Did Jets hold Marcus Maye back during career year in 2020?

Marcus Maye is coming off a career year, but questions remain about his worth and whether the Jets should pay him like one of the best safeties in the NFL.

Maye finished 2020 as the fourth-highest graded safety in the NFL, per Pro Football Focus, but an NFC defensive coach recently told ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler that a “bad team and scheme probably held him back.”

With Robert Saleh and Jeff Ulbrich now running the defense, could Maye be even better?

It’s hard to say given the complexity and fluidity of the Gregg Williams’ system over the past two seasons. The loss of Jamal Adams in 2020 also coincided with Maye’s performance taking a major leap. Maye certainly looked like one of the better overall safeties in the league at times last year; could that look become more consistent?

Take Week 1 last season, for instance. Maye took over Adams’ strong safety role for the first time against the Bills after mostly playing free safety during his previous three seasons. He finished with one of his best individual game performances with two sacks, 10 total tackles, two defended passes and one forced fumble. He tallied three pressures on seven pass-rush snaps, per Jets X-Factor’s Michael Nania, and his 57.1 percent success rate was more than quadruple his game average from 2017-2019.

That production didn’t continue consistently over the next 15 games, but Maye proved more than capable of filling Adam’s shoes as a versatile safety who excels in coverage in the deep secondary and in the box as an efficient tackler in run-support and pass-rushing. He totaled 88 combined tackles, four tackles for a loss, 11 defended passes, those two sacks and one forced fumble last year.

Maye pivoted between strong safety and free safety throughout the season, which likely attributed to his up-and-down production. He also played in one of the worst secondaries in the league in 2020. The Jets allowed the fifth-most passing yards, third-highest completion percentage and the eight-most yards per passing attempt.

But nevertheless, Maye’s 2020 tape was good enough for Saleh to outright call him a strong safety a few months after the Jets hired him to be their head coach. Saleh called Maye “very versatile,” in March because “he can come down in the box, he can play in the middle of the field, he can play the half.”

That’s an important note for a coach that built his scheme off Pete Carroll’s Seattle defense and added another Carroll disciple in Jeff Ulbrich. It signals a specific role for Maye – one that highlights the safety’s strengths and provides a glimpse of the next level of his potential at the position.

Saleh and Ulbrich will likely run a lot of Cover-4 with two safeties taking over the middle of the field. That’s Maye’s bread and butter. He can sit back on deep passing plays, sink closer to the middle of the field to cover tight ends and crossing routes, or even attack run plays if needed. The Jets will likely incorporate some three-safety looks as well, which Maye should be able to cycle in with Ashtyn Davis and Lamarcus Joyner.

Maye’s contract situation will be decided before he gets to play a snap in this defense, but the tape on him should tell the Jets they need to lock him in long-term. Saleh and Joe Douglas have already stated their desire to keep Maye; it all comes down to money. This might be a situation where the Jets have to pay Maye based on his potential production in a new defense rather than his past production in a worse one, but it’s a risk they should take rather than letting his future with the Jets linger for another full season.

Maye isn’t a top-10 safety right now. But given his fit in the Jets’ new defense. he could turn into one by the season’s end.