Buffalo Bills: Micah Hyde ranked in Top 10 among safeties
In Pro Football Focus’ recent rankings of safeties entering this upcoming season, the Buffalo Bills had one safety just make the Top 10.
The free agent signing of Micah Hyde two years ago by the Buffalo Bills is quickly becoming one of the best deals in franchise history. At the time when Buffalo signed Hyde to a five-year deal, he was considered a good player, spending four seasons with the Green Bay Packers, but his play went to another level once he was inserted into Sean McDermott’s defense.
The past two years, Hyde has been one of the best safeties in the NFL and was recently ranked as the 10th best at the position by Pro Football Focus.
"10. MICAH HYDE, BUFFALO BILLS2018 OVERALL GRADE RANK: 6From middle-of-the-pack slot cornerback to superstar-caliber free safety, Hyde’s work at the back end of the Bills’ defense has quite simply been the best in the league over the last two seasons. Over that time, Hyde’s overall grade of 91.6 at the position beats out a number of well-established stars, players like Earl Thomas, Eddie Jackson and Tennessee’s Kevin Byard.As one of the league’s premier playmakers in coverage, the Iowa product has allowed just 18-of-31 throws into his coverage at free safety to be completed, and he’s yielded just 174 passing yards, two touchdowns and just seven first downs in the process. His 11 combined pass breakups and interceptions are the second-most among all free safeties in that span, while his defensive success rate (forced incompletions+coverage stops/targets) of 58.1%, his forced incompletion percentage of 22.6% and his 55.8 passer rating allowed over that span rank third, eighth and sixth, respectively, among players with at least 15 targets in that span."
The play of Hyde, along with Jordan Poyer, has given the Bills one of the better safety duos in the NFL today. They are a big reason that the Bills’ defense as a whole is one of the top defenses in the league. They finished last year, second in yards allowed but were first against the pass by allowing only 179.2 yards per game.
In his two seasons with the Bills, Hyde has 140 total tackles, seven interceptions and 18 passes defended.
Next. Takeaways from Bills' first depth chart. dark
Micah Hyde is playing the best football of his career and in a defense like this, there is no reason to think he is going to be regressing any time soon.