We saw variations of it before.
With knew passer friendly rules, more and more teams are going with 3 wide (or a pass catching TE which is almost the same thing.)
We've had Dom Davis playing Safety and Rodney is almost a LB sometimes. Merriweather is a CB/S hybrid. Am I alone thinking he will be the "Nickel Safety" as a heavy 3-3-5 becomes more of a base than the 3-4? (In a 3-4 in obvious running situations he is a saftey.)
I think we saw some of this last year, did we not? I think what we saw a lot in passing situations is what I understand to be a cover 3 with the FS (Sanders, until Meriweather got some starts in the playoffs), covering the deep middle, and the corners protecting the other two thirds. It allowed Harrison to come up into the box, either to cover a TE (ie, Indy, SD, Cowboys games), blitz or be a factor in run D.
Will we see more of this? Perhaps...I would speculate that having a speedier LB corps, ie, Mayo & Hobson entering the rotation, would allow the team to stay a little bit bigger by keeping their LBs on the field, and using Rodney less in the LB role.
Meriweather at FS next season is the big difference, IMO. Sanders doesn't have nearly the speed or the range, and having a speedy guy like Meriweather back there could really have a huge impact on the defense's success.
Another thing that could make the D a lot more effective is now that AD has a year's experience in the system and has learned the ability to play WOLB and SILB (right?), and you have versatile LBs like Hobson and Mayo, they will be able to disguise where the rush is coming from better, and rush up the middle. Capers is associated with heavy zone blitzes based on my understanding, it wouldn't be a surprise to see BB adopt some of that, and use Adalius as the key man in keeping team's OLs off balance, much the way the NYG did to us.