What does FS Bobby McCain bring to the Washington Football Team?

Taking a closer look at Washington’s new free agent acquisition

The Washington Football Team signed safety Bobby McCain last week to bolster a secondary that had already seen plenty of reinforcements this offseason. McCain was drafted in the fifth-round by the Miami Dolphins in 2015 and played cornerback to start his NFL career. He transitioned to free safety over the past few seasons and was cut by the Dolphins a few weeks ago due to his contract and the Dolphins drafting Jevon Holland in the second-round this year. 

McCain’s history as a corner offers Washington some position flexibility, which Head Coach Ron Rivera has emphasized all offseason, but his main role will likely be at free safety. Washington has lacked a reliable free safety for a number of years and McCain gives the team a coverage safety that can be trusted in the deep middle of the field.

On this play, McCain aligns as the deepest defender, but between the numbers and hashmarks, suggesting a two-deep safety coverage. The 49ers call a variation of four verticals with the slot receiver running the deep over route while the running back works up the seam. As the ball is snapped, McCain rotates back to the deep middle of the field. He gains plenty of depth and doesn’t bite on the pump fake by the quarterback. Instead, he remains patient and waits for the actual throw to break on the ball. The throw is a poor one, with the quarterback assuming the pump fake held McCain in the middle of the field, but McCain manages to get out over the top of the seam route and intercept the pass.

McCain covered a lot of ground on that play, which is something free safeties have to do. They have to be comfortable gaining depth while reading the quarterback and also have the range and athletic ability to get back to the deep middle from any pre-snap alignment and then break on any deeper throw. McCain certainly has the range to do that, which isn’t necessarily true of Washington’s other free safety options.

Here against the Chiefs, McCain aligns on the line of scrimmage in the B gap, selling a safety blitz. However, McCain isn’t actually blitzing and has to get back to the middle of the field to stay on top of Tyreek Hill’s route from the slot. McCain does a great job getting depth and staying on top of Hill’s route initially. Hill then looks to cross the middle of the field and McCain uses a speed turn to gain more depth and stay on top of the route. While Hill breaks off his route more sharply while McCain gains depth, McCain is still in a position to drive down on any throw. Patrick Mahomes looks at throwing to Hill, but decides against it due to McCain’s position. 

McCain clearly has enough range to hold up as the deep safety option and can even allow Defensive Coordinator Jack Del Rio to mix up looks with confidence that McCain can get back on top of routes from various pe-snap alignments. But it takes more than just range to play free safety in the NFL, as Washington knows from experience with Troy Apke starting last season. 

This time McCain aligns about 15 yards off the ball as the deepest defender. Hill runs another deep over from the slot on a third and 12 play. As soon as the ball is snapped, McCain almost sprints back across the field, anticipating where Hill is running his route. He likely knew what was coming from film study, enabling him to get an early jump on the route and ensure it wasn’t available. Mahomes felt pressure and initially wanted to scramble to his right to find Hill, but with McCain on top of the route and the other safety nearby too, he knew he needed to work the other way and eventually got sacked.

Anticipation and film study is a huge part of playing free safety in the NFL. It gives the defender a huge advantage when they have a strong idea of what route combination is coming based on formation and situation. It allows them to position themselves early in the play to take away threatening routes, like we just saw from McCain on the last play. However, while McCain is an upgrade at the fee safety spot for Washington, he’s not flawless there. A couple teams found similar ways to beat him.

These two plays, first from the Bills and then the Rams, are very similar plays in terms of how they stress the free safety. On both occasions, the offense has a receiver running a deep over route from either side of the field, crossing at some point in the middle. This is a tough read for a free safety and it’s hard to know which route to take. In the first example against the Bills, McCain drove down on top of the route coming from the left side of the offensive formation across to the right side. However, the other safety playing in the hole also ran across the field with that route, leaving the receiver on the other side running wide open in the opposite direction. 

Fortunately for McCain, the quarterback didn’t spot the receiver running wide open. However, on the second play of the clip, the Rams attack McCain with a very similar concept in the red zone. This time he gets frozen in the middle of the field and fails to cover either receiver, giving the Rams an easy touchdown throw. 

In fairness to McCain, those are tough plays to defend from the free safety spot and in his defense, he did defend a similar concept well when the Seahawks threw it at him.

This is another very similar concept by the Seahawks, with two receivers crossing paths over the middle down the field. McCain plays this one a lot better though, gaining depth to stay on top of both routes and then trusting his range to drive down on them once the quarterback throws the ball. As the routes intersect, McCain is 10 yards deeper than them. Once he spots the quarterback throwing to receiver DK Metcalf, he breaks on the route. McCain arrives as the ball does and his hit forces Metcalf to drop the pass.

McCain gives Washington an option not currently on the roster from a safety position. He’s a reliable and solid deep safety option that can play in the deep middle of the field and stay on top of deep routes to prevent explosive plays. Having a reliable option back there could allow Washington to be more aggressive with coverages, especially when paired with long, physical press cornerbacks that they’ve added this offseason in William Jackson and Benjamin St-Juste. McCain can be trusted to play over the top, allowing those guys to roll up in press coverage and try to aggressively disrupt routes early, with comfort in knowing McCain has the range behind them to cover them if they get beat. That combination paired with Washington’s defensive line gives the Football Team an intimidating defense to contend with.