Jack Vegas

Must be considering Galette a DE, which is fair since we did play a majority of the time in 4-man fronts.

I love the Lofton/Hawthorne combo. Talk all you want about their supposed lack of coverage ability, but we had the #2 pass defense and I can't recall any time where opposing running backs and tight ends really gave them issues. I like the way they attack the run too; I think Ryan's scheme is set up to be somewhat vulnerable to the run in favor of rushing the passer. BUT, when they really wanted to lock it down on a running back, they did it with flying colors.

Haralson, I also really like and wish he had more playing time. This is JMO but I felt like we were much better against the run when he was in there. If his injury isn't too terrible I would like to see him back, I think he could contribute a lot more as a strongside 4-3 guy as well, when we need that.

No problem with Herring, decent special teamer but I think we can move on. Humber is just as good on special teams and actually has starter potential and is just an all-around better player, IMO. He is more than ready to take on a bigger role. Same for Reddick. I would love to see what he's got, but when you look at how Lofton and Hawthorne have performed at those ILB positions it's hard to find a reason to play somebody else.

IMO we are incredibly thin at the OLB/end rush spot if we want to have any semblance of being a 3-4 defense. Galette is solid, but you'd like him to be more consistent and we still don't know anything about Butler and he's coming off a major injury. Potentially Galette/Butler/Haralson is a very good OLB rotation but those last two are pretty major question marks. Hopefully somebody like Rufus Johnson or Dawson really steps up and makes a claim for a spot, or maybe we draft somebody. I wonder if the Martez Wilson experiment wasn't ended a little prematurely because he did at least seem to do a good job of rushing the passer and was a pretty hard-nosed guy.

I look forward to these positional breakdowns a lot. Should be interesting discussion.