In this scheme, the Patriots' safeties divided the field in half and played zone defense.
Today's NFL safeties, linebackers and defensive ends are undoubtedly faster and stronger than their 1992 counterparts.
Reed will go down as one of the best safeties to ever play the game.
These players, who are generally faster than linebackers and brawnier than safeties, are more durable than receivers.
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Ryan's team has struggled considerably when linebackers and safeties have had to shadow pass-catching players at the position.
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For the Bucs, adding Revis improves a secondary that already includes cornerback Eric Wright and safeties Goldson and Mark Barron.
Buffalo selected safeties with back-to-back picks on Saturday, selecting Nevada's Michael 'Duke' Williams 105th overall and Clemson's Jonathan Meeks 143rd overall.
New York's safeties often didn't have the speed or agility to keep up with the league's new breed of tight ends.
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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The decision didn't come as a surprise after Byrd established himself as one of the league's top young safeties during his four seasons in Buffalo.
On third and goal, the Trojans handed off to McNeal again and Notre Dame's safeties came off the edges and closed on him like the pincers on a spider.
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Brandt said he would run a hospitality suite at the Final Four where basketball coaches could swing by and tell him which players would make good tackles or safeties.
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According to the website Pro Football Focus, Moore has one sack, three hits and five hurries on 29 blitzes this season, making him the second-most productive pass rusher among all safeties.
For the Bucs, adding Revis would improve a secondary that already includes cornerback Eric Wright and safeties Mark Barron and recently signed Dashon Goldson but finished last in pass defense last season.
Instead, they use a bewildering array of defensive shifts, disguised zones and coverage rotations to befuddle opposing quarterbacks and put safeties Thomas DeCoud and William Moore in prime position to force turnovers.
"I am definitely one of the bigger safeties but I think that plays to my advantage with the way the league is going, with as many tight end as there are, " he said.
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.
The president and the Ravens safeties have mentioned all of this in the context of the semi-recent findings of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive degenerative disease, in the brains of football players both past and present.
Other All-Americans entering early were second-teamers Moore, Hankins, Minter, WR Stedman Bailey of West Virginia, safeties Tony Jefferson of Oklahoma and Eric Reid of LSU. Third-teamers were Montgomery, RBs Giovani Bernard of North Carolina and Stefphon Jefferson of Nevada, WR DeAndre Hopkins of Clemson, and DT Sharif Floyd of Florida.
Without those rookie sessions, Manning doesn't scan the field, see a Cover-2 defense, recognize that the Patriots jammed his top two receivers on the right, look off New England's safeties, slide up in the pocket and thread the ball 38 yards into the teeniest of windows for Mario Manningham for the game's biggest play.
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