A Closer Look at Eric Berry

We’ve all heard the rumblings. No, not your stomach. I’m talking about: “Eric Berry is not the best corner in the league.” So, fans automatically assume he doesn’t deserve the be paid like the best safety in the league. Some say he does… others say he doesn’t. Although a max contract for Berry would help the Chiefs salary cap issues this season, it may also strap the team for seasons to come. So, let’s take a closer look at Eric Berry.

Whether you agree or disagree that Berry is the best safety in the league, a bigger question to be answered is… where does he come in among the best safeties in the National Football League? Now, that’s the real quizzer isn’t it? So, let’s take a look at who’s in that elite group.

Here are the top safeties in the league based upon their ranking by the players from the NFL’s Top 100, with the number ranking in front of each safety:

28 Tyrann Mathieu

32 Kam Chancellor

55 Eric Berry

60 Reggie Nelson

64 Reshad Jones

66 Earl Thomas

68 T.J. Ward

73 Harrison Smith

– – Eric Weddle

– – Malcolm Jenkins

Let’s recognize that there are two kinds of safety: a strong safety (SS) and a free safety (FS). Eric Berry is a free safety. So is Tyrann Mathieu, as is Earl Thomas, while Kam Chancellor is a strong safety (SS). That’s an important distinction as we attempt to compare apples to apples. So that we can further clear this up moving forward, Reggie Nelson (FS), Harrison Smith (FS), Eric Weddle (FS), Malcolm Jenkins (FS)… and… T.J. Ward (SS), Reshad Jones (SS).

So, the other free safeties to compare to Eric Berry are:

Tyrann Mathieu

Earl Thomas

Reggie Nelson

Harrison Smith

Eric Weddle and

Malcolm Jenkins

A case can be made for each and every one of these safeties. Pro Football Focus (PFF) has a piece out that says that Harrison Smith is the best safety in the league. PFF has Harrison Smith rated as such:

Year | Pass | Run

2014 | +4.3 | +10.4

2015 | +5.9 | +8.7

Pro Football Focus goes on to explain:

“While arguments can be made that Kansas City’s Eric Berry and Seattle’s Earl Thomas are better pure-cover safeties. He is also the only safety with positive grades in all three major categories (coverage, run defense, and pass rush) in both 2014 and 2015.”

That’s curious because Eric Berry only played in 6 games in the 2014 season. Comparing anything to what Berry was personally going through to in 2014 is a useless tool. However, Harrison has played in 52 games, Berry in 68, but Smith has 12 interceptions while Berry has 10. Berry has averaged 45 tackles per year and 5.5 sacks while Smith has averaged exactly the same… 45 tackles per game with 5.5 total sacks.

So, comparing Eric Berry to Harrison Smith is not a bad comparison. From OvertheCap.com,

“Harrison Smith signed a five year contract extension with the Vikings on June 6, 2016 worth $51.25 million in new money. Upon signing, Smith received a $10 million signing bonus and a full guarantee of $15.278 million. The total guaranteed portion of the contract is worth $28.578 million.”

I’ve heard fans talk about one of the last memories of the 2015 season when Berry got turned around against Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski who burned Berry for a TD… essentially ending Kansas City’s season.

Berry, like any other player you might wish to examine with a Sherlock magnifying glass, makes his fair share of mistakes. Once again, PFF evaluated Eric Berry as Comeback Player of the year last season and had this summary,

“… five weeks into the season Berry had the second-best cumulative grade at the position, and had made 19 tackles without a miss. Berry finished the year with an 87.7 overall rating, which ranked fifth among safeties. Berry’s 85.2 coverage rating was fourth-best in the league. His performance was good enough to earn second team PFF All-Pro honors, and helped the Chiefs into the playoffs. Against the Texans in the Wildcard game, Berry had a pick and the best coverage grade on the Chiefs defense.”

About Tyrann Mathieu, PFF has also stated,

“The lines between positions in the NFL can be fuzzy. In hybrid defenses, an edge rusher can be a 4-3 defensive end half of the time, and a 3-4 outside linebacker the other half. Tight ends can play in-line or split out as a wide receiver, safeties can become linebackers in sub-packages, and cornerbacks can become safeties—or vice versa. The Arizona Cardinals’ Tyrann Mathieu is one of the league’s best players this season, and has a real case to make as Defensive Player of the Year—but we seem to spend half our time trying to classify him at one set position or another.”

