DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2020 NFL Season 2020 NFL Draft Browns select safety Grant Delpit with the 44th pick

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What position does he play?

Ah cool.

Great pick. We def needed a safety and he's one of the best rated in college this year.

Would have preferred Winfield Jr, but hey, this kid doesn't look bad either. We got our two best positions of need.

Also found it kind of funny that the Giants got first pick of Tackle and Saftey. The Browns got the next choice of Tackle and Safety, and then the Buccs got the leftovers for both spots. Will be interesting to see who made out the best.

Even after a rough junior season, LSU safety Grant Delpit is a good analytical prospect

By Eric Eager
Mar 24, 2020



[Editor's Note: PFF's new college-to-pro projection system is powered by AWS machine learning capabilities.]

After a sophomore season in which he earned an 84.4 overall grade in 847 snaps, Delpit regressed a bit his junior year to 68.7, missing 20 tackles and allowing 14 of 22 passes into his coverage to be completed. Injuries were a big reason for this decline, as an undisclosed preseason injury lingered throughout the season.

Using our college-to-pro system, we will look at Delpit’s projected performance during his rookie contract. This projection uses his play-by-play data from college, adjusts it for play- and opponent-level context and weighs more-recent data more than past data.

How Delpit Projects as a Coverage Player

Coverage is the most important thing a safety does, and Delpit projects well there. Only Geno Stone of Iowa projects to have a bigger “playmaker rate” — rate of passes broken up and interceptions per primary coverage snap — than Delpit does in the context-free environment:

Grant Delpit’s projected completion percentage allowed and playmaker rate during the first five years of his NFL career in the context-free environment.

No safety plays in a context-free environment, though, as some guys are predominantly slot guys, some play deep and others play in the box. Delpit split time almost equally a season ago between deep safety (385 snaps) and slot cornerback (316). If we give him said split as a coverage player, his projections get even better (and more narrow, since the uncertainty of “what will he do?” largely goes away):

Grant Delpit’s projected completion percentage allowed and playmaker rate during the first five years of his NFL career in an environment where 20 percent of his coverage snaps are in the box, 40 percent are in the slot and 40 percent are deep. Median rates for free safeties in the NFL are represented by the dotted lines.

Of course, Delpit’s role will be largely determined by who drafts him, and George Chahrouri and I went with Tampa Bay in Round 1 in our mock draft. If Delpit were deployed more like Jamal Adams was in Todd Bowles’ scheme in New York in 2018, which was more of a 55% box, 15% slot, 30% deep split, his projected coverage data takes a little bit of a hit, but still lands him as one of the most efficient playmakers in his class:

Grant Delpit’s projected completion percentage allowed and playmaker rate during the first five years of his NFL career in an environment where 55 percent of his coverage snaps are in the box, 15 percent are in the slot and 30 percent are deep.

Delpit's projections in coverage come with some impressive statistical comps: Earl Thomas, Tony Jefferson, Ricardo Allen, Montae Nicholson and Tavon Wilson.

How Delpit Projects as a Pass Rusher

Over the past two seasons, Delpit has been a good pass rusher, taking part in six sacks and generating 18 total pressures. He was better in 2018 than 2019, but the talent to do some damage in that area of the game is there.

Grant Delpit’s projected pressure and sack rate during the first five years of his NFL career in the context-free environment.

While this pressure rate is not as high as some of his contemporaries (Kyle Dugger, Antoine Winfield Jr., Xavier McKinney), it increases with different usages and is certainly passable at the position.

How Delpit Projects as a Run Defender

Run defense is one of those things that teams probably overvalue in safeties, but it exemplifies traits that are important to have in the passing game as well (being able to make tackles short of the line the gain). In this regard, Delpit is one of the best in his class in terms of stop rate (rate of tackles that elicit an unsuccessful play by the offense) and positively graded play rate in the run game:

Grant Delpit’s projected stop and positively graded play rate in the running game during the first five years of his NFL career in an environment where he plays 20 percent of his snaps in the box, 40 percent in the slot and 40 percent deep.

Despite some regression during his junior year, Delpit is a great pro prospect at an important position. Due to recency bias, we’ve seen his stock decline over the past year, meaning that whoever selects him come April will get a value — especially for a ready-made defense in need of a playmaker.

Thoughts Vers? You like the pick?

It's okay. Kinda hard to talk on here because each year we read how great every pick is.

Not sure he is as great as folks are saying, but I don't dislike the pick. I would say it seems to be a decent pick.

Wow!!! That video was simply awesome! That is the type of highlights you usually watch for 1st round picks.