Here are the results for Safeties taken in the first round from 2000 to 2009.
Year | Player | Pick | Starts | Tackles | INT | FF | Pro Bowls | Rating |
2000 | Rashard Anderson | 23 | 9 | 51 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 7 |
2001 | Adam Archuleta | 20 | 87 | 530 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 4 |
Jamar Fletcher | 26 | 12 | 170 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 5 | |
Derrick Gibson | 28 | 32 | 194 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 5 | |
2002 | Roy Williams | 8 | 96 | 534 | 19 | 9 | 5 | 2 |
Ed Reed | 24 | 117 | 458 | 46 | 8 | 6 | 1 | |
Mike Rumph | 27 | 19 | 138 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 7 | |
2003 | Troy Polamalu | 16 | 77 | 452 | 20 | 7 | 6 | 1 |
2004 | Sean Taylor | 5 | 53 | 299 | 12 | 8 | 3 | 2 |
2005 | Antrel Rolle | 8 | 69 | 335 | 12 | 3 | 1 | 3 |
Marlin Jackson | 29 | 225 | 43 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 4 | |
2006 | Michael Huff | 7 | 51 | 250 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
Donte Whitner | 8 | 50 | 227 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | |
2007 | Laron Landry | 6 | 47 | 250 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 3 |
Michael Griffin | 19 | 41 | 206 | 11 | 4 | 0 | 4 | |
Reggie Nelson | 21 | 42 | 187 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 4 | |
B. Meriweather | 24 | 27 | 193 | 9 | 5 | 1 | 4 | |
2008 | Kenny Phillips | 31 | 5 | 80 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
AVG | SAFETY | 1.2 | 3.7 | |||||
LINEBACKER | 0.9 | 3.2 | ||||||
DEFENSIVE TACKLE | 0.6 | 4.1 |
Speaking objectively, just look at the last three lines for the positions broken down to date. The original observation was that drafting Defensive Tackle in aggregate did not generate the kind of returns from the First Round we would expect. So far, the data from using the elementary 1-7 Rating system and number of Pro Bowls collected bears this out. We saw from the numbers that 31 Defensive Tackles generated 19 Pro Bowl appearances and knew that was low. Well, here with the Safeties, we have 22 Pro Bowls from 16 players. That is HALF the players generating more Pro Bowls. If we wanted to use more exhaustive criteria, would Defensive Tackle be able to close that kind of gap? This is pretty damning evidence that NFL GMs are drafting too many DTs too early. We’ll keep going through all of the positions before making final conclusions.
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