Jayron Kearse Profile – Looking Back
Jayron was a 7th-round pick of the Minnesota Vikings out of Clemson in the 2016 NFL Draft. He played in 73 games with Minnesota and Detroit during the first five years of his career. Over those five years, these were his total stats:
138 tackles (100 solo), 10 pass deflections, 2 TFL, 1 interception, 1 forced fumble, 1 recovered fumble, and half a sack
He signed with the Dallas Cowboys in March of 2021 and was named the starting strong safety that year. And what a year he had. This was his stat line for just 16 games in 2021:
101 tackles (67 solo), 10 pass deflections, 9 TFL, 2 interceptions, 1 fumble recovery, 1 sack
He didn’t just get stats by default of being on the field either; he was an effective player across the board in how Defensive Coordinator Dan Quinn used him; he was PFF’s 13th rated overall safety in 2021. Jayron resigned with Dallas on a two-year contract in 2022 and will be starting for them again this year.
Jayron Kearse Fantasy Profile – Looking at 2022
Jayron was our #5 overall safety in 2021 and he was our #6 overall safety in points per game. I do not see this as a fluke. Jayron is a smart, hardworking player who knows what he is doing out there.
Now a top-five finish again in 2022 is a bit too lofty of a prediction for me, but a back-end safety 1 or high-end safety 2 feels like a safe prediction. The good news is that you can get him at what I feel is a severe discount in many drafts. He is DB 18 right now over at FantasyPros, and is DB 41 / safety 32 on Sleeper. I think both are low, but he is a legitimate steal on Sleeper right now.
Dan Quinn is back as Defensive Coordinator for the Cowboys and the secondary starters are largely unchanged from what they were last year. Jayron was third on the defense in defensive snaps played, at 88%. In those snaps, he played almost 58% of his them in the box or linedup on the defensive line. That could actually go up this year, as stand-out linebacker Micah Parsons will still be used all over the formations, and the linebackers as a whole are weaker on paper than they were last year.
Jayron’s value to Dallas is probably more than it would be to another team, as he was Dan Quinn’s “master key” on defense. Jayron has also talked about the value of keeping Dan Quinn and the system they had so much success in last year. Another year starting, in the same system, in the same role; I am all in on Kearse this year and given where you can get him in most drafts, it is almost all upside.
Thank you for reading Jayron Kearse Fantasy Profile – 2022
You can catch all our video content on YouTube. Be sure to subscribe and click the notification bell to ensure that you don’t miss any of our other great content! You can also check out our free Offense, IDP and Devy rankings of all kinds over at RotoHeat.com. If you have any questions for me, or want to discuss this, you can find me in the RotoHeat Discord, Facebook group and on Twitter.
