In addition to this article about safeties, you can check out my deep dives on positions below, starting with quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, and offensive linemen. I’ll continue to provide 2023 NFL Draft coverage, culminating in my top-500 NFL Draft rankings and big board ahead of the first pick being announced later this month.
1. Brian Branch | Alabama | 5115/190 | RAS: 5.27
Player comparison: Tyrann Mathieu
Brian Branch arrived at Alabama as a four-star recruit and consensus top-100 overall prospect in the 2020 class. He was part of the Crimson Tide’s recruiting haul that included QB Bryce Young, EDGE Will Anderson and LB Drew Sanders.
As a true freshman, Branch started three games on the event national title-winning team. The following year, as a sophomore, Branch became a starter, and a good one.
But it was last season, as a junior, when Branched blossomed into a star, earning second-team All-American accolades. Branch made the easy decision to declare early for the draft in January. He’s going to go wire-to-wire as S1.
Branch has a Mensa-level football IQ. He sees the field and reacts to information like a 10-year NFL veteran. Against the run, Branch triggers downhill instantly in a straight-line to the ball. Even big slots have trouble impeding his progress.
And, in contrast to the high percentage of slot prospects in recent years who take the long route to run around blockers, Branch is categorically unwilling to sacrifice his path. Quite the opposite.
He’ll sacrifice his body to take out the lead envoy. He’ll engage offensive linemen. You don’t see sub-200 pounders with this sort of fearlessness venturing into the land of giants around the line of scrimmage.
In other reps, he’s the heat-seeking missile weaving through traffic to reach the ball, with a pursuit path that changes the instant the ball-carrier’s does. Whatever the situation calls for.
Branch is an efficiency monster who saves a metric ton of yards with his tackling reliability at volume. Branch missed only 2.3% of his tackle attempts in college. You could count his career misses on one hand even if you were missing a digit. In 2021, Branch took 624 snaps and missed zero tackles.
That part of his game has been consistent since he stepped foot on campus. Coverage was another story. Branch had improved to solid-but-not-spectacular in that area by 2021. That year, as a sophomore, he allowed 376 yards and four TD on 55 coverage targets with zero INT.
In 2022, Branch made the leap in this area. Over 57 targets, Branch surrendered a mere 240 yards and two TD. He picked off two balls, and broke up another six. In the process, he slashed his NFL QB rating against from 110.9 to 69.3.
Branch only tested as a 52nd-percentile size-adjusted athlete during this draft process. But you wouldn’t know it from his game film. In man coverage, Branch’s compact backpedal wastes no motion, and his precise footwork and loose hips get him through transitions with no extra steps.
There is no test at the NFL Combine for efficiency of movement. Were there, Branch’s athletic composite would have come in higher. In conjunction with his unique ability to sniff out route patterns, Branch is extremely difficult to shake.
Last year, Branch started to consistently make plays on the ball. He reads the receiver’s body language and snaps his head around with the ball descending.
In addition to his extensive work in the slot, we saw over 100 snaps of Branch at free safety, over 50 snuck up on the edge, and exactly 40 at outside corner. Alabama was so stacked that it didn’t need Branch to wear any more hats than that.
But it’s in his toolbox if his NFL team needs it. Branch’s game translates smoothly deep, in large part because of that processor. But I’m not taking him out of the nickel role he excelled in under Saban. The concept is proven.
Areas of developmental emphasis for Branch are a continuation of the progress he made last year in coverage. In man coverage, he toes the line with aggressive hands – he wants the receiver to feel his presence, sometimes a little too much.
He’s one of those defensive backs who will subtly tug out of route breaks or downfield at the catch point to complicate pressure-point receiver movements. But that’s a habit he’s going to need to be more clever and sneaky with at the next level if he wants to avoid laundry on the field.
And he doesn’t appear to be quite as comfortable in man when not starting at the line of scrimmage. Branch’s predilection for making his opponent feel his presence gets lost in translation with the cushion, and it can appear sometimes as though he’s battling back from a deficit in the beats after a free-release receiver with a running head-start approaches him.
Branch has the speed and movement for most routes and slot types, but it might be best to have someone else man nickel against straight NFL burners. Branch plays faster than he tested, but he simply doesn’t have the wheels to footrace low-4.4 guys.
This is a straightforward eval. Brian Branch is going to be a high-end NFL nickel defender. He’s a top-25 overall prospect in this class.
Like Branch, Antonio Johnson was a four-star safety in the 2020 recruiting class. Interestingly, Branch finished as the No. 3-ranked safety in the 247Composite rankings, while Johnson finished No. 4.
And like Branch, Johnson saw the field as a rotational nickel defender his true freshman year before taking over those responsibilities full-time the next two seasons. Johnson actually outplayed Branch as a sophomore in 2021, earning second-team All-SEC honors.
