Finally. and not only is it a suitable role for him, but it's a role we've been trying to fill since last year with Michael Buchanan.
3rd down pass rusher on obvious pass plays, with Chandler Jones rushing from inside.
Make no mistake about it, Collins and Mayo are the 2 LB's in passing situations. Hightower (like Spikes before him) would've been the odd man out during passing situations when all LB's are healthy. But instead of Hightower coming off the field due to coverage issues, he gets to rush the passer now. And he's looked pretty damn good the past 2 weeks at getting to the QB.
That 2012 Draft is looking real good right now. (Chandler Jones, Donta Hightower, Alfonso Dennard)
This is not the role Hightower played yesterday though.
I went back and reveiwed the film, and here is how the defense schemed yesterday.
I'll start with the second half because thats easiest and most appropriate to this point.
We played almost exclusively 4-2 nickel in the second half. We played maybe 5 snaps of 34 base, if that and also a handful of 3-2 dime.
Hightower didn't play DE with Jones rushing from inside all day.
His pass rush was exclusively as a blitzer when we sent 5 or more, which we did a lot of.
In all nickel and dime packages Hightower aligned off the ball in the vicinity of where a 34 ILB would align, except for blitz packages when he cheated up to the LOS (usually near the B gap) and blitzed.
These are the schemes we played, which a rough estimate of how much, and personell used.
BASE
We played 34 base. Wilfork was on the DL mostly with Silinga, Jones and Easley rotated in a bit. Vellano played less than 5 snaps.
Hightower played weak OLB.
Mayo and the rookie were the ILBs.
The DL shifted to strength making either Nink or Jones the Strong OLB depending upon formation, the other one played DE.
We played some snaps with '3 bigs' Wilfork, Jones, Siliga (I'm guessing somewhere between 5 and 10 of them) with Nink and Jones as OLBs and Mayo and Hightower ILBs. This is clearly a run heavy D that we will use situationally and opponent specifically.
We played a handful of 43 snaps, with the same personell. The major difference was the LBs were further inside and BOTH Nink and Jones had contain.
Sub packages were primarily the 42 nickel. Chris Jones, Easely and Wilfork were the DTs.
We played a few snaps of 33 nickel which was basically the 34 described above with a LB (Skinner) out and a DB in.
We played a little 3-2 dime, which was interesting with Easely on the nose and Jones and Nink at DE.
Mayo and HT at LBs.
In the end this was pretty much the same scheme that we played vs Miami, but offensive personnel groups, game plan and score made it look different. Jones was standing up more, because Nink was in a 3 point stance more because the Vikes went strong more often to a different side of the field that the Dolphins.
I think if Collins were healthy, we would have seen Nink coming off the field in sub with Hightower taking his DE place and Collins taking the LB spot HT was playing yesterday.
HT did not play DE at all yesterday, but did vs the Dolphins, so it seems Collins being out got Nink more reps.
