There are no great post safeties in the NFL anymore. The days of Ed Reed and Earl Thomas are gone. With every passing year, the league trends away from one great center fielder and replaces him with two-deep coverages, those versatile and amorphous blobs of disguise. The honorable days -- the days in which one dauntless defender stood alone, Jon Snow-style, and dared the offense to get past him -- are behind us.
This is, of course, a preposterous generalization. The post safety is not gone -- he has simply changed. He has evolved to fit his new environment. He hides in different cover than he once did, spinning at the snap and sneaking into the box. He preys on different throws than he once did, driving on crossers and abandoning the post. And in no player has this change been more readily captured than in Atlanta Falcons safety Jessie Bates III.
A third-round pick out of Wake Forest in the 2018 NFL draft, Bates was the next great post safety for his entire rookie contract with the Bengals. He played deep middle, Vonn Bell played the box and the Bengals went to a Super Bowl. As the league changed styles and Bates changed zip codes, he no longer lives in center field. The Falcons have maximized Bates' on-ball opportunities by moving him across the formation and affording him unprecedented freedoms, and he has paid them off. He has 17 combined interceptions and forced fumbles over the past two seasons, the most in the league.
Bates' feel for the ball is unnerving and at times preternatural. He doesn't just make picks -- he makes those camera-breaking picks, sudden and swift. The picks that get color commentators out of their seats, telestrators drawn ... "Look at when he breaks on this ball!"
Watch enough of Bates' plays and one thing becomes clear: He knows something everyone else on the field doesn't. He knows something opposing quarterbacks don't think he should know. I wanted to know that secret thing, too. So, I spent some time with him over the summer and asked him about it.
Here's what makes Bates -- whose Falcons have a Monday night matchup with the Buffalo Bills on deck (7:15 p.m. ET on ESPN) -- so special.
NUGGETS SPILL FROM Bates almost subconsciously as he watches film. He can't help himself.
"When teams get into these tight, condensed formations, it forces corners to get off press," he explains as he watches one of his pass breakups against the Texans in 2023.
"Everybody's inside the numbers, so there's not going to be a lot of vertical routes," he points out as he watches a 2021 third-down stop against Aaron Rodgers and the Packers.
"When you get bunches, look at the release of No. 3 -- if he sits between one and two, it's a dagger concept," he says about a breakup in a 2023 game against the Vikings, like it's obvious.
Let's watch that last play. It's Joshua Dobbs' first ever start -- the game in which Minnesota coach Kevin O'Connell was explaining concepts to Dobbs on the sideline. The Vikings had to run a simple offense to onboard Dobbs, which made them predictable. On third-and-5, they're running dagger, a classic concept. Dagger is defined by a dig route that develops behind a seam route to the same side of the field.
Despite the fact that dagger is a dig and a seam, Bates is looking at neither route. As Minnesota tight end T.J. Hockenson -- the No. 3 receiver Bates was referencing, counting from the outside in -- settles down between the releases of the other two pass catchers, he pulls the underneath zone defender out of the exact throwing window Dobbs needs to throw the dig. This is good offensive design, but Bates knows the trick. He lets the seam run past him and drives on the dig, punching through the catch point. Fourth down.
— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) October 8, 2025
These small tells can feel inconsequential in isolation. Collect enough of them on any one play and they compound.
Take this interception against Derek Carr and the Saints in 2023. Bates makes a truly spectacular play, vacating his middle-of-the-field post to jump a third-and-3 slant route from Rashid Shaheed, housing the pick for six points. If it looks like Bates knows the play from the moment the ball is snapped, well ... he kind of does.
— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) October 8, 2025
"I know that Derek Carr was hot, and motion, usually on third down, means that guy's hot," Bates says. Bates means Carr will change his progression because the Falcons are blitzing him. Carr will shortcut his reads and target one specific receiver, whom Bates suspects is Shaheed, to get the ball out fast before the blitz arrives.
"Understanding where the back is is huge as well, when understanding what a quarterback's progression is," Bates continues. "You get two-by-two [as in two receivers on either side of the formation] and you see the back away [as in the RB is to the opposite side of the field]. Where your No. 3 is is usually the second read. The first part of the read is usually to the two-man stack."
From the offensive formation, the defensive formation and the motion, Bates has collected three clues that the ball is going to Shaheed. But none of them tell him what route Shaheed is running just yet. To get that critical fourth clue, we need to go back. Not back to a play earlier in this game, or even one earlier that season. We need to go back to 2019.
BATES HAS ALWAYS been a scribe. As a 170-pound freshman redshirting at Wake Forest, it was all Bates could do -- lift weights, put on mass and learn football. He prided himself on organized, diligent notes -- practice notes, team meeting notes, defense meeting notes, special teams meeting notes. They were all handwritten in neat blocks and bullets, used to prepare for a weekend's game, then squirreled away in a closet and never seen again.
