{"id":11215,"date":"2012-03-06T20:39:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-07T00:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jetnation.com\/?p=11215"},"modified":"2012-03-16T23:14:22","modified_gmt":"2012-03-17T03:14:22","slug":"slim-pickings-at-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/2012\/03\/06\/slim-pickings-at-safety\/","title":{"rendered":"Slim Pickings at Safety"},"content":{"rendered":"

Safety is a position that requires major improvements for the Jets\u00a0this off season.\u00a0 The underwhelming starter Eric Smith<\/a>, currently still with the team, was often seen chasing tight ends down the field and seemed to lack the speed necessary to cover a large area.\u00a0 While unrestricted free agent former starter Jim Leonhard had suffered season ending injuries in the past two years and will not be healthy enough for the beginning of next season.\u00a0\u00a0Reserve Brodney Pool, also an unrestricted free agent, had a mediocre performance last year and the safeties as a whole needed to be upgraded.<\/p>\n

Heading into free agency at least one player will\u00a0have to be picked up by the team.\u00a0 Big names safeties like Tyvon Branch, Michael Griffin, Dashon Goldson and Thomas DeCoud were all set to become unrestricted free agents on March 13.\u00a0 Even though they may have been outside the budget the Jets could have \u2018kicked the tires\u2019 at least on some of them.\u00a0 With Branch, Griffin and Goldson <\/a>being franchised and DeCoud <\/a>resigned this has put an end to any hope of acquiring them.\u00a0 Seems the Jets will have to look at lower tier players like Reggie Nelson, Tom Zbikowski, the often injured may not be available to start the season LaRon Landry and former Jet Dwight Lowery in free agency.<\/p>\n

It is also possible to improve the position in the upcoming draft but the overall talent level at safety is considered to be weak.\u00a0 Mark Barron from Alabama is the consensus number one safety available in the 2012 draft and while some feel he could fall to the Jets at their second round pick #47 there is a good chance he\u2019ll be gone by then.\u00a0 Unfortunately Barron had recent surgery <\/a>and could not participate in the NFL combine or do any workouts for teams.\u00a0 He is hoping to be able to run and perform drills at a workout later in March.\u00a0 The question remains, do you reach for Barron with your first round pick #16 cause of need, potentially giving up another player?<\/p>\n

It sure looks like the Jets will pick up a safety in free agency and draft another.\u00a0 They could also resign Leonhard, having him available later in the year, and Pool as well as use Smith in a diminished role.\u00a0 This major upgrade at safety most likely won\u2019t happen but hopefully they can put pieces in place for an improvement over last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Safety is a position that requires major improvements for the Jets\u00a0this off season.\u00a0 The underwhelming starter Eric Smith, currently still with the team, was often seen chasing tight ends down the field and seemed to lack the speed necessary to cover a large area.\u00a0 While unrestricted free agent former starter Jim Leonhard had suffered season […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11215","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-featured-editorials"},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peLffi-2UT","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11215"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11505,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11215\/revisions\/11505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}