Lions coach Jim Schwartz loves his safeties.
Schwartz said Friday that Detroit’s starting safeties, Louis Delmas and Glover Quin, can cover receivers, cover tight ends, play the run and basically do anything that any team would ever want its safeties to do.
“If we can keep that pair of safeties on the field, they can be as good as anybody in the NFL,” Schwartz said. “Hard to mismatch us. Harder we can match tight ends. We can matchup wide receivers. Both guys can play in the box. Both guys are good in the deep part of the field. Both of them are good tacklers. Have good range. It’s definitely an advantage for defense to have two safeties like that.”
In Delmas’s case, that part about keeping him on the field is a pretty big “if.” Delmas has been a bit like former Colts safety Bob Sanders: very good when he’s 100 percent, but hurt so often that we rarely see him at 100 percent.
But if the Lions can get 16 games from both Delmas and Quin, Schwartz has ever reason to be 100 percent confident in his safeties.