But Johnson is a very different sort of nickel defender than Branch. Branch is the all-around defender. Johnson is the enforcer in a bigger package. Johnson stands two-and-and-half-inches taller than Branch with a 77 4/8″ wingspan that bests Branch by the exact same margin.
Johnson is also faster than Branch, with a 78th-percentile size-adjusted 4.52 forty at the NFL Combine (Branch ran a 4.58). But whereas Branch locked himself into Round 1 with an enormous leap in 2022, Johnson took a minor step back as a junior. He is likely to be available on Day 2 for this reason.
This happened in two primary areas. In 2022, Johnson’s missed-tackle almost doubled from the previous season (8.4% to 15.5%). He also regressed from the promising coverage chops he had shown in 2021.
Let’s start with the coverage. Johnson’s NFL passer rating against spiked from 71.2 to 91.2 in 2022. In 162 less coverage snaps than the year before, Johnson was flagged three more times.
Johnson’s coverage out of the slot will be just fine at the NFL level – with a crucial caveat. He’s effective against big slots. It’s the smaller, shiftier slot receivers that give him trouble. You’re asking for trouble if you strand him on islands against those guys. He simply doesn’t have the agility for the assignment.
Johnson has quick feet and good speed. But he’s a high-cut long-strider with a stiff lower-half. Johnson naturally runs, plays, and backpedals high. He is not a sudden direction-changer, with extra steps required in transition.
During the pre-draft process, Johnson struggled in the jumps and agility drills. Johnson had a 14th-percentile vertical jump. His showings in the broad jump, 3-cone, and shuttle all checked in between the 35th-percentile and 44th-percentile.
Johnson doesn’t have Branch’s skill for sniffing out route patterns, which amplifies his clunkiness in-and-out of transitions against Ferrari athletes. And though Johnson has enough foot speed in a vacuum to carry deep, he can be beat over-the-top by burners in part because of his creaky hip flip.
But Johnson has the size, length and play strength to shut down any bully-ball ideas. His work against Arkansas WR Treylon Burks in 2021 is a high-profile example of this. Burks did damage that day when aligned outside. But in the slot against Johnson, Burks had issues freeing himself in the intermediate area and got bullied at the catch point.
Johnson has shown some aptitude for zone coverage but remains inconsistent in this area. He interrogates the quarterback’s eyes and shoots downhill instantly to contest at the catch point. But there are instances of Johnson missing threats who have wandered into his area because he was locked-in on the quarterback.
Playing Johnson in the slot gets him closer to the ball, and that’s where you want him, because he’s an extra linebacker in run defense who lays the lumber. A&M would situationally move Johnson into the box. He’s perfectly at home there (not so much aligned deep).
Rabid in pursuit, Johnson is a threat to chase down from behind. He keeps contain on his side when he can’t make the play, funneling runners inside to help. No fear around the line of scrimmage. Difficult moving target for offensive linemen to hit. Will engage them when required, and can shed using length and movement.
The area he needs to clean up in this phase is tackling efficiency. Johnson has a big tackling radius to work with, and his hitman style makes balls in the arms of his targets quiver.
But his aggressive nature will need to be fine-tuned by an NFL staff. He doesn’t always pursue in a straight-path, a frenetic chaser who can find himself out of position. Johnson’s bloodlust on the doorstep can also lead to missed tackles.
He flies in hot and uses his shoulder pads like a baseball bat. This leads to explosive hits when he hits the target flush. But when he doesn’t, it’s a high, off-angle attempt that can be sloughed.
With a few tweaks to his game, Johnson could become a difference-maker at the next level. But even with those tweaks, his NFL team needs to take care of his usage in coverage and not put him in positions where he’s destined to fail.
Best of the rest…
3. Jartavius Martin | Illinois | 5110/194 | RAS: 9.29 | L’Jarius Sneed
4. Jordan Battle | Alabama | 6010/209 | RAS: 5.9 | Comp: Adrian Amos
5. Jammie Robinson | Florida State | 5110/191 | RAS: 6.07 | Comp: Quandre Diggs
6. Sydney Brown | Illinois | 5100/211 | RAS: 9.68 | Comp: Nick Scott
7. Ji’Ayir Brown | Penn State | 5110/203 | RAS: 5.95 | Comp: Calvin Pryor
8. Marte Mapu | Sacramento State | 6030/221 | RAS: N/A | Comp: Bernard Pollard
9. JL Skinner | Boise State | 6040/209 | RAS: N/A | Comp: Jayron Kearse
10. Jason Taylor II | Oklahoma State | 6000204 | RAS: 8.91 | Comp: Gerald Sensabaugh
11. Christopher Smith | Georgia | 5110/192 | RAS: 2.94 | Comp: Rodney McLeod
12. Kaevon Merriweather | Iowa | 6000/205 | RAS: 7.87 | Comp: Jaylinn Hawkins
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