Atlanta Falcons keep William Moore off of open market

While Louis Delmas of the Detroit Lions will be hitting the open market, Atlanta Falcons star strong safety William Moore will not. According to Adam Schefter, the Falcons have signed the player who would have been the best free agent safety to a lucrative five-year deal. There was plenty of speculation that Moore was set to hit the open market after the Falcons opted not to franchise him, but the Falcons showed that they are wise enough to keep him.

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The terms of the deal will be interesting, as they could dictate what other free agents safeties are able to pull in this offseason. Teams in need of a safety are disappointed the hear the news that Moore will not be available, and all the Falcons need to do is keep Brent Grimes and they will have kept two very valuable free agent DBs. In fact, Grimes is the best impending free agent CB just as Moore was the best impending free agent safety before this deal.

Last season, Moore was aggressive on run defense and even got three hits on the quarterback. Moore is one of the best safeties in the league against the run, but I actually think he played better in 2011. That year, Moore was excellent in coverage- whereas he was mediocre last year in that regard- and allowed a QB Rating of just 82.9 per the Pro Football Focus.

Now that the Falcons have kept Moore, the best safety set to hit the open market is Dashon Goldson of the San Francisco 49ers. After that, Kenny Phillips, Glover Quin, Louis Delmas (when healthy), LaRon Landry, and Ed Reed seem to be the most attractive options. So many fans of teams looking for a safety collectively sighed in disappointment at this news, whilst Falcons fans sighed in relief after Schefter tweeted the news of the five-year pact between William Moore and the Atlanta Falcons.

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