2026 NFL Draft Prospects: Safeties (S)
Identifying the most consistent college safeties with "above-the-line" scouting grades in the 2026 NFL Draft class.
The Top 300 Players in the 2026 NFL Draft
Caleb Downs, Jeremiyah Love, and Sonny Styles headline a deep 2026 NFL Draft class.
Brad Beatson
Safety is the deepest and cleanest position group in this year's draft class. Every team should consider adding one of these versatile defensive backs.
Safety Archetypes
- ✏️ Coverage Eraser
- Completion Rate ≤50% — Throw up a 50-50 ball at your own risk
- Tgt Help <3 — Quarterbacks rarely tested them when they were the help defender
- 🧱 Sure Tackler
- Total Tackles ≥50 — Consistently around the action
- Broken + Missed Tackles ≤10 — High hit rate
- 🦬 Buffalo nickel
- Slot Rate ≥20% — Inside/outside flex
- Box Rate ≥10% — Willing to sort through the trash
- Pass Rush Snaps ≥20 — Got after the QB
Injury Concerns
- ⛑️ Availability — Injury history collected from SIS and The Athletic
POS RK Player Grade Archetype Badges S1 Caleb Downs 88 Star ✏️ · 🧱 · 🦬 S2 Dillon Thieneman 78 Box 🧱 S3 Emmanuel McNeil-Warren 74 Box S4 Jalon Kilgore 73 Buffalo Nickel ✏️ · 🧱 · 🦬 S5 Kamari Ramsey 73 Star ✏️ · 🧱 · 🦬 S6 A.J. Haulcy 71 Deep S7 Jalen Huskey 70 Deep S8 Louis Moore 64 Deep S9 Dalton Johnson 64 Star S10 Zakee Wheatley 63 Hybrid S11 Genesis Smith 63 Hybrid S12 VJ Payne 60 Hybrid ✏️ S13 Bud Clark 59 Hybrid 🧱 S14 Michael Taaffe 58 Hybrid S15 Xavier Nwankpa 58 Deep S16 Jakobe Thomas 54 Box S17 Bishop Fitzgerald 53 Deep 🧱 S18 Robert Spears-Jennings 53 Deep S19 DeShon Singleton 53 Box ✏️ · 🧱 · ⛑️ S20 Lorenzo Styles Jr. 48 Hybrid 🧱 S21 Ahmaad Moses 39 Hybrid 🦬
Safety archetypes are tied to 2025 usage rates, with a hybrid role meaning they did a little bit of everything.
Some of these defensive backs will end up playing a meaningfully different role in the league, which could impact how quickly they earn consistent snaps on defense.
Raw Prospect Scores
- 🧰 Production Component
- Source: PFF Weekly Grades — Stresses the importance of game-to-game, play-to-play consistency while adjusting for variance. Accounts for every game played during the safety's final two seasons in college.
- Apply Critical Minimum — Weekly grades below 60.0 cannot be smoothed over by two-year average. Instead, once the acceptable threshold for "below-the-line" grades has been crossed, the prospect's production grade is capped and trends toward more of a boom-bust profile.
- 🔬 Film Component
- Source: SIS Scouting Reports — Watch a minimum of 3-5 games per prospect and assign a grade, from 1 (reject) to 9 (rare), to each of their three critical traits and half-dozen or so positional factors. Assign a final grade that projects how the prospect will stack up at their position by the beginning of their second season in the NFL.
- Apply Critical Minimum — Mediocre traits cannot be smoothed over by average. Instead, once the acceptable threshold for "below-the-line" grades has been crossed, the prospect's scouting grade is capped and trends toward more of a boom-bust profile.
- ⚖️ Weighting the Two: 80% Prospect Score
- Position Specific — Some positions have stronger signal in production than film or vice versa and so they are individually weighted to reflect that.
- 40/40 Split — Safety is one of the more even positions from both a production and film standpoint.
