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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dantés" data-source="post: 905825" data-attributes="member: 12283">The true base defense (meaning, the one they use the most) for virtually every team in the NFL is nickel and features four "on the ball" players-- two on the edge, and two on the inside. If your "base" happens to be a 3-4 (the 15-25% of the time you're actually using a 3-4), then those edge player might get listed as "outside linebackers," whereas the same exact player would be listed as "defensive end" if your base happened to be a 4-3. The reality is that they're just edge rushers. The distinction is semantical. So if they happened to draft Collins and use him as an off-ball linebacker, it wouldn't make sense to say that they had three 260 lb "linebackers." They would have two 260+ lb on-the-ball edge rushers (like... basically everyone) and one true linebacker who is indeed very large.Again, I'm not a big fan of Zaven Collins, but the holdover tendency of calling edge rushers "outside linebackers" from the days when teams actually ran a lot of 3-4 seems to create confusion every year.</blockquote>

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