Why note-taking helps Falcons safety Jessie Bates III excel - ESPN

There are no great post safeties in the NFL anymore. The days of Ed Reed and Earl Thomas are gone. With every passing year, the league trends away from one great center fielder and replaces him with two-deep coverages, those versatile and amorphous blobs of disguise. The honorable days — the days in which one dauntless defender stood alone, Jon Snow-style, and dared the offense to get past him — are behind us.

This is, of course, a preposterous generalization. The post safety is not gone — he has simply changed. He has evolved to fit his new environment. He hides in different cover than he once did, spinning at the snap and sneaking into the box. He preys on different throws than he once did, driving on crossers and abandoning the post. And in no player has this change been more readily captured than in Atlanta Falcons safety Jessie Bates III.

A third-round pick out of Wake Forest in the 2018 NFL draft, Bates was the next great post safety for his entire rookie contract with the Bengals. He played deep middle, Vonn Bell played the box and the Bengals went to a Super Bowl. As the league changed styles and Bates changed zip codes, he no longer lives in center field. The Falcons have maximized Bates' on-ball opportunities by moving him across the formation and affording him unprecedented freedoms, and he has paid them off. He has 17 combined interceptions and forced fumbles over the past two seasons, the most in the league.

Bates' feel for the ball is unnerving and at times preternatural. He doesn't just make picks — he makes those camera-breaking picks, sudden and swift. The picks that get color commentators out of their seats, telestrators drawn… «Look at when he breaks on this ball!»

Watch enough of Bates' plays and one