The Art Of Football, Part 6: Big Nickel Defense In Full Effect

The 2016 draft class supplied the New England Patriots with two cornerbacks named Jones.

The Patriots' top pick of the draft, Alabama corner Cyrus Jones had what can only be described as a mostly disappointing rookie season as he treated the football like a microphone after a hot take, while Jonathan Jones made a name for himself on special teams after edging out several other candidates to make the team as an undrafted free agent.

Neither saw many snaps on defense, as Jonathan - blessed with 4.28 speed - became a core-four special teams demon and Cyrus got benched and ultimately deactivated for his inability to hold onto the football when returning punts.

Patriots McClellin, Flowers, Branch, Hightower and Harmon celebrate

Now that the 2017 organized team activities and mandatory mini-camp are underway, Cyrus has done nothing but continue to pull gaffes on fielding punts and looks to be in danger of being perhaps the biggest draft bust of the Bill Belichick era, but Jonathan Jones is serving notice that he's ready to compete for the nickle corner slot left vacant by the defection of Logan Ryan in free agency.

If he can pull it off, the Patriots, who already have one of the top corner tandems in the league with Malcolm Butler and Stephon Gilmore, would become the lone team in the NFL to employ two undrafted free agents as starters in their secondary, given that Belichick and defensive coordinator Matt Patricia run out of the nickel about eighty percent of the time.

Granted, the Big Nickel - a five defensive back alignment that utilizes three safeties rather than three corners - is in play a lot of the time to give the Patriots a more flexible unit to match up against teams with bigger personnel, but in a standard nickel, it is Jonathan - not the more widely heralded Cyrus - that looks to be in position to gain significant playing time this season.

But let's pump the brakes a little bit here.  We're talking about dime depth here, with names like Gilmore, Butler and Rowe ahead of the Joneses on the cornerback depth chart, and names like McCourty, Chung and Harmon filling out the Big Nickel before either of the youngsters get an opportunity in the defensive backfield, making the lineup a tough egg to crack.

Because the Big Nickel alignment dictates the Patriots' defensive philosophy.

For the uninitiated, the Big Nickel is an alignment that features flexibility on all levels of the defense. Originally, the alignment was nothing more than a desperation sideline adjustment made by the Philadelphia Eagles way back in the early 1960's, defensive assistant Jerry Williams,bringing in rookie safety Irv Cross to cover Chicago Bears rookie tight end Mike Ditka, who was too big for a standard nickle corner to cover and too fast for a linebacker.

Ditka was the prototype for what was to be known as the "move" tight end, and he was running roughshod all over the league until Williams put the clamps on him, in what he called the "Chicago Special" defense - and then some years later Los Angeles Rams' defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmer resurrected the alignment to defend against the juggernaut San Francisco 49ers offense...

...particularly against tight end Brent Jones and running back Roger Craig as both were too much for his group of linebackers, and used it as the defensive coordinator of the Arizona Cardinals in the early 90's when his linebacking corps was beset by a myriad of debilitating injuries

The philosophy had been dormant for several years since then, and only resurfaced in 2010 when Patriots' head ball coach Bill Belichick drafted a pair of elite tight ends in Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez.  Knowing that the success the two would bring to his offense would spur copy cats around the NFL - and also to find a way to cover the two in practice - he started collecting safeties through the draft.

That would account for the seemingly weird reaches in the draft, taking what many scouts considered to be undraftable, including safeties Tavon Wilson in the second round of the 2012 draft and then Duron Harmon in the third round of the following season.  Wilson never really panned out, but Harmon became the centerpiece of the Big Nickle...

...the sideline-to-sideline centerfielder whose speed and other-worldly range enabled Belichick and defensive coordinator Matt Patricia to run with one high safety, and to drop cornerback-turned-free Safety Devin McCourty and strong safety Patrick Chung closer to the line of scrimmage, where they could pick up man coverages on tight ends and running backs while filling the box in run support.

One of the main advantages of this alignment is that the Patriots are a rare team that has good enough coverage play from their safeties to line them up in the slot, if need be, causing confusion for the opposing quarterback and his offensive line - confusion as to who is actually in coverage and who is coming on the blitz, because in the Big Nickel, they are able to disguise their intent like no other team in the league.

