Their strategy: trading a safety who normally helps cornerbacks with pass coverage for an extra tackler near the line.

WSJ: NFL: How Tim Tebow Beat the Steelers

To further pinpoint the seemingly greater importance of the passing game, 6 of the first 32 selected were either cornerbacks or safeties.

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Former Falcon Brent Grimes, who was routinely talked about among elite cornerbacks one year ago signed a bargain-bin deal with the Miami Dolphins.

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The Steelers' starting safety, Ryan Clark, wasn't available to play Sunday and the team's cornerbacks, William Gay and Ike Taylor, were burned on several deep patterns.

WSJ: NFL: How Tim Tebow Beat the Steelers

The move is the latest in a perplexing free agency period for the NFL which has been particularly soft for defensive backs, signaling a shift in a league that overvalued cornerbacks and safeties in recent years.

WSJ: Charles Woodson Rejoins Oakland Raiders

Also, man to man coverage (where corners turn their back to the QB) is going to be a tough sell as more and more running QBs enter the NFL. Zones will rule, which will devalue cornerbacks that CAN pay man coverage.

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Football's all-time leading wide-receiver Jerry Rice would struggle to get open for a pass when running routes against today's speedy cornerbacks, just as few NFL teams would draft Joe Namath and Roger Staubach if the two Hall of Fame quarterbacks were transported into the 1990s while in their primes.

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Bill Belichick, the Patriots' head coach, will have an unenviable decision to make: whether to play a more traditional defense that protects against the pass and risk allowing Tebow and the Denver option running attack to murder them on the ground or to play a more run-focused defense that puts New England's mediocre cornerbacks on an island in man-to-man coverage.

WSJ: NFL: How Tim Tebow Beat the Steelers