Quote:
Originally Posted by barrett
Whether it was the plan before or after Aldon Smith got drafted I have no idea. I do know Mario asked/demanded OLB well before the draft because DE in the 34 is not known as a playmaking role. Wade tagged him an OLB after that. Then they drafted accordingly. They sure didn't take Watt to make him the 3rd DE. And if they had preliminary discussions about trading him (was that allowed in the lockout?), then it still means the plan was no Mario at DE.
The point of my earlier post was to say Mario is not going back to DE now and it is naive to think he could adjust to that new position with no training camp after he couldn't adjust to this new position with a training camp. Mario Williams is our OLB. Smith and Watt are our DEs. I seriously cannot see any way that changes.
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Everything you say may be true, but I wonder what happens if Wade decides that the Texans would have a more effective defense with Barwin & Reed as the starting OLBs and a frontline of Mario & Antonio at DE with JJ at nose ? Since some of us already have reached that conclusion, maybe Phillips has to but that certainly dosen't make it any easier for him & Kubiak to explain and convince Mario about that ? In other words would the big guy take one for the team ?
But I defintely disagree with you about there being a big difference between the 4-3 & 3-4 DE positions, because they are both based upon one-gap schemes as opposed to the traditional 2-gap, containment type of DE most people (including Mario) associate with the 3-4.
And I would hope the Texans just kinda winked at that no-contact-or-discussion-with-other-teams rule supposedly was in place during the Lockout like say the Eagles almost certainly did when it came to discussions about trading QB Kolb ?