Vonn Bell

Salaries are on the rise for safeties in the NFL, but so far that change has been limited to the ball-hawking free safeties who patrol the deep zones of the field — players like Eddie Jackson ($14.6 million per year), Kevin Byard ($14.1 million) and Earl Thomas ($13.75 million). Teams vote with their dollars in free agency, and on defense, sacks and interceptions are king. And few defensive backs rack up more takeaways than the free safeties who can cover from sideline to sideline.

That means box safeties like Bell are left to settle for middling payouts, with comparable players such as Chuck Clark signing extensions worth $5.1 million per year. Ironically, Bell’s former teammate Kenny Vaccaro might represent his ceiling in free agency; the Titans re-upped Vaccaro on a four-year, $24 million contract bringing in $6 million annually. Depending on how the guarantees shake out (47.9% of Vaccaro’s deal was guaranteed at signing, while Kurt Coleman, the last safety to sign a long-term deal with the Saints, received just 37.9% in guarantees), that might be manageable enough for New Orleans.