[SamuelMcF]

But again, now that most of our game is played in the nickel, it makes sense to rid ourselves of our undersized nose tackle, bring our defensive ends inside and hope we can grow them into DTs, take our outside linebackers and call the EDGEs, and play two MLBs.  That’s not really a traditional 4-3 front though, where we would have two DTs, a strong side and weak side DE, and a Sam, Will, and Mike LB on the strong, weak, and middle.

I believe David Bailey did an interview recently on TOS in which he stated he's learning both the Edge and Sam positions. That tells me Sam, Will, and Mike are going to be a thing in our new defense.

As far as strong-side vs. weak-side DEs (Edges), that one I'm not sure about. However I'd imagine the couple bigger Edges we have - Armitage and Keneley at 260 and 255 - would be on the strong-side. We also have Ernest Cooper coming in at a lean 235-240 with clear room to add weight, and a couple 2023 Edge recruits who are that big as well.

So of the 2022 guys, we'd likely have Cooper as a strong-side Edge, Bailey as a weak-side Edge and/or Sam depending on situation, and Teva Tafiti as a Sam since he's a little smaller than the other 2.

Personally I believe the Sam position would've fit a lot of our recent OLB/ILB "tweeners" and wished we'd made this change years ago (what else is new) - Curtis Robinson in particular comes to mind.

[SamuelMcF]

But again, now that most of our game is played in the nickel, it makes sense to rid ourselves of our undersized nose tackle, bring our defensive ends inside and hope we can grow them into DTs, take our outside linebackers and call the EDGEs, and play two MLBs.  That’s not really a traditional 4-3 front though, where we would have two DTs, a strong side and weak side DE, and a Sam, Will, and Mike LB on the strong, weak, and middle.

I believe David Bailey did an interview recently on TOS in which he stated he's learning both the Edge and Sam positions. That tells me Sam, Will, and Mike are going to be a thing in our new defense.

As far as strong-side vs. weak-side DEs (Edges), that one I'm not sure about. However I'd imagine the couple bigger Edges we have - Armitage and Keneley at 260 and 255 - would be on the strong-side. We also have Ernest Cooper coming in at a lean 235-240 with clear room to add weight, and a couple 2023 Edge recruits who are that big as well.

So of the 2022 guys, we'd likely have Cooper as a strong-side Edge, Bailey as a weak-side Edge and/or Sam depending on situation, and Teva Tafiti as a Sam since he's a little smaller than the other 2.

Personally I believe the Sam position would've fit a lot of our recent OLB/ILB "tweeners" and wished we'd made this change years ago (what else is new) - Curtis Robinson in particular comes to mind.