This has a curious effect on the rest of the defense.  Since a weakside linebacker and a strong safety require similar skill sets - ie,. lateral agility, field vision and tackling skills to key on the running back - in the Big Nickel, especially against an offense that features good passing game production out of the backfield, a safety will take the place of the weakside linebacker.

Against offenses that rely more heavily on spread formations, the strong safety will still reduce down into the box even though the situation would normally call for a standard nickel because the defensive line has the ability to morph between 3 and 4 man fronts, and on several occasions last season we saw this play out, fans bitching about the pass rush not being able to get to the quarterback.

This offseason, however, Belichick stocked the line with players who can rush from the outside, and can also reduce down to a five-technique on a three man front and even to a three-technique on four man fronts - so the defense can essentially transform into whatever they need to be at the drop of a hat - and he didn't just stock the line, he stocked it with proven, veteran talent.

Lawrence Guy is a great example of what Belichick was seeking on the market.  Guy is an early-down run-stuffer who graded out as Pro Football Focus's eighth-best in that category last season, and was a vital cog in the Baltimore Ravens fifth-best rush defense, and now joins forces with the likes of Malcom Brown, Alan Branch and Vincent Valentine on a Patriots' run-busting rotation that ranked fourth in 2016.

Guy is just one of several Patriots' defensive linemen with the versatility to produce in both three and four-man fronts - the breakdown for which is forthcoming in the next piece in this series - which gives even more flexibility to Belichick and Patricia in the Big Nickel, particularly given the quality of the linebacking corps.

Last season we saw a lot of the 4-2-5 alignment in the Big Nickel - four down linemen, two linebackers and five defensive backs - but the preferred option this season may be the 3-3-5 look, given the fact that Belichick now seems to be collecting five-technique, 3-4 defensive ends and eschewing traditional 4-3 rush ends.

There is really only one of those on the roster, rookie Derek Rivers, but in this scheme he projects to be more of a stand-up rush linebacker, what with his 4.61 speed and penetration skills to force running backs to the sidelines laterally as an edge setter - and no one would be surprised to see Rivers execute much like departed Jamie Collins did on the strong side.

In fact both Rivers and fellow draftee Deatrich Wise were projected to be attractive to teams looking for 3-4 fits, with Wise having tons of experience in Arkansas three-man line as a five-tech. Everyone else on the line has the versatility to play on shifting fronts, and all of the linebackers have the flexibility to play any of the positions on the second level, led by clutch veteran Dont'a Hightower and flanked by names like McClellin, Van Noy, Roberts and Ninkovich.

The players that make the 2017 New England Patriots defensive unit are going to be the players that fit the Big Nickel scheme, which is not necessarily players who would be considered elite, all-around athletes - rather, the players that fit the scheme are those identified by Belichick as the ones whose skill sets can be incorporated into the game plans on a rotational basis...

...long a staple of Belichick defenses, the rotation allows for a wide open play book as well as keeping players fresh for the fourth quarter, both of which were on full display in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl, as the Patriots' defense matched up fresh players with the Falcons' offense and eventually got to Matt Ryan to turn the game in New England's favor.

So all anyone has to do who is wondering why the Patriots are doing something that looks funky on the surface, is to remember that Belichick has been building his defense to accommodate the Big Nickel for years, and that if that confuses them, think about how confusing it is to their opponents as well.

Reloading The Musket, Part 7 - Patriots' Defensive Line A Matter Of Addition By Subtraction

Jagged Edge: Sheard is an elite edge-setter who will take over for the departed Chandler Jones on the weak side

How much will the New England Patriots' defense miss defensive end Chandler Jones?

After all, Jones led the team in sacks last season and made the Pro Bowl - but his numbers and inclusion to the Pro Bowl roster were ostensible, and there were times that his presence actually hurt the team last season, especially in the second half of the season and particularly as a run defender.

Harsh words, and akin to spitting on the now buried contributions of the former first round draft pick, but the a look inside the numbers don't lie.  As explained when he was dealt to the Cardinals back in March, Jones exploded out of the gates, collecting 10.5 sacks in his first nine games, then all but disappeared down the stretch, collecting just two more sacks.

Pulling a Claude Raines in the second half of all four of his pro seasons is now a full-fledged trend as his 36 sacks in 55 games translated to a combined 29.5 sacks in the first halves of each season, evaporating to just 6.5 in the second half of those same seasons...

