
Antoine Winfield Jr. is still held in high regard by PFF ahead of 2025 season
Antoine Winfield Jr. is still held in high regard by PFF ahead of 2025 season
The safety position has become one of the most valuable in the NFL despite the lack of depth coming into the NFL in recent draft classes.
The league itself has done a tremendous job developing the players coming in, and as a result, the task of ranking the 32 best players at the position could be a more tedious than originally thought. PFF never backs down from a challenge though as they are taking up the task of ranking the 32 best safeties in the NFL.
For the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and their fans, they do not have to read far down the list to find their favorite player, Antoine Winfield Jr.
The All-Pro safety may be coming off an injury-riddled 2024 season, but he is still ranked respectfully at 4th overall by PFF. They explain the ranking, writing, "Despite the Buccaneers winning the NFC South, Tampa Bay's star safety had a season to forget. Winfield struggled with injuries and played a career-low 601 snaps. He missed 9% of his tackle attempts, which was his worst rate of the past three seasons. However, Winfield's career body of work keeps him in the top four ahead of 2025. He was the league's highest-graded safety in 2023 (90.7) and hadn't earned a PFF run-defense grade below 85.0 before 2024."
Winfield Jr.'s career body of work speaks louder than the 2024 season's impact on him.
As PFF points out, he has been a model of consistency over his career, which is why his missing so much time affected the Bucs' secondary so much. Getting him back and healthy in 2025 could be the difference between a deep playoff run and another early exit like they experienced in January.

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