This off-season the New Orleans Saints handed out a three year $16M contract to veteran safety Kurt Coleman and you expected him to start and play a majority of the snaps in 2018. However, as we all know that's not how it turned out and it was because much younger Vonn Bell was much more effective.

According to Pro Football Focus, Bell had a terrific season where he ranked third among 90 other qualified players at the position of safety. Where he really excelled was in run defense where he was graded as an 88.2.

To add to that he led the league in run stop percentage at 8.8% among all safeties with at least 200 defensive run snaps played and he did so by more than 1.5%.

Speaking of snaps, he also out-snapped Coleman by a wide margin. Coleman played in just 35% of the snaps while Bell played in 73% of the snaps last season.

Bell is just 24 years old and in year-three showed a ton of potential, he doesn't yet have a career interception but if he keeps working I'm sure they'll come.

As for Coleman, I see the trend probably continuing for him next season as he'll be 31 years old when the season starts. At the very least he can provide good veteran leadership and depth at the safety position in case an injury occurs.

 

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