...but that wasn't where the issue lied with Jones, as his inability to consistently set the edge in the running game was his bitch-kitty, to the tune of giving up 5.3 yards per carry last season when the play went off left tackle - but now he's in Arizona and listed as an outside linebacker in the Cardinals' 3-4 alignment, from where he will primarily rush the passer....

...which is no concern of the Patriots' - or at least it won't be on the other side of an opening night matchup with the red birds in Glendale - as New England now boasts a plethora of defensive ends that have the skill set and the wherewithal in their individual games to set the edge in the running game.

Newcomer Jabaal Sheard elevated his game as Jones faded down the stretch last season, and is the favorite to take over on the weak side while steady old-timer Rob Ninkovich should retain his strong side position, though Belichick had the 11th year veteran playing some middle linebacker in OTA's, where he looked pretty comfortable.

And he should have looked that way, as he played as a strong side linebacker for the first three seasons of his Patriots' career before being moved to defensive end at the start of the 2011 season - a juggling which tested his skill set, and the Patriots were rewarded with perhaps the most under-rated performance by a defensive end on the team during that span, perhaps in the entire league.

Free agent pick up Shea McClellin bounced around in a similar fashion while a member of the Chicago Bears for the past four years, starting at strong side end, then moving to outside linebacker before settling in the middle of the second-level last year.  In Chicago, he was far more successful as a linebacker than with his hand in the dirt, but Belichick had him setting the edge during spring drills.

McClellin is one of two reclamation projects to be undertaken by Belichick in 2017, with defensive tackle Terrance Knighton being the other.

A former first round selection in the 2012 NFL Draft, McClellin's career in Chicago was doomed from the start as Bears' general manager Phil Emery christened him the defensive savior and lined him up at defensive end opposite All Pro Julius Peppers, but when his stats - seven sacks and 45 total tackles in his first two seasons - didn't equal what Bears' fans expected, he was moved to linebacker...

...but when he still struggled as a strong-side 'backer, he was moved to the middle linebacker position and blossomed into a tackling machine, duplicating his career tackle count in just one season.

The problem is, McClellin is just not built to be a full-time defensive end, as he comes in a good 15-20 pounds lighter than what the Patriots normally covet in their ends - but he has excellent pass rushing skills so one could reasonably expect Belichick to use him at his natural middle linebacker position, then have him reduce down on pure passing situations to provide speed off the edge, which is exactly what he did in college and why he became a first-round draft pick in the first place.

That still leaves the Patriots with two veteran full-time defensive ends, and the depth behind Sheard and Ninkovich includes veteran free agent pick up Chris Long, career journeyman Frank Kearse and a pair of second-year players in Trey Flowers and Geneo Grissom.

At 31-years-old, Long is a situational pass rusher, but is also a proven veteran who brings a wealth of experience and some edge-setting skill, which is important because, as we saw increasingly with Jones, opposing quarterbacks will audible out of a third and four-or-five and run right at a situational pass rusher, the tackle guiding the rusher around to the backside of the play

That won't happen to Long, who as a strong-side end has good length and excellent hands to break off his pass rush and shed blocks when his instincts tell him that the run is coming his way - at least it shouldn't happen, but he has been injured for much of the past two seasons and there are concerns that his body is breaking down.

The same could be said for Flowers, who was active for only one game in rookie campaign, but is an intriguing prospect.  The Arkansas product is not an elite pass rusher, but is almost like a space-eating defensive tackle playing on the edge as his game is all about power.

In college, Flowers easily man-handled many opposing tackles in the running game and was projected to compete for snaps as a strong-side edge defender, playing the run first.  It remains to be seen if Flowers' open gait, long arms and superb power translates to getting after the quarterback, as his has next-to-no explosiveness out of his stance and is a plodding straight line runner...

...but, like a defensive tackle, Flowers has the ability to reestablish the line of scrimmage a couple of yards deep in the backfield, and has strong hands to shed blockers and force the ball back inside in the running game.  His pass rush is dependent on that power, so he is also a candidate to reduce down to a five-tech and bully a guard or two.

Grissom is a man without a position, as he came out of college as an outside linebacker but is a limited athlete who gets by on smarts, though he still has a lot to learn.  Power is his game as well, and he mainly held his ground in limited snaps and rushing with inside technique as the Patriots looked to determine where he fit.  His roster spot is far from secure, however, and really all depends on how the defensive tackle positions pan out.

