Roster Watch - Motley Crew

There are not too many synonyms in Roget's Thesaurus that present the term "Hybrid" in a positive light.

Crossbreed, half-breed, mongrel, bastard, mule, motley, mishmash, hodgepodge or mutt - any paint a less than favorable endorsement, yet the entire New England Patriots' defensive philosophy is based on it.  That said, is there such a thing as having too much versatility?

Benard has been a demon in the pass rush

Looking at the New England Patriots defensive players, particularly on the wings, one could make an argument to that end.  In this era of hybrid "Tweeners" traditional defensive ends and outside linebackers have been replaced by monstrously large and athletic curs capable of so many roles that only a seriously sinister football mind like Bill Belichick's can wrap itself around the idea.

There is no prototype, only a collection of skills that, when combined, present the evil genius with so many possibilities that to implement them would normally require more time and effort than being saddled with a terminal disease - yet Belichick absorbs it, processes it and builds his defense around the strengths of his players rather than the traditional opposite...

...and if that means giving the defense some disparaging moniker, you could do worse than "Motley Crew".

Dont'a Hightower, Jamie Collins, Rob Ninkovich, Chandler Jones, A.J. Edds, Marcus Benard, Michael Buchanan, Justin Francis - a motley crew to be sure:  Hightower, 6' 4" 270 pound linebacker that should be playing defensive end, but that would be too limiting for the freakishly protean athlete that can get after it from just about anywhere in the front 7...

...Collins, the rookie who seems to be a Frankenstein-ish spectacle, gleaning the best attributes of the players around him - accentuating the positives and edifying the whole with a lethal mixture of agility and power, a virtual big play machine.  And Edds, an oft-injured but athletic and very large cover backer that also gets after the quarterback, either standing or with his hand in the dirt.

Jones, his stutter stepping and octopus like tentacles handcuffing opposing offensive tackles, and with the extra lean mass he put on his upper body and increased dexterity gained by working with his MMA champion brother Jon Jones, he has the tools to also rush from the interior when the team wants a 3-4 look to change things up.

He will also drop back into coverage as a linebacker on occasion, his five passes defended in 2012 an indication of purpose to that end, but he is primarily counted on to provide a strong rush and set a hard edge from his right defensive end position, and has addressed his most pressing need based on last year's performance by adding those 10 pounds of upper body muscle mass on the offseason and looks powerful and long...

...and Francis is an all purpose backup that also can shift to the interior to provide penetration, - but as the Patriots have beefed up and gained quickness by adding tackle Tommy Kelly and Armond Armstead, Francis needs to stand out the rest of camp to secure a spot.

Ninkovich is everywhere that he needs to be and is so instinctive that he often seems to know where the play is going and can disrupt the play before it even gets started, which means he is always around the ball and, like Collins, is a big play in wait...

...but we already know these guys, and also figure them to make the 53 man roster - but both Buchanan and Benard are X-factors that could very well challenge the depth chart in a positive manner - but were it not for poor decisions off the field, they wouldn't even be in Foxboro.

Buchanan at Illinois in 2012

At 6' 6" tall and long protracted reach of 34", Buchanan was the best pass rusher on an Illinois defensive line in his Junior season that also featured now-Houston Texan Whitney Mercilus, and was primed for a senior season that most scouts thought would garner him a draft projection between the middle of the first and second rounds - that is until he got into a fight that left him drinking his food through a straw.

Naturally, he lost weight and though he gained it back quickly, the incident seemed to sap some of his aggressiveness and power - and being underweight for a defensive end to begin with, his senior season turned into a nightmare...

...so at first, the thought was that if there's anyone that would be worth stashing somewhere for 2014, it's Buchanan.

After all, a "redshirt" year would allow him to put on some weight and regain some of the power.  But there's a problem - he's showing signs that he's regained much of momentum from his Junior year, displaying violent hands in the pass rush as well as excellent feet in space.  He looks like a small forward in basketball and moves just as well and is showing range in camp, and probably would be a shoe-in for the active roster were it not for Benard - and he still may be anyway.

In Benard, here's a guy that went undrafted out of Jackson State, made the Cleveland Browns final roster and led them in sacks as a rookie, then a string of unfortunate events landed him on the IR and the Browns eventually released him - and Belichick picking him up off the scrap heap may be one of his shrewdest moves in free agency.

Now healthy and healed from a motorcycle accident that cost him most of 2011 and a dislocated elbow that caused him to miss all of last season, Benard has been the pass rushing star of camp - what with his electric first step and elite closing speed - and looks to be on the fast track to leapfrog incumbent Jermaine Cunningham as the primary backup to both Jones and Ninkovich and threatening to make Jake Bequette obsolete.

He's even lining up inside, which just adds to impressive showing thus far in camp - humbled by his bad luck, by going undrafted, by being given up on by the Browns, he will to do anything that his considerable athleticism will allow to make this team.

As with just about everywhere else on defense last season, the edges were painfully shallow - no consistency in the rush, no formula for the leaky underneath coverage, no depth in the event of the inevitable injury.  This unit needed a lot of help going into the offseason, but Belichick addressed it with a just a few mutts - a hodgepodge of tweeners that filled many needs in one package.

Now there's hope for the pass rush, hope for the coverages and versatile depth galore.

There's nothing pretty about them, this motley crew of edge rushers and cover backers, but they are as nimble a bunch of athletes as you will find - and if camp is any sort of a preview of what we're going to witness in the regular season, Patriots' fans best be tuned in for a relentless pass rush and tight coverage on the opposition's backs and tight ends.