Ranking the top safeties in the NFL ahead of the 2022 regular season

It is feasible that football is coming into a golden age when considering about the best safeties in the NFL in 2022.

Limiting a checklist of the greatest safeties in soccer to a major-10 was tougher this period than at any other level in league heritage. After all, some of the best NFL gamers this year can be uncovered in the defensive backfield.

Greatest safeties in NFL 2022

But who are the NFL’s best safeties proper now? Admittedly, choosing on the most effective safeties in the NFL in 2022 was not straightforward.

Our NFL player rankings needed some bold period predictions when it comes to what safeties will have the best year and stand out the most this yr. While we assume some people to disagree, in this article is our ranking of the major safeties in the NFL in 2022.

10. Jordan Poyer

Jordan Poyer’s teammate Micah Hyde wasn’t considerably from creating our record, as the two make up one particular of the ideal basic safety tandems in the NFL suitable now. The two Poyer and Hyde have been earlier mentioned-regular safeties for a amount of years, but now that the Expenses are becoming identified as just one of the top rated teams in the AFC, Buffalo’s safeties are having the recognition they should have.

Poyer, an elite athlete who was also a substantial school baseball star, has taken items to an additional level around the last pair of many years in Buffalo, earning Initial-Team All-Professional honors in 2021. With Hyde nevertheless together with him, Poyer is established up to have a different outstanding season in 2022.

9. Marcus Williams

We’re heading to study a good deal about Marcus Williams this yr, as he’s leaving the comfort of New Orleans and becoming a member of the Ravens right after signing a 5-calendar year, $70 million agreement.

In the course of the previous number of years with the Saints, he’s turn into one particular of the most continual and reputable safeties in the league. Williams has done a good occupation of placing his folly during the Minneapolis Wonder as a rookie powering him.

He’s also approaching the age exactly where he must be getting into the best seasons of his career, so there really should be very little question that Baltimore designed a clever financial investment in Williams.

8. Quandre Diggs

Finding out of Detroit in 2019 predictably turned into a blessing for Quandre Diggs. In his very first two full seasons with the Seahawks, he’s been named to the Pro Bowl, amassing 10 interceptions and 17 defended passes.

Keep in mind that Diggs performed cornerback and nickel back early in his occupation, which has undoubtedly served him. But now that he’s taking part in security and gotten settled in with the Seahawks, he’s turned into a single of the much more underrated defensive backs in the league and a player who could be about to have one particular of the most effective seasons of his job in 2022.

7. Jessie Bates

Jessie Bates has grow to be so important to Cincinnati’s defense that the Bengals applied the franchise tag on him to hold him in 2022. Granted, his quantities were a minimal much more remarkable in 2020 than in 2021, but he’s nevertheless generating very a resume for himself.

In his very first 4 pro seasons, Bates has accumulated 10 interceptions and 35 defended passes, not which include his interception of Matthew Stafford in the Tremendous Bowl. There’s no doubt that he belongs to be incorporated amid the ideal safeties in the league ideal now.

6. Antoine Winfield Jr.

It’s only taken two seasons for Antoine Winfield to be thought of among the the greatest defensive backs in the league, substantially like his father was numerous yrs ago.

The younger Winfield was an instant starter with the Bucs as a rookie, assisting them to acquire the Tremendous Bowl. He was even improved in his 2nd season, earning a Professional Bowl place as a replacement for Diggs. Presented the point that he’s only 24 and has the lineage of a star player, the ideal could be but to arrive from Winfield.

5. Budda Baker

When compared to the other leading safeties in the league, Budda Baker is a very little undersized. But that hasn’t stopped him from becoming just one of the NFL’s greatest at his situation.

Baker has been to the Pro Bowl in four of the past 5 seasons and is coming off a person of his most effective seasons in 2021 with career-highs in interceptions and passes defended. Right after all, there are causes why the Cardinals briefly produced him the highest-compensated protection in league history in 2020.

Irrespective of being a little smaller than the recent product for safeties, Baker proceeds to make performs all over the area and carries on to perform at a superior amount, maintaining him between the most effective in the league year just after yr.

4. Justin Simmons

Justin Simmons has turn out to be so continuously good that he’s virtually easy to fail to remember or neglect. Nevertheless, immediately after being a Second-Crew All-Pro selection final year, he’s bound to be 1 of the best safeties in the NFL in 2022 as very well.

Simmons is an athletic freak who does matters that only a handful of defensive players can do. He’s also grabbed five interceptions in back again-to-again seasons and was the backbone of an underrated Denver defense in 2021, placing him up for an additional outstanding campaign in 2022.

3. Minkah Fitzpatrick

Pittsburgh and Minkah Fitzpatrick have turned into the perfect pair, which is why he gained a 4-calendar year, $73.6 million extension this previous offseason. Though some of his figures took a slight dip in 2021 following Fitzpatrick gained First-Team All-Pro honors in 2019 and 2020, he did set a profession-large with 124 tackles final calendar year, together with 84 solo tackles.

In his three seasons with the Steelers, Fitzpatrick has 13 interceptions and 36 defended passes, which is the kind of manufacturing that any workforce will gladly consider from their basic safety. The most effective section is that he’s even now just 25, so the upcoming few seasons really should be Fitzpatrick hitting his prime and being at his ideal.

2. Kevin Byard

Kevin Byard has been 1 of the ideal safeties in the NFL a lot more or less since he entered the league in 2016 and he is now actively playing some of the most effective soccer of his job.

He led the league in interceptions in his 2nd period in the league and has managed that similar amount of participate in. Outdoors of his rookie time, Byard has started off each and every sport of his career when averaging around 5 interceptions per period more than the previous five decades.

Just after currently being overlooked for a couple of decades, Byard eventually received back to acquiring Professional Bowl and 1st-Workforce All-Professional honors in 2021. But never child oneself, he’s been a person of the top safeties in the NFL for the past various decades.

1. Derwin James

There ended up some questions about Derwin James heading into final year since he was limited to 5 game titles in 2019 and skipped the complete 2020 season owing to damage.

But the previous Florida Point out standout proved final time that he’s nutritious and 1 of the NFL’s ideal safeties appropriate now.

James does it all and makes plays all above the area. He gathered 75 solo tackles last year, alongside with two sacks, a few compelled fumbles, and 5 defended passes.

Useless to say, that general performance attained him a Professional Bowl collection and a place on the First-Team All-Professional crew, just like he did during his rookie year in 2018 right before the accidents. At age 26 and with the best height and velocity for the situation, James is poised to be the ideal basic safety in the league this year.