What DB Jartavius Martin brings to the Washington Commanders
Taking a closer look at the Commanders second round pick and how he should fit in Washington
The Washington Commanders drafted Illinois defensive back Jartavius “Quan” Martin with its second round pick, number 47 overall. The pick came as a surprise to many as the Commanders had already drafted cornerback Emmanuel Forbes in the first round, with not many people anticipating them using both of their top picks to reinforce the secondary. However, while Forbes will be challenging Kendall Fuller and Benjamin St-Juste on the outside, Martin has a completely different skill set and will fill a significantly different role on the defense.
At the NFL Scouting Combine back in February, Martin measured in at 5-foot-11, 194 pounds, which is maybe slightly undersized for a pure safety but Martin isn’t just a pure safety. He fits the mold of the modern hybrid defensive back that can play as a deep safety on one snap and rotate down to cover the slot on the next snap. He’s a fantastic athlete with great speed and agility that enables him to be a very versatile defender.
Versatility
Martin’s versatility is his most attractive trait. Being able to disguise coverages is key to beating the best quarterbacks, because if they know what coverage is coming, they will get the ball out so quickly that the pass rush is irrelevant. If the defense can disguise the coverage and surprise the quarterback, that forces him to hold onto the ball for an extra second or two, which gives the pass rush extra time to get home.
To be able to disguise coverages, you need flexible defenders. You need corners that can drop back and act as safeties sometimes. You need safeties that can roll down and cover like a corner sometimes. Martin offers the best of both worlds, which enables his defensive coordinator to be creative with coverage disguises.
On this play, we see Martin start off aligned over the slot receiver to the right of the formation. Before the ball is snapped, the slot receiver is sent in motion across the field and Martin follows him. For most offenses, this would be an indicator to the quarterback. When a defender follows a receiver in motion, it typically means the defense is in some form of man coverage, so the quarterback knows where his best match up is before the snap and can cheat that way as soon as he snaps the ball.
However, Illinois is not in man coverage, they’re actually playing a form of Tampa-2 and not only are they playing zone coverage, it’s a funky zone coverage. It’s a form of inverted Tampa-2, which has the single deep safety step up into the hole while two other defenders sink back to play the deep halves. One of those defenders sinking back is Martin, who just moments before had given the quarterback a man indicator pre-snap by following the motion. As soon as the ball is snapped, Martin takes off backwards and sinks to a deep half of the field.
Martin doesn’t actually get anywhere near the ball on this play and his zone isn’t threatened at all, but it's his versatility to play in the slot and have the range to sink back deep off the snap that allows Illinois to disguise this look so effectively. The result is clear to see as the quarterback hesitates at the top of his drop before firing a very dangerous pass over the middle where multiple defenders are in positions to make a play on it. He’s very lucky that the ball ends up falling incomplete and not intercepted.
The Commanders were able to do some nice coverage disguises with their three safety package last year and Martin’s versatility should allow him to pick up where Bobby McCain left off in that regard. But Martin enables them to do even more, so it will be interesting to see what Ron Rivera and Jack Del Rio can come up with in that regard.
In the slot
Being able to line up in one spot and rotate to another post snap is important, especially in this scheme, but Martin will also need to just be able to line up and play. So how is he in the different roles he can play? Let’s start by looking at him in the slot, because that’s the role Washington will likely ask him to play most often.
Illinois looks to send the house on this play. They’re running a Cover-0 blitz, meaning each eligible receiver has a single defender assigned to cover them while the rest of the defense rushes after the quarterback. That leaves each defender in a pure one-on-one situation with no safety help behind them. Martin rotates down over the slot on this play and happens to get matched up on a receiver running a slot fade, which can be very tough to cover because the receiver has so much space to work with on the outside.
As the receiver comes out of his break, Martin holds his ground at the first down marker, ready to break on any quick hitter underneath but also prepared to turn and run down the field if he needs to. As the receiver approaches, it becomes clear he’s not breaking underneath and is instead looking to get vertical. Martin then shuffles outside and looks to close the gap between them, getting his hands on the receiver and looking to be physical. Now in the NFL, Martin will have to be careful with this because there are stricter rules regarding contact from defensive backs beyond the first five yards from the line of scrimmage, however both he and the receiver go back and forth in a fair battle here.
Martin does a great job staying on top of the receiver and not allowing him to run by him. He also uses his physicality to force the receiver wider and wider until he’s almost out of bounds before he even reaches the end zone. Because it’s Cover-0, the quarterback doesn’t have time to wait and see the receiver’s path, so he throws to the spot he expects the receiver to get to. However, as you can see when the ball lands, Martin’s coverage forces the receiver too wide and well short of where the ball hits the ground meaning he was never going to reach the pass.
That’s a really strong coverage rep from the slot especially in a situation like that where it’s purely one-on-one. The Commanders will obviously hope that he can bring that type of coverage to the slot position in Washington, however there is a concern I raised from that clip worth diving a little deeper into. Martin likes to play physically and get his hands on receivers. That’s fine to an extent, but in the NFL they are much stricter with how physical defenders can be with receivers down the field. On top of that, Martin often struggled with jamming receivers and was typically better off without trying to jam receivers.
On this play we see Martin line up across from Iowa tight end Sam LaPorta, who the Lions drafted in the second round. LaPorta is a bigger body than a typical slot receiver, so that presents a different challenge for Martin, but that’s the benefit of having a safety body with corner movement skills. LaPorta comes off the snap looking to get down the field on a deep over route. Martin plays five or six yards off the line of scrimmage at the snap and like on the previous play, he waits for the receiver to declare their intentions. Once LaPorta makes it obvious he’s working vertically, Martin shuffles across like he did before to try and get his hands on him and slow him down.
However, LaPorta is a bigger body than a typical slot receiver and he charges through the attempted jam like it wasn’t even there. Martin doesn’t show good technique when trying to engage LaPorta, trying to cut him off with his body rather than his hands and that leaves him getting run over as LaPorta runs past him and wide open down the seam for a big gain.
In my opinion, Martin is much better when he gives himself a little more depth and doesn’t try to be physical with receivers. With that extra depth, he buys himself just a fraction longer to read the route in front of him and react. He has the athletic ability to trigger and drive down quickly on anything underneath while also being perfectly capable of opening his hips and running with a receiver down the field.
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