But there really isn't much ambiguity regarding the defensive tackle spots.

Gone is the fragile and apparently entitled sociopath Dominique Easley, released suddenly in mid-April under a cloak of secrecy, leaving the team dangerously thin at the three-tech position, which has been reported by several sources to be phased out of the Patriots' defensive philosophy, in it's place a second huge space eater to go along with nose tackle Malcom Brown...

...though a case could be made for exactly the opposite as pass rushing tackle Alan Branch remains an integral part of the tackle rotation.  What makes the philosophy switch make sense, however, is the fact that Branch elevated his game once Easley went on the IR late last season, and turned out to be an elite run-stuffer, not allowing the guards to get under his pads despite standing a gargantuan 6' 6" tall.

That said, there's not much chance that anyone gets under the pads of Brown, who moves like a linebacker despite being a stout 6' 2", 320 pounds, nor newly acquired free agent Terrance Knighton who claims to be just five pounds heavier than Brown.

That seems like a bit of a stretch as he played north of 350 pounds last season with the Redskins, but Knighton signed a modest deal of just over $2 million to join the Patriots, though he could more than double that total through incentives, many of them weight related.

Knighton was a rising star for the Denver Broncos before becoming complacent and going from a svelte 320 pounds to 360 from one season to the next, incurring a series of weight-related fines from the Broncos before they tired of his act and refused to entertain his contract demands of $8 million a year without assurances that he would return in better shape for the 2015 season.

Turns out that "Pot Roast" had a much higher opinion of himself than teams that pursued him in free agency, and had to settle for a one-year "prove it" deal with the Redskins for half of his asking price, and then the Redskins informed him that they would not be talking contract with him because he still did nothing about his weight...

...though he graded out as a top-10 run-stuffer for the season.  Despite the high grade, Knighton heard only from crickets in the current free agency period, even though he claims to have shed 30 pounds in the offseason.

If true, a rotation of Brown, Knighton and Branch combined with the aforementioned rotation of edge-setting defensive ends should make New England a top shelf run stopping unit, though some question remains as to what kind of pass rush the Patriots will be able to generate - but the fact that Belichick runs a 4-2-5 Big Nickle as his base defense can afford him blitzing linebackers and safeties, which we will get into in the final two parts to this series

Depth is lacking on the interior despite names such as Vellano, Kuhn and Johnson, though third-round selection Vincent Valentine should make the team as a project.

Huge and with a tremendous amount of negativity surrounding his work ethic and attitude, Valentine was seen as an impossible reach for the third round, but a look at his 2014 tape reveals that when fresh, the Journalism major possesses the base strength to toss around guards and rag doll centers - which makes him a good fit for what Belichick believes in in regard to a rotation to keep all of his linemen fresh for the fourth quarter.

In the end, the Dark Master should have four tackles and five or six ends rotating in and out on his defensive line, something made possible by a thing called "addition by subtraction", dumping a one-dimensional end with a huge salary and a sociopathic three-tech with bad knees for a couple of respected professionals...

...and in the process getting bigger and stronger along the defensive line - good news for linebackers Dont'a Hightower and Jamie Collins, who should have huge gaps to blitz through as the tackles take on multiple double teams and the stout ends set the edge, filtering everything back into the middle in the running game where the duo and a bunch of ill-mannered safeties await...

Big Nickle Dictates Patriots' Defensive Additions

Patriots' fans should get used to this sight, as Cyrus Jones has shut-down potential

The Big Nickle defense seems relatively new to most casual football fans, but in reality it is an old-school approach to defending today's offensive evolution.

The recent trend in the NFL is for teams to go big, either with tall wideouts, uber-athletic tight ends, or both, which has prompted a few different defensive approaches, from employing taller corners to offset the size advantage of the receivers to assigning hybrid "nickle"linebackers to tight ends in order to make up ground in the size-speed ratio that today's tight end typically enjoys.

The Big Nickle, however, eschews modern thinking and embraces the fundamentalist thinking of the early game, where the idea was to fuse athleticism with violent intent.

Which rubs against the grain of the kinder, gentler brand of football that the NFL promotes with their ever-restrictive rules against defenses in the passing game, rewarding teams with high-flying passing attacks and punishes defensive backs when they try to "climb the ladder" to make a play on the football in the air, against receivers that are 4-to-6 inches taller than the average cornerback.

