lspain1;2076082 said:
I'm not sure about Roy Williams. It seems to me that the passing game has continued to evolve since Roy entered the league and the idea of a "strong" safety has less meaning than it did in the recent past. Greater emphasis on the passing game has clearly made the idea of a "box" safety less relevant as well (although diminished, the "box" safety role is still around).
Yep, the game has changed. Look at Adam Archuletta. He looked like a great player his rookie year, and now he's been released after bouncing around 3 teams in 3 years. Michael Lewis went from Pro Bowler to out of the league in a couple of years. The "in the box" safety is a dinosaur.
People say it's impossible for a safety to cover a TE? Darren Woodson and Lawyer Milloy used to cover slot WR's in the nickel. The game has changed. When Roy came into the league as a rookie Tony Gonzales was in a class by himself as far as althetic TEs. The rest of the Pro Bowl TE's were bigger, lumbering, sure handed guys like Wesley Walls, Bubba Franks and Chad Lewis. Now Gonzales is just one in a pool of athletic H-Back/WR hybrid TE's. Almost every team in the league has one, and the ones that don't are trying to get one. This division alone has Witten, Cooley, Shockey and LJ Smith. You just can't afford to put a safety on the field that's a complete liability in coverage. There's no way to hide them. NFL Offensive Coordinators are not stupid, and they're paid a lot of money to find ways to isolate guys like Roy Williams in coverage and pick on them. Safeties in this league have to cover in the NFL these days, period. You can't scheme it, wish it, pray it away.