Bates' veteran mentor in Cincinnati was Bell, who encouraged him to start taking notes digitally so that he could re-access his preparation in years to come. It was tricky at first, learning how to write with a digital stylus -- and trickier still to switch between notes and film on the same team-issued tablet. So, Bates got a second one.
For the past five years, Bates has sat in every meeting with two tablets out -- one with film uploaded and organized by his coaches, the other with a note-taking app open and waiting. His log of notes goes back years and includes every meeting he has attended (from OTAs and training camp all the way through the season) and every game he has ever played. It's organized by season and tagged by opposing team -- coach, coordinator and quarterback.
Now, when Bates prepares for an offense, he returns to his digital index. Like the savvy sales representative asking after their client's son who just started college, Bates can quickly recall facts about his upcoming opponent. "It's very helpful, because different coordinators jump from team to team. That's how this league works," Bates explains. "Coaches get hired, they just plug in the hard drive and they're like 'Hey, change the logo, change some colors and s--- like that,' and install." With every year of experience Bates accrues, he feasts off that reality more and more.
So when Bates was preparing to face Carr's Saints in 2023, he rewound time to Week 11 in 2019, when he played Carr (then the Raiders' quarterback) as a second-year starter for the Bengals. In his notes reviewing that game, he found this play.
— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) October 8, 2025
Look familiar? It's third-and-short once again, and Bates is jumping a slant route from the middle of the field. The formation and route distributions are a little different, but Bates had a note in his dossier on Carr -- that the QB liked "double-in" concepts on third-and-shorts -- that led to this play on the football. Bates is supposed to be in the deep middle but abandons his post, certain that he has sniffed out Carr's intentions. He's right.
I ask ex-Bengals defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo, who now runs the Colts' defense, for his favorite Bates plays, and he brings this one up immediately -- with a surprising note: Watch Carr after the pick. Carr turns to the Raiders' sideline and throws his hands up. What was that? How did that guy get there?
Bates might not have remembered Carr's third-down predilections without his digital filing cabinet. And four seasons later, Bates reread that note, and the lightbulb turned back on. Bates always has both tablets with him, and he is often reviewing his notes on top tendencies and playcalls all the way up to game time.
To review: Carr will be hot. Shaheed is the hot receiver. It's another third-and-short, and Carr likes double-in breaking routes on third-and-short. These nuggets accumulate. When the ball is snapped, Bates is already breaking on the route.
BATES' PLAY DOES the talking in the Falcons' locker room -- everyone wants to figure out what that guy's doing and how they can ride his wave. But even if the play didn't speak for itself, the guy with twice as many tablets on his desk as everyone else is sure to draw eyes and interest. Despite the fruit of Bates' labor, Falcons coach Raheem Morris is hesitant to recommend to his younger players that they completely emulate Bates, though.
"[To] a lot of the young guys, I highly recommend going to see what his process is, what he's doing," says Morris. "But a lot of the guys can't handle that stuff. Some may try to do it, and they can't handle that right now."
It's more than just the strain of remaining attentive in meetings with so many notes in front of you. The unparalleled game knowledge unlocks a level of aggressiveness in Bates' play. We might wrongly call this aggressiveness "instincts." But instincts are innate, and while Bates certainly has those, his clairvoyance is not natural. It's nurtured -- learned and relearned and ingrained, over and over again.
More than almost any other safety in the league, Bates is given freedom to roam in his defense. That doesn't mean Atlanta lines him up on the edge like Kyle Hamilton or sends him flying around the formation like Budda Baker. Instead, it means Bates has earned the right to change coverages on the field, stray off his landmarks and flood other zones. He has earned trust.
Assistant head coach Jerry Gray, who has been coaching defensive football in the NFL since 1997, lights up when talking about Bates. "However many coaches we have, we add one," he says of Bates' on-field impact. I ask him for his favorite coach-on-the-field play from Bates, and he summons that 2023 pass breakup/dropped interception against the Texans. Here's the play:
— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) October 8, 2025
Did you see it? Blink and you'll miss it. When Texans receiver Robert Woods comes in motion, Bates gives a little lift of his leg in the direction of cornerback A.J. Terrell Jr. Bates is activating a "dropkick" coverage check. This gives him, the deep middle safety, freedom to drive down on an intermediate crossing route. The corner who was chasing that intermediate crosser -- in this case, Terrell -- will replace Bates in the post and take over his deep middle responsibilities.
