Most NFL personnel people agree on two things about this year’s class of safeties: It’s a relatively weak group, and Alabama’s Ha Ha Clinton-Dix is the best of the bunch.
“As far as the elite safety, it’s down,” Don Gregory, director of college scouting for the Panthers, told Bob McGinn of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “There’s solid ones but there’s not an elite guy.”
McGinn polled 19 scouts and found that 13 of them considered Clinton-Dix the best safety in this year’s draft class. Three scouts prefer Calvin Pryor of Louisville, while Jimmie Ward of Northern Illinois, Deone Bucannon of Washington State and Lamarcus Joyner of Florida State were the favorite of one scout each.
But in a sign of just how weak the safety class is, one personnel man said of Clinton-Dix and Pryor, “I would not take either of those guys in the first round.” This is a bad year to have a need at safety.