Prospect Chips
- 🔵 Blue Chip Potential 75+ production & 75+ film
- 🟢 Solid Contributor — 75+ in prod. or film & 68+ in the other
- ⚪ Situation Dependent — Everyone else
Player Production Film Chip Caleb Downs 76.8 78.8 🔵 Dillon Thieneman 76.1 75.1 🔵 Emmanuel McNeil-Warren 76.9 76.0 🔵 Jalon Kilgore 73.0 64.9 ⚪ Kamari Ramsey 74.6 69.6 ⚪ A.J. Haulcy 75.6 65.6 ⚪ Jalen Huskey 74.7 69.6 ⚪ Louis Moore 72.9 69.6 ⚪ Dalton Johnson 73.6 58.9 ⚪ Zakee Wheatley 74.7 60.5 ⚪ Genesis Smith 73.7 63.2 ⚪ VJ Payne 71.9 39.2 ⚪ Bud Clark 76.7 48.3 ⚪ Michael Taaffe 75.8 39.5 ⚪ Xavier Nwankpa 73.3 45.4 ⚪ Jakobe Thomas 72.2 47.2 ⚪ Bishop Fitzgerald 75.1 39.5 ⚪ Robert Spears-Jennings Inc. Inc. ⚪ DeShon Singleton 72.5 38.8 ⚪ Lorenzo Styles Jr. Inc. Inc. ⚪ Ahmaad Moses Inc. Inc. ⚪
🦺Players with incomplete scores had missing data points and will be revisited after the draft. Bandit Football regrets the error.
Athleticism, Positional Value, Intagibles
- 🏅 Athleticism
- Source: Next Gen Stats — Assigns a 1-10 grade on athletic profile for every player at the Combine. In some cases, NGS estimates the scores if the prospect didn't test in Indianapolis or at their college pro day.
- RAS, MockDraftable, Football Sheets — I've added these sources to my database for future use. Many prospects had incomplete scores due to lack of testing numbers, so it made more sense to use NGS in this iteration of the model because every prospect ended up with a data point.
- 📊 Positional Value
- Source: Spotrac — Analyzing the rookie contract scale and how much guaranteed money each pick receives against the Top 100 cap hits in the NFL by position over the next three seasons. Takes into account the Top 10 highest paid players at their position and the relative cost savings a rookie contract could provide.
- Additive Bonus — Each player was scored on a 1-10 scale using the consensus big board as a guide for projected savings. Fernando Mendoza was the only player to receive a 10 because starting QBs make anywhere from $30-50 million per season. Other positions, like RB, TE, LB, and S were capped at a maximum 5 points.
- S Positional Value
- 1st Rd: Top 15 pick — 5
- 1st Rd: Pro Bowl upside — 4
- 1st Rd: Reliable starter — 3
- 1st Rd: Situation dependent — 2
- 2nd Rounder — 2
- 3rd Rounder — 1
- Projected Day 3 Pick — 0
- 🌹🥀 Intangibles
- Source: Dane Brugler — The Beast prospect guide includes strengths and weaknesses for every player on the big board. Includes off-the-field concerns, quotes from scouts and coaches, and non-negotiable traits for the position.
- My Judgment — Each player was evaluated based on the additional information, including: injury history, work ethic, football iq, off-field concerns, and non-negotiables for their position. For safety, my non-negotiables are football intelligence and sure-tackling.
Badges
- 💰 Positional Value — Prospect earned a 5.0 or higher based on the potential value of their rookie contract.
- 💎 Strong Character — Prospect assigned a 5.0 or higher in their intangible score.
- ⚠️ Investigate Further — Prospect assigned a -5.0 or worse in their intangible score.
Player Athleticism POS Value Intangibles Badges Caleb Downs 7.6 5.0 9.0 💰 💎 Dillon Thieneman 8.5 5.0 2.0 💰 Emmanuel McNeil-Warren 7.4 4.0 2.0 Jalon Kilgore 7.9 2.0 4.0 Kamari Ramsey 7.7 2.0 2.0 A.J. Haulcy 7.5 2.0 3.0 Jalen Huskey 6.6 1.0 3.0 Louis Moore 5.7 0.0 0.0 Dalton Johnson 6.9 0.0 2.0 Zakee Wheatley 6.3 2.0 -1.0 Genesis Smith 8.1 1.0 -3.0 VJ Payne 7.8 1.0 5.0 💎 Bud Clark 7.4 2.0 -2.0 Michael Taaffe 7.3 0.0 3.0 Xavier Nwankpa 7.4 0.0 1.0 Jakobe Thomas 6.6 0.0 -2.0 Bishop Fitzgerald 7.0 0.0 -2.0 Robert Spears-Jennings Inc. Inc. Inc. DeShon Singleton 7.1 0.0 0.0 Lorenzo Styles Jr. Inc. Inc. Inc. Ahmaad Moses Inc. Inc. Inc.
Head back to the Big Board:
The Top 300 Players in the 2026 NFL DraftCaleb Downs, Jeremiyah Love, and Sonny Styles headline a deep 2026 NFL Draft class.Brad Beatson
Caleb Downs earned the highest intangible grade (+9) in the 2026 draft class.