The reason for the clearly biased-against-the-defense set of rules is to make the game "exciting" and "more palatable" to the casual fan.  After all, in a purely general aesthetic sense, what could be more exciting than a quarterback launching a ball 50 yards down the field to a lithe and speedy receiver, who hauls it in and zips cleanly into the end zone?

To football purists, however, the idea of a defender being essentially handcuffed by the rules into being little more than a rubber-necking bystander doesn't sit well - but by the same token, if the same team doesn't take advantage of the rules on the offensive side of the ball, their success rate - as well as their win-loss record - suffers.

Of course, there are teams that take that advantage to a new, unethical level.  

The "Flacco-Harbaugh Gambit" is the most well-known of these tactics, wherein Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh will call for a deep pass play, tasking quarterback Joe Flacco to loft a ball just short of where a defensive back would expect it to be, goading him into making a play for the ball while at the same time engaging in unintentional contact with the receiver for the express purpose of gaining large chunks of yardage by way of a pass interference penalty called on the corner.

To combat this, many teams have taken the stance defensively that it is better to not allow a receiver free release into his pattern in the first place.

Built into the debilitating rules is a single five-yard buffer, a razor thin zone in which defensive backs can make heavy contact with the receiver coming off of the line of scrimmage to try and disrupt the timing in a timing-based passing attack, and to keep lid-popping speedsters from tearing the top off of a defense in a vertical offense.

It is known as a five-yard "mugging zone", which frequently features the equivalent of an old fashioned street brawl, complete with haymakers, grappling and outright fist fights - and this is what Bill Belichick bases his nickle defensive package after, which explains his seeming obsession with small, gritty corners...

...and with hybrid safeties, the two combined forming the base for Belichick's version of the Big Nickle, his New England Patriots one of the few teams - if not the only team - in the NFL to be able to do it right.

The Big Nickle is actually the brain-child of former Philadelphia Eagles' defensive coach Jerry Williams who, in 1961, was desperate to stop a talented Chicago Bears rookie tight end named Mike Ditka, who was ripping opposing defenses a new one every time he stepped on the field due to his size-speed ratio and glass-chewing toughness.

Williams figured that to stop Ditka  - who at 6' 3", 230 pounds had the size advantage over most defensive backs and the speed and agility advantage over most linebackers - he had to have a player who was a cross between the two and found that in rookie safety Irv Cross.

At 6' 2" and 200 pounds, Cross had requisite size for the task and with speed believed to have been in the 4.4 range, the requisite speed - even so, the rookie would have to wait until late in the first quarter between the teams in their week eight matchup.  Ditka had just taken a short Billy Wade pass seventy-six yards for a touchdown to give the Bears a 7-3 lead over the defending World Champion Eagles...

...and after inserting Cross to shadow Ditka, the beastly tight end was shut down for the rest of the afternoon as the Eagles posted a big 16-14 win.  Teams around the league stood up and took notice, many future opponents aligning their games plans as the Eagles had, resulting in a 1-4 slide to drop the Bears out of playoff contention.

So impressed by the scheme was an assistant on the Bears' sideline, future Washington Redskins' legend George Allen, that the Big Nickle became a base defense for his Championship teams, but a more modern example of the alignment came via defensive wizard Fritz Shurmur who, while with the Cardinals in 1992, was forced to play a third safety when he ran out of linebackers, thanks to a rash of injuries.

The alignment followed him to Green Bay, where a few seasons later he used it to defeat the Bill Parcells-led Patriots team in Super Bowl 31.

Today, the Big Nickle tradition is carried on by another defensive genius in Belichick, though his vision for the alignment is inspired by the aforementioned debilitating rule changes rather than just focusing on stopping one extraordinary athlete or simply out of desperation - his plan has been meticulously groomed over the past four seasons, and last year it came to full fruition.

The 4-2-5 Big Nickle is made possible by a stable of specially skilled safeties that Belichick has been collecting via high draft capital for years, combined with aggressive corner play and the overall skill of his top two linebackers - which explains his offseason moves in free agency and his off-the-beaten-path draft board.

Up front, the alignment relies on defensive tackles who are capable of resetting the line of scrimmage two yards deep in the opponents backfield while occupying more than one offensive lineman, while the defensive ends are alert and instinctive, with the ability to both pressure the quarterback and set the edge in the running game.

