Kyle Hamilton: Not Your Traditional Safety
Don't count out the move based on the position
🗽 Good morning Jets fans. Keeping with the theme of the week, today's newsletter is all about safeties, well just the one safety to be precise.
🏈 I was recently listening to Eagles Director of Player Personnel Brandon Brown talk about how professional teams scout the safety position, and how that position is one of the more difficult positions to scout in football, maybe only behind scouting quarterbacks. Here’s why:
“I think it is one of the more difficult positions to project and evaluate because of the mental rigours that happen pre-snap and the responsibilities in terms of making sure the rest of that backend are aligned where they need to be and you know the great safeties, in my opinion, are high-level communicators where they can line guys up, but also know and be in a position to make plays themselves, and also have some savviness to them, it’s a game of chess where the really good safeties, they can disguise, they know where they need to be at the snap of the ball so they can disguise their alignment pre-snap, and it’s almost a cat and mouse game they play with the Quarterback”
This got my mind whirring around Kyle Hamilton, a player who has been praised for many reasons since bursting onto the scenes at Notre Dame as a freshman in 2019, but two characteristics that you hear, time and time again, are around his communication and football IQ. It’s just a couple of the reasons why he was voted a team captain. Earlier this season he had surgery on his knee, and the same week he was an acting “secondary coach”, helping the defensive backs break down film for the visiting North Carolina team.
When I first started to think about Kyle Hamilton as a Jet, I wasn’t that interested. Call it PTSD, a post-traumatic safety disorder after the whole Jamal Adams thing. But then I just started watching Hamilton and its as clear as day they are two completely different prospects, games from 2019, 2020 and 2021…it’s near impossible to not come away from that tape and say, this is a guy that the New York Jets could really do with. The Flaws of Jamal Adams are the strengths of Hamilton and it’s the versatility of Kyle that makes him appealing to a team that has very little.
Robby Sabo summed it up perfectly
I think the resistance to Kyle comes from the positional label that we attach to him. A safety, but labeling him as just a safety without looking into it is doing him a great disservice. He may be a safety in name, but he is the ultimate chess piece that a creative defensive coordinator would have dreams about and opposing offensive coordinators would have nightmares about.
In 2021 alone I saw him play as a single high, two high, WILL linebacker, Robber, in zone coverage underneath and deep, in the box, on the line, man to man with tight ends, and man to man with running backs. He did all of that to a standard that I rarely see in the college game.
Statistically speaking he’s been productive:
After a down year in 2020 in relation to making plays on the ball, Hamilton was having a bounce-back year in 2021 with 3 interceptions in 7 games to go with 4 pass defenses. At 6’4, 220lbs he’s a long, athletic rangy safety who is one of the better open-field tacklers in college football. Where college players tend to come unstuck in terms of safeties is their angles to the football, but Hamilton doesn’t have that problem, he rarely takes the wrong route and his combination of athleticism/explosion are exceptional, add that to the range that he showcases on a regular basis and you have one outstanding prospect.
The Jets need help against the pass and the run, a guy like Hamilton brings both to the table, and because he’s so versatile, Saleh and Ulbrich can find spots for him where he’s going to have the biggest impact. In three years at Notre Dame he gave up 2 touchdowns in coverage, 2 touchdowns against 8 interceptions, and 16 pass defenses. You don’t need me to tell you that’s pretty damn good.
In terms of run support, Hamilton has improved his tackling every single year. When he landed as a Freshman his missed tackle rate in run support was 25%, fast-forward to this year and it’s sitting at 11%. It’s the instincts + play speed that get him to the right spot on time, and he has the patience to wrap up ball carriers instead of going for the big shots that lead to great highlights but also lead to costly misses.
More from Eagles Director of Player Personnel Brandon Brown
“I think more than anything the #1 most important trait is high intellect, that’s king for me. Then versatility is 2, when you look at guys who have a corner background they have the ability to bump out and cover a slot, and as the tight end position becomes more versatile and you have these pass catchers…when you have mismatches you need to have problem solvers, and I think a versatile safety is part of the problem solving piece”
Brown was basically talking about having a safety who has the movement skills of a corner and the size of a safety. Hamilton has over 200 snaps this year as a slot corner and he’s 6’4 and 220lbs with good short and long speed. If you are looking at developing those chess pieces, those problem-solvers for the modern game, you’re looking at a guy like Kyle Hamilton as the prototype.
So far this year the Jets have given up 828 yards and 7 touchdowns to the tight end position, the average reception is going for over 12 yards a catch, that average ranks the Jets 31st in the league at defending TE’s. The Jets have and have had a problem defending tight ends for as long as I can remember, you don’t draft a single player just to fix a problem like that, but if you can fix a number of problems with that being one of them, it’s certainly worth considering.
When researching this newsletter today I took a look at what Daniel Jeremiah had to say about Hamilton, Jeremiah is a guy I really respect so when he talks, I tend to listen, especially when it aligns with what I’m trying to convey about aspects that make Hamilton really special:
“The height/weight/speed combination is impressive, but it's Hamilton's instincts that make him a special talent. You can tell he studies tape. There were two plays in the Boston College game where he made flat-footed reads right after the snap and drove on the football, arriving at the spot before the intended target. That kind of thing doesn't happen unless you've done your homework and trust your eyes/instincts. He is always aware of down/distance and he sniffs out screens in a hurry. NFL defensive coordinators are going to love this guy!”
