The Atlanta Falcons closed out ESPN’s annual position-ranking series with a familiar name near the top. Jessie Bates III was voted the NFL’s No. 5 safety in Jeremy Fowler’s poll of league executives, coaches and scouts, published Thursday as the final installment of a series that drew ballots from more than 70 voters. The team’s website highlighted the ranking Friday morning.
“Bates is always a threat to flip the momentum of a game with one play,” Fowler wrote, calling him one of the game’s great ball hawks. The numbers back the label: 27 interceptions across eight seasons, 13 of them in his three years in Atlanta, with at least one returned for a touchdown in each of those seasons. He has piled up 384 interception-return yards, an average of 14.2 per pick.
Since signing as a free agent in 2023, Bates is the only player in the league with at least 10 interceptions and three or more forced fumbles — his Atlanta ledger reads 13 picks, 8 forced fumbles and 332 tackles, the most productive three-year stretch of his career. What separates him from most high-volume takeaway players is when the plays arrive. Per TruMedia data cited by the team, his pick-sixes have ranked among the most game-swinging defensive plays by expected points added in each of his Atlanta seasons, including a 34-yard interception return for a touchdown against the Rams in Week 17 last year. A defense can survive without a designated closer; it wins more comfortably with one.
Bates, entering his ninth season, credits the position’s evolution for his value. “As a safety nowadays, you’ve got to be able to play everything,” he told the team’s website, describing the shift from the old box-safety and post-safety split to two-shell looks that ask safeties to weave to the middle of the field rather than simply line up there.
The three-time All-Pro finished behind Kyle Hamilton, Derwin James Jr., Xavier McKinney and Brian Branch in the voting. For a defense entering year two under coordinator Jeff Ulbrich, returning a top-five safety who specializes in ending opponents’ possessions is the steadiest thing Atlanta has going. Rookies report to Flowery Branch on July 24, with veterans due four days later.