In theory - as well as practical application - the tackle occupying blockers and the ends setting the edge accomplish two things: first, a double team on the nose or on a disruptive three tech means that a gap exists somewhere for a linebacker or safety to shoot through and secondly, setting the edge forces a wide play back to the inside, where the aforementioned shooting linebacker or safety is waiting.

In this system, pressuring the quarterback is nearly as good as a sack, because with the aggressiveness of the corners already detouring the receivers' routes, the quarterback may not have enough time to find his second or third reads before having to abandon the pocket, and pressure up the middle limits the space and opposing quarterback has to step into a throw.

That was the idea behind drafting Nebraska tackle Vincent Valentine, a player with a rap concerning not playing to his potential - and perhaps some of that chatter is true, though a high ankle sprain that he labored with throughout 2015 could have been a contributing factor. In any case, the highlight films on him are compelling enough to consider him a good fit in the Patriots' interior defense, especially given that the opposing offensive line has bigger fish to fry in regards to the Patriots' defensive line.

At the nose is All Rookie team member Malcom Brown, who will be part of an interior rotation with Terrence Knighton, Alan Branch, free agent pick up Markus Kuhn, so Valentine won't have to contribute immediately, nor carry the load - which is fortunate because when he's fresh, he's a difference maker with his explosiveness off the ball. An ideal scenario for the third-round selection would be as a designated pocket penetrator late in games.

But while no one is expecting Valentine to jump right in and take anyone's job away from them, the hope is that second round pick Cyrus Jones ascends the depth chart at cornerback in rapid-fire fashion.

Nicknamed "Clamp Clampington", the Patriots hope he lives up to that restrictive name and clamps down on opposing receivers off the snap - you know, like a real clamp, or as the widely accepted definition suggests, "Holds objects tightly together to prevent movement of separation through the application of inward pressure."

Jones is an aggressive hand fighter who is perfect for the mugging-style press coverage the Patriots employ in the big nickle, and who takes everything as a slight on him, so he has a perpetual chip always balanced on his shoulder - and while some take him for a third corner in the slot, Jones' best destiny is on the outside, where he has become something of an expert at pinning receivers against the sideline and using his ridiculous ball skills to deny receiver after receiver.

"They (the quarterbacks) look at him like, 'Ok, I'm gonna throw on him,'" fellow Crimson Tide corner Maurice Smith said of Jones recently, "and then he turns around and gets a pick - then that side of the field is shut down the rest of the game."

Some would say that Jones has an uphill battle for playing time, what with Malcolm Butler and Logan Ryan forming a pair of solid - if unspectacular - corners, but the smart money has Jones winning the number two in camp, relegating Ryan to the slot, where he has shown a knack for huge plays.

In Belichick's defense, one will see the slot manned by either a corner or by a safety, but with the selection of Kamu Grugier-Hill in the sixth round out of Eastern Illinois, there is every possibility that the slot could be manned by a weakside linebacker in certain packages.

Said to be on the "weak" side because he typically lines up on the opposite side of the field as the opposing tight end, a weakside linebacker is responsible for keeping track of the running back, picking him up in coverage if curling into the pattern...

...while keying on setting the edge and on lateral pursuit should the back take a handoff, pitch or screen pass - which is exactly what Grugier-Hill excels at.

Film of the 6' 2', 215 pounder reveals a stunning similarity to 2015 draft selection Brandon King. Identical in size, both are lighting quick on the accelerator, demonstrating elite closing speed and arriving at their destination with ill intent. Both played the "Star" linebacker position in college - which is the Big Nickle in the pros.

The only difference between the two as far as playing style is that Grugier-Hill comes in a far more polished product and has a chance to provide immediate depth to a unit in desperate need of it and should join King as a special teams' terror.

The problem is - and the reason why Grugier-Hill wasn't a higher round draft consideration - is his weight, or lack thereof - but he' is every bit his draft profile, which uses phases such as "Ridiculous range", "Superior chase speed and burst to the ball carrier" and "has burst to become a dangerous blitzer."

Even though he was drafted as an outside linebacker, many believe a switch to strong safety and the big nickle is where he's headed - but, really, what is the difference between a strong safety and a weakside cover linebacker?

In today's NFL, the gap between the two is virtually non-existent.