You missed an important part of the rulebook though.
Each team is permitted to have a maximum of two active radio receivers to be used on defense by players who have been designated as a primary and backup user.
According to the article linked above both Matthews and Nate Palmer will be equipped with the radio receiver and speakers in their helmets. Only one player on the field can have an active receiver and since Matthews is on the field for most every play, he's likely to be the primary play caller and Palmer the alternate.
Teams must declare to the officials before the game who will be the primary radio receiver player and who will be the alternate. When the primary guy leaves the field, the alternate has to inform the officials.
I see nothing in your posts or Silverstein's piece that refutes my argument. I highlighted above a passage from Silverstein which you quoted without attribution which I believe is misleading if not inaccurate. Only one helmet so equipped, identified by a green dot on the back, is allowed on the field. Whether that means a helmet with equipment turned off and no green dot is allowed on the field is irrelevant as argued below.
For your post (or Silverstein's piece in support) to serve as a refutation of my argument, there would need to be two speaker helmets on the field, one active and the other inactive, with a toggle switch on the sidelines that can switch active and inactive with the primary and alternate players not having to leave the field. Further, the one player would have to peel off his green dot and give it to the other player to apply to his helmet in order to make the switch without either player leaving the field.
I don't believe it works this way, do you?
Additionally, the rules state:
"Whenever the backup defensive user enters or re-enters the game wearing a helmet with a speaker, he must report to the Umpire. If the primary defensive user subsequently re-enters the game wearing a helmet with a speaker, he must report to the Umpire."
This further suggests that when a team switches to a different player with the active speaker helmet, that player must come from the sidelines. By extension, the guy who was previously wearing the active speaker helmet would have to leave the field in the absence of toggle switches and on-field sticker unpeeling.
Whether Matthews and Palmer each have two helmets, or whether it's one helmet with a switch activated on the sidelines along with green dots put on and taken off on the sidelines, is irrelevant.
So, if we assume the following:
1) Matthews will be the primary speaker helmet guy;
2) passing the active speaker helmet responsibility to somebody else would require that somebody to come off the sidelines replacing Matthews;
3) Matthews is going to take all or nearly all defensive snaps; and
4) the guy calling the signals needs to be in the middle of the field,
then Matthews will be in the middle all day.
QED, right?
Here are some possibilities of varying plausibility that would refute "Matthews in the middle all day":
1) Matthews is in fact the alternate, not the primary, making the whole thing irrelevant except for the fact that Palmer will be on the field all day calling signals. This is certainly possible...Silverstein's piece does not state who is assigned primary responsibility. Upon further consideration, I think this it is a plausible scenario.
2) Matthews will call signals from the OLB position. While this is implausible in general for the reasons stated in an earlier post, it is particularly implausible for a home game when the crowd is loudest when the defense is on the field. Of course, it is possible Capers does not see this as a problem; that's improbable.
3) Matthews is on the bench for a meaningful number of snaps as he switches helmets, or gets his helmet switched on/off and stickered/destickered, whichever the case may be, to move back and forth from ILB to OLB and back again. Pulling Matthews to accomplish this nonsense is quite implausible.
4) When Matthews moves from ILB to OLB without leaving the field, he doesn't call the signals at all even though he has the active speaker, with that job left to Palmer or Ryan or whoever without an active speaker helmet. Maybe somebody would throw him some hand signals from the sidelines. That strikes me as too cute by half.
