This is the pioint where coaches say, "I don't have a Julius Peppers on my team." Well neither do we, but it is, in fact, a relative comparison. The concept here is to be comparatively athletic. As I read more about Jimmy Johnson's philosophy at the U of moving safeties down to LB, LB's down to end, I understand the value more an more, especially in light of the gravitation toward athletic or dual threat QB's.
One cornerstone of our success has been that we have made the conscious decision to get faster on defense. This includes taking a "step slow" safety and moving him to Wil; a step slow LB and moving him to end, etc. What that does in today's read option world is give you an equalizer- the end doesn't have to be fast enough to run with the athlete playing QB, just fast enough to confound the read and stay in front of him long enough for help to arrive in pursuit.
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