The Baltimore Ravens made one of the biggest splashes of 2022 free agency by signing star safety Marcus Williams to a five-year, $70 million contract. The 25-year-old will slot in at the free safety position for Baltimore, where he’s expected to have a massive impact.
When looking at some of the most interesting scheme fits of 2022 free agency, Seth Galina of Pro Football Focus named Williams on his list, detailing that the amount of times that new defensive coordinator ran single-high coverage in 2021 at the University of Michigan was vastly different than that of former defensive coordinator Don Martindale.
“The Ravens have been a high safety team for quite a while under former defensive coordinator Don “Wink” Martindale. Cover 1 and Cover 3 represented 61% of their defensive calls over the past three seasons. On 50% of their calls they showed a one-high safety look pre-snap and then played a one-high safety defense post-snap…MacDonald showed and played single high only 27% of the time in 2021, and his 30% blitz rate is a far cry from the Ravens’ 50% mark in 2019 and 2020 combined.”
However, Galina doesn’t see the potential of less single-high snaps as a bad thing for Williams.
“This definitely suits Williams. Even though he played in the deep middle often, the New Orleans Saints would rotate him back from more disguised pre-snap alignments. He also performed very well in half-field or quarters roles, earning the fourth-highest grade over the past three seasons there…The Ravens heading in this direction schematically is perfect for Williams, as he can stay in a scheme that is at least similar from a pre-snap perspective to the one in New Orleans as opposed to the one under Martindale.”
Williams is a versatile player, and as Galina notes can play in a numerous amount of roles for any defense. It will be interesting to see how much Macdonald stays with or pivots away from his tendencies at Michigan. It appears that he will install plenty of new looks in the Ravens’ defense, but also won’t move completely away from what Martindale build over his time in Baltimore.
Regardless of the full system put in place by Macdonald, Williams should thrive as one of the team’s key defensive contributors. He’s one of the best young safeties in the NFL, and only adds to a plethora of talent in the Baltimore secondary.