The Opening Drive 5/6: The Browns Pursuit of Positionless Safety Play

Emmanuel McNeil-Warren is the type of move that can create chaos for opposing offenses.

May 06, 2026

∙ Paid

Toledo safety Emmanuel McNeil-Warren (7) gets ready for a play during an NCAA football game between WKU and Toledo on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024, in Bowling Green, Ky. WKU came back to beat Toledo 26-21. (AP Photo/James Kenney)

For most of professional football’s history, the safety position was simple. You had a free safety — rangy, instinctive, a centerfielder with pads — and a strong safety, closer to the line, physical enough to come downhill and punch ball carriers in the chest. Two safeties. One role each. Then the NFL’s offenses started to punish a revolution.

Across the league, NFL offenses know the desire defenses have to sit in two-high packages and keep defensive backs on the field. Dare them to run from 11-personnel and adjust accordingly. If DC’s want to keep those nickel corners on the field and lean into coverage, then offenses had to find a way to punish it. Those athletic hybrid tight ends became valuable.

Now in response, defensive coordinators are finding their own version: the hybrid safety. Positionless football, as they say. Defenses are deploying three-safety packages with a regularity that would have seemed eccentric years ago. The third safety isn’t a luxury or a situational chess piece anymore. In some of the league’s most sophisticated defenses, it’s become the base.

“The position doesn’t exist yet. We just know we need that player. Three safeties lets you present looks that the offense simply can’t solve at the line of scrimmage.”
— Anonymous defensive coordinator, NFC contender

The shift is driven by two converging forces: the relentless proliferation of hybrid 11-personnel (one back, one tight end, three receivers) and uber-athletic 12-personnel (one back, two tight ends, two receivers) as the NFL’s de facto base offense, has brought about the emergence of a new archetype of athlete — the positionless defender — who can credibly play in space, cover a slot, blitz off the edge, and set the edge in the run game, sometimes within the same series.

The core appeal of three-safety looks is combinatorial. Replace a linebacker — a player whose role is largely pre-determined by his body type — with a safety, and suddenly you have a defender who can do almost anything from the same pre-snap alignment. He can drop into a deep third. He can walk down into the box and function as a linebacker against the run. He can rush the passer. He can man up on a running back or tight end out of the backfield.

Offenses hate pre-snap ambiguity. Most quarterback processing happens before the ball is snapped — identifying the coverage shell, locating the free rusher, deciding where the ball goes. A third safety who credibly threatens six or seven post-snap assignments forces the offense to wait, which compresses processing time and multiplies errors.

The key is credibility. Three-safety looks only work if each player on the field can believably execute every role the alignment threatens. That’s why teams running this concept most effectively have invested heavily in a specific kind of athlete: bigger than a corner, fast enough to cover, physical enough to tackle, football-smart enough to process and communicate.

“You’re essentially turning every pre-snap look into a logic problem the quarterback cannot fully solve. When the answer might be anything, the correct answer is nothing — and nothing is a sack.”
— Defensive analyst, AFC team

This is where the Browns saw a real opportunity in the selection of Emmanuel McNeil-Warren. Let’s discuss.

Below you’ll find the latest in the BFB catalog for supporters to dig into. Click the link to become a supporter if you haven’t already, and enjoy all the latest from Browns Film Breakdown.

Latest Podcasts:

Latest Articles:

Latest Film Rooms:

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to Browns Film Breakdown to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.