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Tennessee Titans Kevin Byard should be higher on PFF safety rankings

By Michael Moraitis

NASHVILLE, TN - DECEMBER 24: Safety Kevin Byard #31 of the Tennessee Titans celebrates after making a stop against the Los Angeles Rams at Nissan Stadium on December 24, 2017 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Wesley Hitt/Getty Images)
NASHVILLE, TN - DECEMBER 24: Safety Kevin Byard #31 of the Tennessee Titans celebrates after making a stop against the Los Angeles Rams at Nissan Stadium on December 24, 2017 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Wesley Hitt/Getty Images) /
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Tennessee Titans safety Kevin Byard is so good that not even a top-five ranking among safeties does him proper justice.

It isn’t often a player gets ranked in the top five on a positional list and it still isn’t good enough, but that’s exactly the case with Tennessee Titans safety, Kevin Byard.

At least Pro Football Focus gave Byard some respect by ranking him fourth among safeties, which is much more than we can say for his snub from the NFL Top 100 list.

With that said, Byard should be higher. Here is PFF’s full list of the top-10 safeties:

  1. Earl Thomas, Baltimore Ravens
  2. Harrison Smith, Minnesota Vikings
  3. Derwin James, Los Angeles Chargers
  4. Kevin Byard, Tennessee Titans
  5. Eddie Jackson, Chicago Bears
  6. Jamal Adams, New York Jets
  7. Eric Weddle, Los Angeles Rams
  8. Devin McCourty, New England Patriots
  9. Adrian Amos, Green Bay Packers
  10. Micah Hyde, Buffalo Bills

The first issue with this list is that Byard had a better grade than the three players in front of him. Thomas (n/a), Smith (tied-13th) and James (fifth) all finished with worse 2018 PFF grades than Byard (fourth).

When you also consider some of legendary things he’s done in his three-year career, it makes it even more apparent he should be tops in the NFL.

According to PFF, Byard’s three-year coverage grade from all alignments is a 91.2, which is the “second-best mark ever recorded by a safety with at least 2,000 coverage snaps within the first three years of his career.”

He also has more picks than any defensive back the past two seasons, and his 19.1 percent forced incompletion rate is second all-time to only Hall of Fame safety, Ed Reed.

To further add to the case of Byard being the most complete safety in the NFL, his grades when playing in the box are out of this world. Once again, per PFF, Byard is elite in that regard.

His overall grade of 89.9 ranks second since 2017, while run defense and coverage grades of 87. 3 and 84.3 are ranked third and sixth, respectively.

Bottom line: there is simply no safety in the NFL who can do everything as well as Byard does, and consistently amazing grades show he’s the best in the business at safety.

We can certainly live with a top-five ranking for Byard, but the case can be made that he deserves even better than that.

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