While Mathieu has become one of the top 28 players in the league, it’s clear, he probably should not be compared to Eric Berry. The Cardinals use him in a host of ways that the Chiefs don’t utilize Eric Berry. You know the apple-to-apple thing-a-ma-jiggy I was talking about earlier… well, it applies here to Mathieu who’s not a fit… so he’s off the comparison table.

Many fans want to compare Earl Thomas to Berry. I’ve heard a lot of football fans say Earl Thomas is the best free safety in the league. Thomas has averaged 64 tackles per year, has 21 interceptions and no sacks.

So, let’s compare the career stats for these free safeties in alphabetical order: Eric Berry, Malcolm Jenkins, Reggie Nelson, Harrison Smith, Earl Thomas and Eric Weddle. First, here’s the key to the graph so you can understand what you’re looking at.

TGS/P = Total games started/played

PD/gs = Passed defensed per game’s started

TT/gp = Total Tackles per game’s played

INT/y = Interceptions per year

CFF/tyl = Career Forced Fumbles- total years in league

Sacks = Total career sacks

PFFo = Pro Football Focus overall rating

While there are points to be made for this safety or that safety, Harrison Smith is the only one who stands out as possibly being better than Eric Berry. He only ranks lower in one category than Berry. With the contract Smith signed in June, as outlined above, it’s a toss up as to whether or not you want to say Eric Berry should… or should not… be paid in alignment with Smith’s contract. If you are thinking maybe he should… and if you’re John Dorsey… you’ll probably have to walk the talk. If the shoe fits… you must submit.

The Chiefs all talk about finding players who are the right “culture” for this team and it’s hard to think of any player who more exemplifies that positive culture than Eric Berry. There’s no one else on the Chiefs roster who would be that guy. It begins with Eric Berry. Period. No disputes on that count.

However, Kansas City is in a catch-22 situation. If they pay Eric Berry the kinds of dollars that it looks like he is worth… the salary cap in future years will be extremely difficult to manage and bringing in more players who can help will not be possible. Take next year when the team wants to pay Dontari Poe, one of the best defensive nose tackles in the game… but they can’t because they just paid out to Eric Berry… and Justin Houston the year before.

Perhaps that’s why they drafted Chris Jones. Maybe John Dorsey thinks he can franchise Poe, get another year out of him, then move Jones into that spot.

I’ve heard it suggested that the Chiefs defense doesn’t need Eric Berry. I can clearly recall what the defense was like before Eric Berry. Fans had been clamoring for good safety play for years. That happens more than you can imagine… fans think they can do without the player they waited for years to come along. I’m not to be counted in that group.

However, I am conflicted. I want Eric Berry in a Chiefs uniform no matter what. I also don’t want what is apparently going to be a cap nightmare just around the corner. Good teams manage the cap well. I’m not so sure that paying Eric Berry a huge contract is managing the cap well.

I know you can look at the graph figures above and argue this way or that way. The reality is, Eric Berry is a great safety. He is. Is he the greatest safety ever? No. Does he make some mistakes in coverage now and then? Yes, but I am guessing that every single other safety on that list does the same… driving his own fans batty… as Berry seems to do in K.C..

Some have reasoned that John Dorsey and Andy Reid can get safety play just as good out of other scrap pieces that they seemingly bring in every year. Don’t count on that. A major reason that those other safeties do so well is that Eric Berry is around to make them look good.

One issue which makes the process of comparing one safety to another very difficult is… that every team asks their safeties to do something different. For instance, you could look at the graph above and say, Earl Thomas isn’t very good because he never gets any sacks. The problem is, Seattle doesn’t ask him to rush the quarterback so judging him based upon that stat line alone doesn’t really work. In fact, you could make the same case that every statistic on that graph can be debated over until you’ve reached this fruitless deduction: no safety is clearly superior based on this data. Or seemingly any other data for that matter.

What do you think Chiefs fans? Are you on one side of the fence or the other… or are you gettin’ splinters sitting right on that dang thing, like me?