Who Will Win the New England Patriots’ Strong Safety Battle?

May 29, 2013   ·   Oliver Thomas   ·   Jump to comments

With OTAs, minicamp and training camp all on tap for the New England Patriots, the time is now for position battles to begin brewing in Foxborough.
Strong safety will be one of them.
In the modern-day NFL, starting strong safeties must be enforcers against both the run and the pass. They're chess pieces, built to make receivers think twice about going over the middle and make running backs think twice about the eighth man in the box.
Strong safeties must be freelancers, but judicial ones. They must be aggressive defenders, but not overzealous ones. In essence, they must be able to be everywhere, but not in one place too much.
Quite the job description, right?
To make matters more demanding, versatility is also a key component. It is the last line of prevention against schematic exploitation and medical attrition. And according to head coach Bill Belichick, it's a prerequisite.
In Belichick's eyes, a Patriots safety doesn't have to look like ...

Read Complete Article at Bleacher Report - NFL
Article is property of BleacherReport.com