I've got nothing but respect for your football posts, but I disagree about Flowers here. I think he's a pure linebacker.
At 6'3" 230, he's a good amount thinner than Vrabel (6'4" 260) and Ninkovich (6'2" 260). I know the times are changing and players are going more for speed, but his size along with how he's been used in the past scream linebacker (in the 3-4 ILB sense) to me.
This part is anecdotal, but I remember Ninkovich being an OLB/DE from day 1. He played DE in Miami and New Orleans, too. The controversy, as I recall it, was whether he was "the worst starter in the NFL."
It's certainly true that there are contrasts between Vrabel/Nink and Flowers in terms of their playing history.
In his two years at Purdue as a JUCO transfer, Nink was a very productive reserve/rotational DE, playing behind Ray Edwards (he also caught two TDs on offense, one each from Kyle Orton and Curtis Painter).
In his very limited snaps with NOL in 2006 and MIA in 2007, Nink was nominally a DE in the 4-3 systems run by Gibbs and then Capers. He was let go by MIA after the 2008 season when Pasqualoni (under Parcells) converted the Fins to the 3-4 and attempted to convert Nink to OLB. He finally succeeded in that role with the Pats 3-4 in 2009.
Then, as the Pats defense began transitioning in 2010 to the mixed fronts they use today, Nink also began gradually transitioning from a primarily OLB role to the primarily "DE-type" role he inhabited from roughly 2013 onward. In Nink's retirement "ceremony", BB specifically pointed out how Nink's versatility and ability to bridge those roles has played a critical part in making that scheme transition successful.
The prejudice against Nink, I believe, was due to the fact that he was clearly given (earned) Vrabel's role and he clearly "didn't measure up." But folks were comparing the much-beloved, Pats-HOF-lock and legendary Vrabel of 2007 - his
7th season with the Pats - to Nink's 2010 - his
first season as a starter with the Pats (
and during the aforementioned scheme transition). Any suggestion (at the time) that folks, instead, compare Nink's first few seasons on the Pats with the start of Vrabel's Pats career were met with figurative fingers-in-the-ears, "La la la la, I can't hear you!!" However, folks who were more inclined to pay attention noted that Nink's statistical production was virtually identical to Vrabel's throughout their respective early seasons. Adjusting for the fact that Nink was in a mostly DE-type role for the final four years of his 7-years as a Pats starter, Nink's career stats also ended up being nearly identical to what Vrabel had compiled as an OLB during his 8 years as a Pats starter in the old 3-4.
Vrabel, OTOH, played his first four NFL seasons as a situational pass-rushing OLB in Haslett's 3-4, in which the starting
DEs were in the same weight class as Seymour and Ty Warren. When Vrabel, arrived on the Pats, he became a starting OLB very quickly, and then was traded in the spring of the 2009 season that began the Pats defensive scheme transition.
Flowers definitely has a different heritage.
His first two seasons at Arizona, he was a DB (starting FS as a Soph, apparently) and smoothly transitioned to LB in his junior season. He entered the 2014 draft listed as an OLB at 6025/231 with very good testing numbers (including 24 bench reps). Although I don't entirely trust the accuracy of the HT/WT measurements on Patriots.com, they
do have him listed
now at 250 lb, and he certainly appears to have a bigger frame than, say, Roberts.
Although I can't recall seeing him in a 3-point stance, Flowers had definitely lined up pre-snap as a wide 5-tech (more or less) on numerous occasions, and even as the 4th guy in a (more-or-less) 4-man front in a handful of situations.
Anyway, the underlying point here is that any analysis of the role(s) that a given player may inhabit in the Pats ultra-ambiguous (by design) schemes may be greatly hampered by antiquated NFL positional nomenclature. Belichick and Saban (and Parcells and a few others) have been creating numerous roles that bridge two or three of the traditional positional designations for decades - and seeking out players who can do that. And most of the rest of the league has (slowly) followed suit.
The once fairly clear positional distinctions between OLB and DE, between DE and DT, between SS and FS, and even between safety and CB have gotten extremely murky as defensive schemes have become increasingly complex, flexible (ambiguous) and sophisticated. So many teams are now using mixed 3-4/4-3 fronts (and 4-2-5, 5-1-5, 3-2-6 alignments) so often that statements about a team "running a base 4-3 (or 3-4)" often don't apply well anymore. Even the simple man v. zone coverage distinction has been obscured by "pattern matching" coverages (yet another concept that was originally developed by Belichick and Saban).
So, when you see a guy like Marquis Flowers rushing off the edge (or through a B-gap) so frequently, and a guy like James Harrison dropping into coverage on 30% of his snaps in the AFCCG, even the designation "OLB/DE" - itself a kludge of the antiquated positional nomenclature - is inadequate to describe the role(s) a guy might actually play on the field (and even varying from game-to-game).
So, for now - and even though I'm not completely comfortable with it - I'll continue to use the "OLB/DE" term for Marquis Flowers even though, to this point, his snap counts (
this season) in his various roles have been somewhat proportionately different from what Nink and Vrabel played in various seasons. Next season, with (hypothetically) Rivers and Langi in the mix? Who knows?
