re: What is Ryan's defense, really?

quote:

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We haven't really seen much of the defense we'll be playing this year. We've been in a lot of off man and zone coverage. People have suggested with our only keeping 3 OLB that we're likely to be playing a lot of 4-3 fronts, but if that were the case, I think we would have kept Richardson. Instead we kept more ILB, who have reportedly been cross training at OLB.

Next Sunday will be interesting.

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I have to completely agree with you. Between the PFF report and Trip commenting on it, it had me wondering if a move back to 4-3 was coming.

But several things have convinced me that this is not the case(though Ryan is multiple and we will see some 4 man fronts).

First is that Smith, Richardson, and Atkins were the best OLBs suited to drop down as linemen so we could switch on the fly. None of them are on the roster(but I think Richardson could be a vet brought back after week 1).

Second is that we only kept 7 Dlinemen. If we were planning on using more 4 man fronts 7 is a very low number for that.

Third is that we kept 9 total LBers and a few of the ILBs are being cross trained(as shown with Herring and said by Humber and Lofton).

Bottom line is the kept the best 53 within the confines of what they plan to run. If they were going to run mostly 4 man fronts they would have kept more Dlinemen.