Bates makes this check because of the clues he has picked up pre-snap. He knows the Texans love these play-action crossers. The tight formation lends itself to crossing routes. The heavier personnel implies run and accordingly implies play-action. The speedy Nico Collins on one side is more likely to run the clear-out, while the not-so-speedy-anymore Woods on the other side should be running the crosser. Straws on the camel's back.
"That's not something that's in the defensive call," Gray says, chuckling. "There's certain little things that he knows. 'I see the look, I take the look, and I take the chance.' A lot of guys who are good football players are afraid to take the chance. They want the chance the second time. But you never get it because it never comes back up. He knows that he's got to take the first chance and not be afraid."
Watch how Bates plays things out, too. Initially, he's angled to the clear-out route, but after a couple of steps that way, he plants his foot and drives on the crosser, even before C.J. Stroud has started his throwing motion. His initial angle of departure was bait, meant to elicit the throw to Woods. Just as a quarterback can lie to a safety with his eyes, Bates can also deceive quarterbacks in turn.
With freedom comes consequences. Bates ruefully remembers when Patrick Mahomes got him to bite on a crossing route and threw a big post over his head in 2024. The pass wasn't even completed, but Bates remains pissed he got duped by one of the league's greatest.
Morris often compares Bates to Ronde Barber, whom he coached in Tampa Bay as a young defensive backs coach. "I wanted people to be in the right area, and I remember Ronde telling me he had played in this league for a while, had done a bunch of really good things, and he said: 'Either you ride with me, or you don't.' Jessie is one of those players you ride with. When he has his one mistake of the season that may have hurt you, you don't even blink."
LIKE EVERY NFL team, the Falcons have a consistent weekly tempo. For most players, Tuesday is an off day -- a day for physical recovery -- while the coaching staff prepares for the upcoming opponent. On Wednesday, the staff will walk the team through first and second down -- what does the opponent like to do and how are we going to counter that? On Thursday, it's third down. On Friday, it's red zone.
Bates religiously stays one day ahead of the weekly tempo. On Tuesday morning, Bates is texting Gray for a peek at Wednesday's presentation. Gray sends him what the staff anticipates they'll run for first and second down, and Bates starts going through cutups on his own. By the time the staff presents to the defense on Wednesday, Bates is seeing it all a second time, adding to his personal notes from the day before and pestering Gray for a peek at the next day's third-down presentation.
This isn't just a teacher's pet trying to get the answers for the test. Bates needs the notes for Wednesday by Tuesday morning because he runs the players' meeting on Tuesday evenings.
Bates has put the defensive back seven -- defensive backs and linebackers -- on his day-ahead schedule. The rookies bring food to these players-only meetings -- what Bates calls "the fellowship" -- and he uses Gray's look ahead cutups to review last week's game and prime the room on the upcoming opponent. He'll use his personal files, too, pulling clips from games he played in Cincinnati and referencing notes he took in past seasons. On Wednesday evening, they'll meet again in anticipation of Thursday's full-team meetings -- so on and so forth. And it isn't just the secondary.
Bates adopted this practice, much like his note taking, from Bell. In Cincinnati, Bell brought backup quarterbacks into the room to provide the offensive perspective (e.g. what are you seeing in this coverage, and how can we better disguise this look?). Bates has invited backup quarterbacks to do the same in Atlanta. Maybe rookie DBs Xavier Watts and Billy Bowman Jr. can't take notes or retain information like Bates just yet, but they can draft off his wake.
The player who has benefitted the most from Bates' coaching DNA is perhaps not a defensive back or linebacker at all -- it's second-year quarterback Michael Penix Jr. "Jessie, Mike and A.J. [Terrell] probably talk more than anybody on the team when it comes to playing the game of football," Morris says. Penix's locker was placed beside Bates' stall this season, in hopes that at least one but maybe both of the leadership and football IQ might trickle from the vet to the rookie.
Their relationship is inherently competitive -- Bates is trying to pick Penix off, and Penix is trying to embarrass Bates in turn -- but it is constructively so. Bates' game is one of identification, assumptions, reads -- what we might call processing. Penix is also processing, and every time Bates jumps a route, Penix wants to know what he saw and how he could have slowed him or tricked him.
IT IS TEMPTING but unfair to call Bates a uniquely prepared player in the NFL. Other players do less throughout the week, codify less throughout the years -- but simplifying the process allows them to play free and fast and puts them at their best.
Bates wants it all, though. Before I spoke to him, he seemed like a wizard with a magic spell, the spy who cracked the secret codes. Now I see a survivalist in a bunker, shelves stocked with rations and tools and electronics. I thought he knew what was coming, but the truth is, he has no idea what's coming. That's the point. That's why he accumulates so much data.
Because everything -- anything -- might help him survive.