Earlier I reached out to greg about whether we should specifically have a rule for owners about limiting show can play on the DL after watching McKeon's sack numbers explode. More on that in a bit.

Greg doesn't have time to police rules unless they overly impact the league, and I don't blame him. So I'm bringing this question to you all: Should the DL be restricted to DL?

Why are you getting so many sacks in the first place?

McKeon is an ultra rare talent in that he has 89/89 SP/AC. That's max/max for LBs. (I think that 90 is possible, but I haven't seen it at weight.) The fastest your at weight OL are going to move are < 84. (C's are 283# and DEs are 276#, and DEs max are 84/84 or thereabouts).

This means that McKeon will beat all of the OL he faces off the ball. Which is devastating because a lot of passing plays put the LDE 1:1 against the RG in the 46 Heavy.

How do you make this fair?
Personally, I have no problem dropping an LB to a hands on the ground DE spot in pass rush situations. Think about Clay Matthews coming up to the DE, or some other LB-hybrid.

But MFN being MFN right now, this doesn't always feel fair. So I could make McKeon a DE, and his weight should go to 276#. This will make him an 84/84 player (or thereabouts), which MAY cut his sack production down. But not that much.

How do you mitigate it?
Almost all of McKeon's sacks have come against a handful of plays: Waggle, PA Streaks, Max Liability (Max Protection - the worst medium pass in the game), and some others.

The best mitigation strategy for anyone playing against the 46 Heavy defense is to find the plays where the RT blocks down and doubles up the LDE. There are a number of short passes that do this in the 212, but I'm not going to spend time listing them off.

I'm more than happy to move McKeon to DE if that's what people want to see. It'll mean adjusting my MLB2 in the 3-4, but that's solveable enough.

WRs play at the RB Position all the time.

LB playing as speed rushers on passing downs is more common than WRs getting 95%+ of a teams carries

We should keep rules to a minimum. Punt Blocking has a far bigger impact on the game and and you can't counter it on the punt. You can counter the extra pass rush with gameplanning.

And I bet a 23f pound LB at the LDE so´pot is a liability against the run

The problem is with MFN SP is tied to weight. So you play your RB at WR to get them as fast as possible. Because you can't have a 240# 95 SP bruiser, we all play Darren Sproles type backs.

I do know that as I did read your guides ;-)

I wanted to say that imo, if WRs are allowed to play at the RB Slot, LB should be allowed at the DE spot.

LBs @ DE is fine.

I'd view the defensive line in defensive sets the same as the front four in a punt block. We should probably draw the line at the 95/95 speed CBs being over-ridden into those positions. But LBs - it's only 1 positional set shift away from DE. I've got no problem with it. We need flexibility.

I agree with this. I don't mind putting LBs at DE, which is pretty common in NFL (and in this case, adding an LB to a 4-3 front makes it a 3-4 front). But we should shame and condemn anyone who puts a lightweight speeder at DL.

How do you feel about safeties dropping to LB in a 3-3-5 set? Asking for a friend.

I really don't have a problem with the 1 set switch (DB to LB...LB to DE)

I have played LBs at DE and DBs as LB, mostly out of injury necessity but I still do it. I didn't get into all the reasons with Seth earlier, as I was trying to write the blog and get ready for work tonight, but you guys pretty much hit on how I feel about it.

Unlike the punt block exploit, this can be game planned against, so it's not so much a time issue, as an issue for Seth's opponents. He has literally told everyone how to counter his strategy so I see no problem letting things continue as is, unless someone gives me a compelling reason I have yet to think of.

I think we're all just trying to survive. It's better to put in a DB whom can be effective at the LB position for depth than to toss empty rated LBs out there or insufficient ones whom will get feasted on.

It's a delicate balance. Some may get intoxicated with it and then I'd think it would open them up to punishing runs against them.

Just keep in mind that I see it as a mitigation strategy. It's not going to counter it completely. But you can certainly game plan around it. I only sacked Smirt once in Champions and he ended up in a position where he had to pass more than he wanted.