49ers can spark the secondary via the NFL Draft with Darnell Savage Jr.

As the 2019 NFL Draft comes, Niner Noise breaks down Maryland’s Darnell Savage Jr., a safety that can give the San Francisco 49ers the kick they need in the secondary.

One thing is certain: the San Francisco 49ers need to address their secondary this year. Whether they sign someone before training camp (Tre Boston, I’m looking at you) or they draft someone, the Niners need to bolster their defensive backfield.

One high riser during the pre-draft process, who could be the missing ingredient to the 49ers secondary is Maryland safety Darnell Savage Jr. Savage, who many had originally predicted to be a third-round pick, like Matt Miller, has now been seen mocked consistently in the second round, even jumping into the first round, possibly.

Savage is a spark plug in every sense of the word, a player who plays with so much energy and reckless abandon to varying levels of success.

Last year, Savage was quite successful:

Provided by CFB at Sports Reference: View Original Table
Generated 4/21/2019.

A whopping four interceptions for Savage last year, two more than the entire 49ers team had.

As a third-round pick, Savage would be a steal. As a second-round pick, Savage would be a reasonable selection. As a first-round pick, Savage would be too pricey for San Francisco.

But let’s see exactly how real the Savage hype is.

Darnell Savage’s Strengths

Savage flies to the ball. And when I say fly, I mean lightning fast. He ran a 4.36 40-yard dash and shows his explosive speed on tape largely every single play.

That’s another of Savage’s great strengths. He has an incredible motor. When I watched him play against Temple, Savage was the quickest man to the ball. Lance Zierlein of NFL.com corroborates that claim, stating how Savage is “always looking for work, and [his] motor won’t allow him to coast.”

Finally, Savage has tremendous ball skills, allowing him to make plays from the single-high safety position. Savage’s greatest strengths are exactly tools the 49ers need out of their free safety.

Tools like those leading Pro Football Focus to rank Savage as their second-best safety of the draft:

Darnell Savage’s Weaknesses

Savage, for all his athletic ability, is short, listed at 5-foot-11. While that might not have a tremendous impact as a single-high safety, a la Lamarcus Joyner, it does put a limit on how impactful Savage can be down the field. If a tall wide receiver, like Hakeem Butler, manages to break free, Savage will have a hard time winning that matchup.

But the biggest issue with Savage is his work as a single-high safety. Watching him play, he was in mostly Cover 2 looks, where there were two-high safeties. A Cover 2 has its benefits and drawbacks, but the most important part is that a safety only has to deal with half of the field. It allows for a player to be more aggressive, while a safety in a Cover 3 single-high look has to be able to control the entire field.

The Draft Network also worried about Savage as a single-high safety, writing how he had “some lapses on the back end when tasked with playing single high,” and how he “can be a bit too eager to jump down into the first route to develop and cross his face.”

The 49ers can always use for defensive talent. But at some point, general manager John Lynch and Co. need to stop drafting talent and start drafting players that are a need. A Cover 2 safety that has issues in single high is not a need for the 49ers.

Potential Fit with the 49ers

Like I said above, Savage would be drafted to play single high and potentially slot corner, a lot like Lamarcus Joyner did with the Raiders. He would be the reverse of D.J. Reed, because Reed is a slot corner who had the ability to play safety. Savage has the ability to play slot, quite well actually, but he’s a better player at safety.

The 49ers, should they draft Savage, would look for him to compete with both Adrian Colbert and Jimmie Ward, as well as K’Waun Williams and Reed for either the starting free safety job or the slot corner job.

Although Savage is a very good player, his astronomic rise to the first round makes it unlikely for the 49ers to select him with their second-round pick.

Savage’s rise could help push another player ranked very high to the Niners at pick No. 36, or they could select the safety. What do you think?