Top five secondaries in the NFL right now

#4 Carolina Panthers

A secondary that seemingly isn’t getting the recognition it deserves due to their strong front-seven is the one of the Carolina Panthers. Everything plays together for this entire defense, with the pass rush complementing the back-end and the coverage forcing quarterbacks to hold onto the ball longer.

The Panthers were the most zone-heavy defense in the league last year and while they still run those schemes primarily, you have to understand how it works. They do use some two-high looks and use the length of their corners to allow them to get hands-on balls that were supposedly thrown over their head – an incredible leaping pick by Donte Jackson comes to mind. However, they run a lot of cover-three, which leaves those corners pretty much one-on-one on the outside with those deep third responsibilities. Jackson’s speed and jumping ability to contest catches are incredible, while James Bradberry has been used more against those big wideouts in the NFC South and beyond, which he has really limited when you look at the numbers. Tre Boston has been kind of a journeyman safety up to this point, but he has played some of his best ball as a member of Carolina, as the only guy with 100 percent of the defensive snaps.

And then there’s Eric Reid, who was out of the league through the first quarter of the season due to his political stance, but has been one of the more well-rounded safeties out there since returning to the league.