since he subbed in for Shembo

by Pat, in the cloud, Sunday, November 20, 2011, 18:26 (4678 days ago) @ BPH

Niklas has been playing nearly exclusively with his hand on the ground rather than as an outside linebacker.

I don't know if the staff doesn't think he's mobile enough or just sees him as another viable body to help replace KLM, but I found it interesting that he's been playing so much on the line.

If he is a linemen going forward, that makes us incredibly deep at defensive end (KLM, Tuitt, Lynch, Hounshell, Niklas, Ishaq) and pretty thin at outside linebacker (Shembo, Spond, Councell). I suppose Ishaq will move back to OLB, but he's another guy that has been playing nearly exclusively as DE this year.

I updated the defensive snaps spreadsheet (only through the Navy game), for those that are interesting in seeing how many snaps everyone is playing. I know he's playing plenty of special teams, but only 3 snaps at corner for Josh Atkinson is a bit disappointing.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en_US&hl=en_US&key=0Ahk5UIX_88iLdHpz...