Chicago Bears: Future Outlook for Adrian Amos

By James Cobern | Oct 21, 2015

One of the surprise rookie starters for the Chicago Bears this season was Penn State’s Adrian Amos. With prototypical size and intriguing athleticism traits, Amos could be Chicago’s answer at the safety position for a long time according to fellow FanSided writer Dan Schmelzer.

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And teammates such as Antrel Rolle have been raving about Amos so far according to Mike DeCourcy of SportingNews.com. But before we break out the anointing oils, let’s take a look at what Amos brings to the table from his athletic testing, college production data and performance so far through 6 games of the current NFL season.

Athleticism Traits

While athleticism isn’t all it takes to be an NFL player, it is a vitally important part of evaluating the safety position. NFL offenses constantly test the mental and physical limitations of safeties, which is why NFL safeties must have adequate athleticism traits to survive the grind each year.

Amos graded out as a dynamic speed dominant athlete, meaning his fluidity for his speed was much more impressive than his explosiveness or long speed. And overall Amos is an 83-89 percentile athlete out of 1,084 safeties in my database.

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This makes Amos one of the most athletic safeties with his skill type on record. He has more than enough athleticism to be a potential difference maker on Sundays.

But it is his production from college and through 16 games that Amos brings out most of the concerns

College Production

Using college production to evaluate NFL prospects is often criticized as box score scouting and is a waste of time to film purist. However, there are clear and strong percentile thresholds for long-term starting safeties at the NFL level.

100% of multiple All-Pro and multiple Pro Bowl safeties since 1998 were in the 70 percentile of solo tackle market share, 73 percentile of interception market share and 75 in the pass deflection percentile. Making a very clear standard for finding the next potential All-Pro and multiple Pro Bowl safeties.

Amos unfortunately was in the 26^th percentile of solo tackles, 51 in interceptions, but he was 91 in pass deflection. Adjusting for safeties with a similar pattern of not hitting the solo tackle and interception threshold, but with good pass deflection market share, Amos landed with these types of players.

Amos doesn’t have near the interception market share of Nelson or Searcy, but it provides some hope for long-term potential. What matters now is what he does his rookie season, which so far hasn’t been quite as spectacular as it could have been.

NFL Production

Amos is currently the Bears fourth leading tackler, but what is worrisome is a lack of plays on the football.

Amos has made the 90 percentile of NFL solo tackle market share through 6 games, but he needs to prove he can affect the passing game more with a bump in takeaways and pass deflections.

It’s the difference between being a special safety and starting one, so monitoring how Amos performs for the rest of this year will be important in what his true upside could be.

Conclusion

Amos hasn’t had the impact a coach would want in forcing turnovers and creating dead plays, but he one of the leading tacklers on the Bears. He has the athleticism to be a starting safety, and Amos is developing into the main back end tackler might be the best future for Amos.

He may never live up to the athleticism potential, but the Bears don’t need him to do that. As a fifth-round pick he’s more than paid off his draft status.

And we still have the rest of the 2015 season to see what else he’s capable of. So at least for now the future looks solid for Adrian Amos.

But what do you think? Have you enjoyed what you’ve seen out of Amos in 2015, or is there something missing that makes him suspect to you?

Let me know in the comments section below.

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