McKinney: FS or SS ?

he's a FS, but he can play both spots, as well as nickel.

With his range, he's better suited to the deep safety spot.

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as I keep saying (because Wink keeps saying), this is a "position-less" defense. Depth charts are kind of moot.

"rotary or touch-tone?"

It's just becoming much less relevant in most modern defenses in general, and very much so in Wink's defense specifically.

Is the only competent FS on the team. I don’t trust anyone else in that spot.

He can play deep, he can play centerfield, he can play in the box, he can even cover somewhat in the slot.

Frankly, I think you need both safeties to do that. No need to pigeonhole them.

Can play FS too, but I don’t trust his tackling. He had something like a 15% missed tackle rate last season.

But I agree with those who've said that the line between FS and SS have become blurred recently.

Yes, you want your safeties to be flexible and hope they can play both spots. However, I disagree that Wink doesn't distinguish between the two. If there is one defense in the NFL that needs a clear distinction between the two, it is Wink's defense.

Look at Pat Graham. If you primarily play zone then you are at the mercy of the offense with what type of zone you are playing. Formations dictate what zone coverage you play. Safeties, therefore, need to be much more flexible.

In Wink's D, he wants to dictate to the offense. If you play man, you hav meetings during the week on who is covering who. It could be that one CB plays on the left and ine on the right but you can also move your guys around. When you play a man match defense, you know which safety is playing man/in the box and which one is deep. So, in this case, you take advantage of the strengths of the players you have. If McKinney is flexible then his role could depend on who wins that second starting spot. If that guy is more of a deep safety then you'll see McKinney down more. If that second safety is an in the box/man guy, then you'll see McKinney back more.

than in the box. He is a playmaker with the ball in the air although we have not seen enough big plays. Love was more of the SS in the box guy that played a lot of differnt roles. You would like both safeties to be position flexible so they can do it but you really want to maximize what they do best, McKinney is more of the FS guy so that should be what he does most.

Just like anything, you have to put players in a position to be successful and as we saw last year Wink does that evry well. We wont know much until we see who is lining up next to McKinney and who is the 3rd safety.

In comment 16120990 robbieballs2003 said:

Quote:

Yes, you want your safeties to be flexible and hope they can play both spots. However, I disagree that Wink doesn't distinguish between the two. If there is one defense in the NFL that needs a clear distinction between the two, it is Wink's defense. Look at Pat Graham. If you primarily play zone then you are at the mercy of the offense with what type of zone you are playing. Formations dictate what zone coverage you play. Safeties, therefore, need to be much more flexible. In Wink's D, he wants to dictate to the offense. If you play man, you hav meetings during the week on who is covering who. It could be that one CB plays on the left and ine on the right but you can also move your guys around. When you play a man match defense, you know which safety is playing man/in the box and which one is deep. So, in this case, you take advantage of the strengths of the players you have. If McKinney is flexible then his role could depend on who wins that second starting spot. If that guy is more of a deep safety then you'll see McKinney down more. If that second safety is an in the box/man guy, then you'll see McKinney back more.

Is it possible Belton could play the strong safety spot and McKinney the free?

Wink isn't really keen on a box SS type, you need a versatile piece there who can man cover, so yeah the roles are probably a bit blurred.

If only we had a versatile 100+ tackling safety for a relatively cheap 6 million a year...

Stay with tight ends is a very good tackler. Nothing has changed since he was in college , a very good player that does everything well but not a classic ball hawk.