESPN.com.
LINK
ESPN.com
Updated: October 27, 2007
The Miami Dolphins made an interesting move Wednesday by bringing back Lance Schulters from what inaccurately might be considered the scrap heap of discarded veteran safeties.
Schulters, if you remember, was always a force at safety in his formative years with the San Francisco 49ers and Tennessee Titans. He was old school. He could step up into the tackle box and be a force against the run. He could punish any receiver venturing into the middle of the field on crossing routes. But once he reached the age of 30, he got that dreaded label of being just an "eight-in-the-box'" safety, which turned him into a minimum-salary hired gun with no job security.
Over the past couple of years, teams have tried to add more speed and coverage ability to the safety position, putting safeties who play like linebackers on the outs. It's understandable. Offenses are spreading the field with more receivers. Defenses have to counter with more athletic players who can cover them.
But I'm starting to wonder if the trend is being a little shortsighted. What we're seeing is teams taking cornerbacks and turning them into safeties, not giving real safeties the chance to come to training camp. Believe it or not, there is safety in hiring the "real" safeties.
Just the other day I talked to Tony Parrish, a top-level safety who was a star in Chicago and San Francisco. The 49ers tried to get a little younger at safety and let Parrish go and he finished last season with the Dallas Cowboys. His phone was silent during the offseason. For the life of me, I don't know why.
Parrish is a real safety. He can hit and he can cover. To prove that point, he linked up with one of the most respected trainers in the business, Tom Shaw. According to Parrish and Shaw, he's running 4.4 40s, which is cornerback speed. With that kind of speed and with his ability to anticipate plays by reading quarterbacks -- he has 30 career interceptions -- Parrish can help out in some man-to-man situations if necessary. Heck, some of the converted cornerbacks don't have 4.4 speed.
But the only stat general managers seem to care about in regard to him is his age. He's 31. He's sent tapes of his workouts to general managers and he's still awaiting a phone call.
Another safety on the streets is veteran Robert Griffith. The former Viking, Brown and Cardinal is 36, but he's played 100 percent of the snaps for the past two seasons. Despite that, he's sitting at home training and waiting for a chance. The phones are unfortunately silent.
Safeties are going down at an alarming pace.
Since the start of the regular season, teams have lost eight starting safeties. The Dolphins have been hit hard. They lost Yeremiah Bell and Renaldo Hill for the season. Travares Tillman will miss his fifth consecutive game after knee surgery. They brought in Donovin Darius for help but let him go because of injuries to his calf. The Bears have lost safeties Mike Brown and Kevin Payne for the season. The Bills lost Ko Simpson. The list goes on and on.
In getting younger and quicker at the safety position, teams might be getting less durable. Coaches have a real dilemma. Matching a quick tight end against a slow safety is an advantage to the offense, but it's also a lot to ask of some coverage safeties to help out too much against the run. Big collisions with small bodies lead to injuries.
"The game is becoming more vertical, so you don't need those type of safeties as much who need to roll up to the line of scrimmage,'' said Titans coach Jeff Fisher, a former NFL safety. "The cornerbacks who covert to safety aren't as big as the traditional safety so it's tough to get them too involved in stopping the run."
Of the 64 starting safeties, only 14 are older than 30 and two of those older safeties -- Sammy Knight of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Deke Cooper of the Carolina Panthers -- were signed or promoted because of injuries.
Knight is 32 and he's in rare company. Only four safeties are older than him, and one of those older safeties (34-year-old Brian Dawkins of the Philadelphia Eagles) hasn't played in a month because of a neck injury.
Age isn't the only surprising stat about the safeties. There's also their weight. A total of 19 safeties weigh less than 205 pounds. More than half of the starting safeties (33) are lighter than 210 pounds. Scouts don't give great ratings to backs who weigh 205 or 210 pounds, so imagine the problems of the safeties coming up to stop those 220-to-240-pound running backs. Ouch.
"For safeties, it's a game of speed and explosion," Indianapolis Colts general manager Bill Polian said. "You don't have to have the greatest athletes, but you need good athletes. But there is so much run support in the Cover 2 that you have guys running and getting caught in awkward positions. If you have an athlete who is stiff and not fluid, he could get hurt. It's a game of speed and blowing people up."
Teams need to cover themselves. If they are going for the Lance Schulters-type eight weeks into the season, they need to bring safeties like Schulters, Parrish and Griffith into camp. General managers seem to turn on safeties after they turn 30. Aging safeties lose speed but they gain experience and savvy. The game slows down for them.
Too many safeties end up out of work at an early age, but it's not as though many of the converted cornerbacks hold up any better. Don't forget not to forget the vet.
This is a golden age for top safeties. Ed Reed, Troy Polamalu and Bob Sanders have taken the position to new levels. They have cornerback speed and instincts and simply make plays.
I have contended for years that the two positions with the shortest life span are halfback and safety. Teams start questioning running backs once they get past the age of 28 and once those ball carriers surpass 1,600 totes. Safeties start to lose favor when they are 28 and 29, so it's hard for safeties to hold jobs in their 30s.
Times are a little different now. The league is coming down on teams that try to hide concussions, so more and more safeties are going to miss games because of that type of injury. With the number of safety injuries increasing, teams can't completely ignore safeties just because of their age.
These veteran free-agent safeties at least should be invited to training camp instead of training on their own hoping to continue their dreams of playing. They are known as "eight in the box" safeties. They shouldn't be excluded from this box when they still have some hits in them.
John Clayton, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame writers' wing, is a senior writer for ESPN.com.
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