Will Jalen Ramsey be cast into Canton?
By: Jeremy Trottier
Canton, Ohio. The place every NFL player wants to end up someday and walk up onto the stage to accept their golden jacket. Many players make this ascension, but significantly more do not. The first thing that your enshrinement comes down to is legacy”¦did you leave your mark on the NFL, both individually and as a contributor to your team/s? Jalen Ramsey, at 27 years old, has already done both of these tasks and is right in the dead center of his prime. But, when he eventually calls it quits in the future and hangs the cleats up, is he going to be a Hall of Famer?
Has Jalen Ramsey done enough to be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame?
Let’s just knock off the major achievements first to make things easy. Ramsey is a Super Bowl champion, 5x Pro Bowler and 3x All-Pro first team in 6 seasons, highest paid defensive back in league history at the time of his contract renewal, more than halfway in interceptions to the nearest Hall of Fame DB in Steve Atwater.
He is, without a doubt, the best defensive back to play during this current time period. He has been targeted 169 times in the last two seasons, would you like to know how many were completed? 94. 55.6%. In those 94 receptions, he has allowed an average of 4.75 yards after the catch, which is astronomically low as it means he makes the tackle before the next hash mark is even seen on average.
His average depth of target (how far he is downfield when targeted) is 8.4 yards in 2021, the lowest of his career. This is because quarterbacks know they cannot get WRs to beat him deep very often and because he is so stout along the sidelines. So, they throw under routes where the WR is facing away from him and even has a chance of making a catch.
Never in his career has he allowed a completion percentage against him higher than 67.4%, which alone is astronomically low, but his lowest in a season allowed? 50.7%, barely half. This was not even like half a season or a broken season, this was 2020, where he played 15/16 games and was targeted 71 times.
Jalen Ramsey is without a doubt the best DB currently, and easily one of the most influential in his 4 seasons so far in the NFL. With what is going to come in the next 5-10 years of his career, I can easily say he is Canton bound provided this trajectory stays how it has been going.
