Free Safety

[freddyg12]

Originally Posted by redskins121684

Haslett's defense don't historically follow the FS and SS roles the way that we historically think of them. He usually puts a closed safety (more like a SS) close to the LOS with deep responsiblity falling on the corner helping him. Laron would be ideal here, looking at his added bulk Haslett may have clued him into this idea early on. Then Laron doesn't have to worry about being the deep help, he'll play short zones and blitz and (hopefully) wrap up some running backs. Reed would not be ideal here b/c he is smaller and he does have some range to provide coverage deeper so playing the Open safety spot is probably where he fits in although comparing the two I'd say Reed is a better tackler. Laron is definitely faster than Reed but Laron also has an extremely aggressive nature, if you cater to that then you put him as close to the action as you can -- that means he plays the closed position and has no deep responsibility to worry about. Moore is really the only player on the roster right now who could step in and do the things that Haslett likes his deep safeties to do. Reed might be too slow, Holmes is completely unproven and I have no idea what he is capable of, Laron really cannot play at this position he's too aggressive and that isn't something you should coach out of a player and given his goal of 240 lbs he'd be better playing close to the line.

good analysis, thanks for posting. They said good things about Holmes last year & he's still around to compete for a spot, maybe he catches on as a backup deep safety?