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It's really hard to find 3 down players that can combat any type of offense you're going to see. Those guys, the Jon Allens and Quinnen Williams of the world, are first round picks for a reason. Being able to penetrate and disrupt the passing game while holding the point of attack in the running game takes a special type of athlete. You either need specialists or freaks.

I think why you see us "fatten up" our defensive ends is that we're trying to create a balanced player that isn't limited by what he's able to do in situational football.

Do you know why that's important? Because everybody runs tempo now. If they don't sub, you can't sub. So you need guys that can rush the passer and play against the run or else you have a clear weak link that can be exploited until you're able to get him off the field.

Unfortunately there are only a few freaks every season. If you miss on them then you have to mold the clay you've got. I think we've ended up with a lot of DE type players that are pretty good at everything but great at nothing. The 260-275 pound freshman that come in as pretty good high school pass rushers, but will never quite have that twitch as the 230 pounder that bulked up a little, and don't have the strength right away to successfully play the run. They're more well rounded players if you work on bulking them up, because they aren't super twitchy anyway.

Agree with all of this. You can't really have too many niche players anymore because of substitution rules, but the guys who are naturally twitchy enough to get after the QB and strong enough to anchor against the run are few and far between. I personally think we got one of them this year in Timothy Smith, but time will tell. I don't think anyone is going to be able to maintain consistent greatness on defense from game to game, much less year to year, anymore though. Simply because even the greatest defensive mind in history can do nothing to adjust during the middle of a possession if the offense doesn't substitute.