Is there a market for Darren Sharper?

(bleacherreport.com) Darren Sharper celebrates after making an interception.

Typical of a Gregg Williams free safety. In his scheme – which I see as a perfect fit for Sharper – the free safety plays the deep middle of the field, covers the slot in a nickel alignment and plays enough combo coverages that put him in position to make plays on the ball – driving to a receiver before the ball is thrown.

Darren Sharper(notes) is an unrestricted free agent, and I’m wondering what the market is for a 34-year-old free safety who can make plays on the football field.

Would you make him an offer?

Mike Triplett, an Iowa alum (and fellow co-worker of mine at the Daily Iowan on campus), brought it up Thursday in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Sharper was scooped up by the Saints in the ’09 offseason, a castoff of sorts by the Minnesota Vikings. The New Orleans Saints got him for a bargain price of $1.7 million.

But Sharper – who came over from the Cover 4/man-to-man scheme of Green Bay – isn’t a Cover 2 safety. He’s a risk taker, not a guy who drops to a landmark and drives downhill once the throw is made. Instead, he’s a player who excels when he can read routes from his pre-snap alignment and drive on the throw before it happens.

Typical of a Gregg Williams free safety. In his scheme – which I see as a perfect fit for Sharper – the free safety plays the deep middle of the field, covers the slot in a nickel alignment and plays enough combo coverages that put him in position to make plays on the ball – driving to a receiver before the ball is thrown.

Much different than a Cover 2 safety who can only take a chance when the ball is in the air. He wasn’t a fit in Minnesota but is ideal – beyond ideal – for New Orleans.

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