In light of the Jets trading Jamal Adams to Seattle — more on this later — I wanted to take a look at the correlation between top level safety play and Super Bowl champions.

Hall of Fame Safeties and Super Bowl Champions (15)

There have been 15 Super Bowls won by safeties who would make the Hall of Fame. Six HOF safeties won two Super Bowls: Willie Wood with the Packers, Troy Polamalu with the Steelers, Steve Atwater with the Broncos, Ronnie Lott with the 49ers, Cliff Harris with the Cowboys, and Donnie Shell with the Steelers. In addition, Johnny Robinson won with the ’69 Chiefs, Rod Woodson won with the ’00 Ravens, and Ed Reed won with the ’12 Ravens.

Defensive Player of the Year and Super Bowl Champions (3)

In addition to Polamalu, Rod Woodson, and Ed Reed, Bob Sanders won a Super Bowl with the ’06 Colts and was the AP DPOY in ’07. Dick Anderson was the AP DPOY in ’73, and won Super Bowls with Miami in ’72 and ’73. Both players were huge parts of their team’s titles.

First-Team All-Pro and Super Bowl Champions (23 plus 7)

There have been even more safeties who, at one time in their career were first-team All-Pros and were starters on a Super Bowl champion. This includes all six Patriots teams — Lawyer Milloy in ’01, Rodney Harrison in ’03 and ’04, and Devin McCourty in ’14, ’16, and ’18. Dwight Hicks was an All-Pro with the 49ers during his prime and was a Pro Bowler on both the ’81 and ’84 teams. Darren Woodson is a near Hall of Famer who won two rings with the Cowboys. Mike Wagner was a very good safety who started for the ’74 and ’75 Steelers. And eleven other guys have won once.

That list is headed by likely HOFers in LeRoy Butler with the ’96 Packers, John Lynch with the ’02 Bucs, and Earl Thomas with the ’13 Seahawks… along with Darren Sharper (’09 Saints) who well, was a HOF-level player and a reprehensible person and rapist. Tyrann Mathieu (’19 Chiefs) may also one day have a Hall of Fame case, although it’s obviously early.

The rest of the list: Merton Hanks with the ’94 49ers, Malcolm Jenkins with the ’17 Eagles, Jim Hudson with the ’68 Jets, Gary Fencik with the ’85 Bears, Mark Murphy with the ’82 Washington Football Team, and Rick Volk with the ’70 Colts.

In addition, there are 7 Super Bowl champions who, in addition a blue chip safety, had another All-Pro safety. Jake Scott won two Super Bowls with Miami in ’72 and ’73 playing alongside Anderson, Mike Wagner started next to a HOFer in Shell on the ’78 Steelers, Charlie Waters and Cornell Green were All-Pro safeties who played next to Harris on the ’77 and ’71 Cowboys, respectively, Eugene Robinson started next to Butler on the ’96 Packers, and Tim McDonald was the other safety on the ’94 49ers.

The graph below shows the starting safeties for all 54 Super Bowl champions, and is color-coded to represent HOF/DPOY players, All-Pros, and 2nd-team All-Pros/Pro Bowlers.

As always, please leave your thoughts in the comments.