When it comes to sustaining high-level of play over multiples seasons, you won’t find very many players better than Vikings safety Harrison Smith.
Smith had himself another solid 2019 season. That ranked him 31st in Pro Football Focus’ end-of-season player rankings.
Here’s what PFF wrote about Smith:
Maintaining consistently elite play at safety is an incredibly hard thing to achieve at the NFL level. Even all-time greats saw dips in play in certain seasons because of the nature of the position and the degree to which they are often at the mercy of offensive playmakers. Harrison Smith is the closest thing to an elite baseline we have seen in the past decade, and this season he finished with an overall PFF grade of 88.4. His coverage grade (91.0), was the second-best mark in the league, trailing only the breakout season from his teammate in the Vikings’ secondary. The performance of those two safeties went a long way towards making up for Minnesota’s lackluster cornerback play.
There’s a good chance that the Vikings will rely on Smith even more in 2020. Fellow safety Anthony Harris is set to be a free agent, while there’s a realistic chance cornerbacks Xavier Rhodes, Trae Waynes and Mackensie Alexander could all be playing elsewhere in 2020.
