Mailbag question: Free Safety position

Mailbag question: Free Safety position

Since Troy Woolfolk has been moved to CB for probably the rest of the season, who should be playing free safety?

Does Mike Williams have the skill set to play the position or is he more suited to strong safety?
Does anyone else on our roster (Emilen, Turner, Gordon) or any 2010 prospects fit the position better?

Thanks,
Muralee B.

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Thanks for the question.

At the start of the season we stated that Troy Woolfolk was an almost irreplaceable player on the defense. He was the only safety with speed and the skills needed to play 1/2 coverage to the wide side of the field.

The other safeties we saw, Vlad, M. Williams, and J. Kovacs, are a better fit at strong safety. None of them has T. Woolfolk’s speed or agility.

Watching the Iowa game did nothing but confirm to us the above statement. Woolfolk helped shore up the cornerback position, but it also hurt the safety positions.

We saw Vlad this spring and thought he was doing quite well especially for a kid that just came in, but think he has a lot of swelling from his past injuries and the coaches wanted to make sure not to hurt him and therefore made the decision to sit him out. Now it comes down to do the coaches play him now or not? And do the coaches trust him concerning knowing the defense and what the defensive calls need to be in certain situations?

The problem right now is the lack of depth on defense, especially at defensive backs. The small group that is actually ready to play is very thin and hopefully we do not see many injuries in the defensive backfield.

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Written by CoachBt and ErocWolverine