Safety chance
Former corner takes to position switch - with a shot to play alongside former Pitt teammate
Jason Pinnock grew up wanting to be the next Darrelle Revis, but he still sounded excited about spending most of last week lined up next to Revis’ cousin.
In a sign that the position switch he made from cornerback to safety as a rookie last season is going smoothly, Pinnock was temporarily bumped up with the Jets starters when veteran Lamarcus Joyner was sidelined for a few practices. It gave the Jets a safety duo of Pinnock and free-agent acquisition Jordan Whitehead, two former University of Pittsburgh teammates who starred at Revis’ alma mater and now play for the NFL team where Revis (Whitehead’s cousin) built his Hall of Fame résumé.
“Getting a whole offseason [at safety] now, I’m a lot more comfortable,” Pinnock said. “That’s when the plays start to happen for you. I’m excited to work with the pieces we’ve got and with the comfort I have now.”
Pinnock, 23, is expected to see a heavy dose of snaps either as a starter or off the bench when the Jets host the Falcons at MetLife Stadium at 8 p.m. on Monday in their second preseason game. He was matched at times against promising tight end Kyle Pitts during the teams’ joint practices.
The Jets are trying to find out if Pinnock’s three-game finish to last season — when he played 174 snaps, forced two fumbles and was the NFL’s fourth-highest-graded safety over that time by Pro Football Focus — was the beginning of a breakthrough for a fifthround draft pick who struggled to get on the field as a cornerback.
“I’m weird. I like adversity. I like being uncomfortable. You learn a lot,” Pinnock said of his October move to safety. “I took it on the chin the first day they told me. It was kind of like, if this is where you all feel like I have more opportunity, I just want my feet on the grass. If that’s what I’ve got to do, that’s what I’ve got to do.”
Pinnock’s role from the time he was a 7-year-old through his senior season at Pitt mostly was unchanged.
“I was the one begging to play corner. I wanted to be Revis,” Pinnock said of his youth football career. “I was a lockdown corner. I used to just follow guys and take them out of the game. That was my role on the team.
Having to learn all the other pieces [of a defense] is always going to be the biggest transition.”
But Pinnock’s father played on the defensive line at Indiana and shared enough stories that his son felt he “lived in that world.” Combine that knowledge with his experience at cornerback and suddenly the big picture crystalized. “The back end was kind of the last thing to learn,” Pinnock said. “I know everything that is happening around me. It helps me out way more than I thought. I like it more [than cornerback], if that’s what you wanted me to admit.”
The Jets re-signed Joyner, 31, to a one-year contract — after he played just one game in an injury-shortened season — and signed Whitehead, 25, away from the Buccaneers. It’s easy to envision a Whitehead-Pinnock pairing beginning in 2023. They were training together in Tampa Bay within a week of Whitehead’s addition.
“He looks like a safety now,” said Whitehead, whose final season (2017) at Pitt was Pinnock’s first, though they remained in touch from afar. “It helps him out when we are playing man-to-man. He’s still learning — like we all are — because the run fits are a little different from corner to safety.”
Pinnock tweaked his offseason-training focus from the lateral movements of a cornerback to drills designed to sharpen peripheral vision and eye discipline.
“From corner to safety, guarding tight ends is kind of like in slow motion,” Pinnock said. “But now you have to adjust to they are great at using their bodies. I’m able to use what, as my position coach says, ‘Your mama and daddy gave you.’ My jumping ability or my ball skills are easier to put on display. You are not stuck in a [receiver’s] hip all day.”
Jets head coach Robert Saleh called Pinnock a “freak of nature” because of his athleticism and physicality. More promising, however, is the volume of his voice when communicating instructions on the field, which Saleh equates with gaining confidence.
“It’s come full circle,” Pinnock said. “Coming from playing corner, I wouldn’t have thought I’d get to play side-by-side with [Whitehead]. That energy, when we’re out there together, you can feel it.”