That football IQ comes in handy when you’re on a team that runs a lot of zone coverage. The Jets run a combination of man and zone schemes but the split is definitely more towards the zone side. Hamilton’s route concept recognition paired with his plus closing speed make him an ideal player in zone concepts, and his length, height and fluidity make him perfect for man coverage assignments.
So far this year Ashtyn Davis is allowing a 90% passer completion percentage into his coverage with 1 pass break up, this isn’t really about Davis though, they could coincide with each other if Davis made the step up. This is about pointing to a problem for the Jets, coverage from the safety position, and offering a solution, drafting Kyle Hamilton.
Former Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly had this to say on Hamilton:
“I don’t think we’ve had the kind of versatility that he brings, because of his length. Length makes up for so many things, you know you’re a step behind, but you’ve got the reach to knock the ball down, you can get to a tackle. With his size you can do so many things with Kyle Hamilton. He’s in so many windows in the passing game that he disrupts throws and timings. He’s a unique player”
If you want that unique player, if you want that chess piece, you have to pay for it. With it being the draft, the price is the draft pick you’d need to spend, and that draft pick is likely a top 5 pick, certainly a top 10 pick. When I thought that Hamilton was just a safety, that seemed a bit rich to me. Having researched him and watched his tape, all of a sudden it doesn’t seem too rich, it just seems smart.
The Jets defense ranks 31st in yards per game, 32nd in points per game, 27th in passing yards per game, 29th in rushing yards per game, 29th in opponents time of possession, 32nd in opponents completion percentage, if there is a defensive stat out there, the Jets are going to be one of the worst in football. Yes, we have injuries, but bring all those guys back and you still need more talent. Doesn’t a guy who can line up all over the field with excellent football recognition and all the physical and mental attributes sound good? He does to me.
If the Jets end up taking Hamilton…you won’t hear any complaints from me.
How does he fit with the Jets?
Last season just after the draft Robert Saleh said this…
"Versatility, that's what we want," Saleh said. "Especially in a league where people are dropping. It's almost a war of attrition. To have versatile athletes step into different spots is what we want to be able to do. It's up to us to go out there and develop them."
Hamilton offers an incredible amount of versatility as we referenced earlier in the newsletter. People often talk about scheme fits, Kyle is a guy who could fit into any scheme in the NFL.
The Jets need a versatile piece they can move around, someone the opposition needs to account for. No defensive coordinator in their right mind will say they don’t want a high IQ 6'4 safety who has length, range, and sound tackling ability.
Is the injury a concern?
It doesn’t seem as though anyone is concerned about the knee injury that limited Hamilton to just 7 games this season. There is no structural damage and he should be absolutely fine for all off-season workouts and the combine. His off-season ankle surgery which kept him out of Spring ball didn’t slow him down one bit in 2021 as he was named a mid-season All-American. You listen to scouts and evaluators and there isn’t a lot of concern about Hamiltons injury history.
Do the Jets value the position enough?
This is the crux of the question, but again I think just labeling this as a ‘do the Jets value the safety position enough’ would be doing a disservice to both Kyle Hamilton and the way Saleh used his safeties in San Francisco while he was doing his best work.
In 2020, Saleh used first-round pick Jimmy Ward all over the field, he had over 200 snaps in three different positions (box, free, and as a slot corner), Ward a first-round pick had that scheme versatility that Saleh craved across his defense. He did exactly the same with Jaquiski Tartt when he was able to stay on the field.
Hamilton is a better prospect than Ward and a significantly better prospect than Tartt, and while Joe Douglas and the Eagles never took a safety high while he was there, Hamilton is so much more than a traditional safety.
Give me context
Context is always key here, sometimes when you say you'd be happy with a player, people believe you’re taking that player over everyone who is available. As much as I’d love the Jets to have their pick of the prospects, that’s not going to happen. Chances are both Aidan Hutchinson and Kayvon Thibodeaux are gone by the time the Jets pick, if one of them is there then you take that guy.
If you’re not sold on anyone else in the top 5-7 picks then you do your best to trade down with someone who is, if you can't move down then you have to take someone. I’m just saying if that someone happens to be Hamilton I won’t complain. He’s a modern defender for the modern game.
I’m not saying this is the perfect draft, but I’m just doing this to show you what a draft could look like with Hamilton. Taking Hamilton doesn’t mean you can’t improve the offense, taking Hamilton doesn’t mean you can’t improve other positions on the defense.
📝 News & Notes 📰
The Baltimore Ravens have signed veteran QB Josh Johnson off the Jets practice squad. Johnson completed 64.4% of his passes this year with 3 touchdowns to just one interception.
Robert Saleh confirmed there was no update on Jets tackle Mekhi Becton, saying it was getting down to “crunch time” in relation to him returning to the team in 2021. For what it’s worth, I think the Jets should shut him down and concentrate on getting him prepared for 2022.
Confirmed the team will be getting Michael Carter, Michael Carter II, Tevin Coleman, Bryce Huff, Tyler Kroft and Wesco back ahead of the game this weekend.
Mike White is dealing with a non-covid related illness at the moment so the Jets are officially down to Zach Wilson and Joe Flacco, Saleh said they may bring in a QB to stash on the practice squad after losing Johnson.