Folks, remember when NFL QBs like Tom Brady used to light up defenses with those jaw-dropping deep shots, and the crowd would go wild? Here’s the wild take: Ban high safeties from the NFL. That’s right, ESPN draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. thinks the NFL’s defensive schemes are taking the fun out of the game. 

During an appearance on Get Up ESPN, Kiper went on a passionate rant about how safeties playing too deep are wrecking the NFL’s explosive play potential. “The NFL is being ruined by these two-high safeties!” the draft expert declared. He’s got a point, though—it’s hard to get those electric deep shots downfield when you’ve got two safeties hanging out in the stratosphere. So what’s Kiper’s solution? Outlaw the high-safety defense entirely. 

Mil Kiper wants to bring back the good ol’ days of deep passes, Terry Bradshaw-style, where QBs like Joe Namath and Brett Favre weren’t afraid to air it out. Kiper longs for that kind of football—fast, thrilling, and full of 65-yard touchdowns. “I grew up with the best of the National Football League, 1960s into the 80s. You’re talking about deep shots. Isn’t that Terry Breadshaw in the Super Bowl hitting John Stallworth, Leroy Irving diving, and they laid it all out there. Hit the receiver in stride—65-yard touchdown. It’s a beautiful thing to watch. That’s what I wanna see brought back to the NFL. Check down screens, born football, uh-oh! I wanna see those deep shots, that’s what the NFL is built for,” he alluded. The analyst believes modern defenses are strangling that excitement, forcing QBs to settle for short check downs instead of lighting up the field with big plays.

Per the president of the Mel Kiper enterprise, defenses with two high safeties push QBs into a conservative, run-first mentality. Instead of slinging it deep, the game becomes less high-octane—boring football. The ESPN expert didn’t mince words: safeties playing deep, far from the line of scrimmage, are practically invisible and need to be taken out of the equation. He asserted, “Today, we got a 5-yard rule with the quarterback… that with the push thing, you have to be a yard back. You cannot have those safeties closer to the line of scrimmage. I was in games thinking they were in outer space. They are so far back, they don’t even know they’re a part of the game. We have to change this thing.”

Now, flip over to Tom Brady. The GOAT has his own beef with the state of quarterbacking today, and guess what? It kind of ties into Kiper’s argument. Brady, in his post-retirement analysis, opined that today’s QBs aren’t as sharp as they used to be. He’s not talking about arm strength or mechanics (those might even be better). But when it comes to being field generals—guys who own the line of scrimmage, read defenses, and make audibles on the fly—Brady says that’s where today’s QBs fall short. “I think quarterbacking has gone backward,” the seven-time Super Bowl champ said. “They’re not being taught to make their own decisions on the field. When I played, I had all the control—formations, checks, audibles, the whole deal. I knew what defense we were up against and could make the right calls.”

Tom Brady’s take is pretty clear: modern QBs just aren’t getting the tools they need to lead their teams in real-time. Instead of adjusting on the fly, some QBs can’t crack the code. Brady even called out how this shift started back in high school and college football, resulting in less-developed QBs entering the NFL. Former NFL player and current analyst Louis Riddick also chimed in with his two cents. He’s calling out this whole “ban high safeties” narrative as ridiculous. In a tweet, Riddick pointed out, “There are ways to beat it if you have competent QB play.” Boom. Shots fired. Riddick’s basically saying, if your QB’s sharp, two-high safeties aren’t an issue.

On one side, Kiper wants to bring back those flashy deep shots and essentially ban a defensive strategy that he feels kills excitement. On the other hand, we’ve got Brady, who’s concerned with the declining quality of QB play, and Riddick, who flat-out believes competent QBs can handle any defensive scheme—high safeties included. We could debate forever whether we should ban the high-safeties rule or not, but should that be done?

Should we mess with the balance as Brady and Kiper suggest?

Let’s face it—changing NFL rules to ban high safeties would be completely off. First, for years we’ve heard complaints that RBs are a dying breed, with no more Walter Paytons or Emmitt Smiths. Now, when teams start shifting back to a run-heavy approach, how can we change the rules? The game finally gets a balance, and we’re already talking about neutering it.

And let’s not even get started on how we’d enforce this. Are we going to limit defenses on 3rd and long or after a penalty? Reward the offense for being in a tough spot? The NFL’s always favored offenses, but this would be a step too far. Besides, coverage doesn’t always come down to where safeties start. Defenses have been disguising coverages for years. The Tampa-2 defense has been around for decades, and guess what? QBs still lit it up back then. Maybe the problem isn’t the defense, maybe we just don’t have enough elite QBs.

If you think the deep pass is dying, just ask Rashid Shaheed, the Saints’ speedster’s got 11 career TDs, averaging 51 yards per play! The run game’s return has brought balance back to the NFL. The game’s doing just fine. Do you agree with Kiper and Tom Brady’s take?

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