Nothing gets me more hot and bothered than a defensive depth chart and I always love how Greg Bedard puts his together. It’s not one of those run of the mill/paint by numbers/3-4 defense ones.

Interesting things to point out here is Ninkovich’s move to left end. I’m sure he’ll be standing up sometimes, but it would be a departure from even last year if Pats are less concerned about stopping the run with a big Ty Warren-esque left end?

This is clearly more of a nickel front based on that, but as we’ve been saying all off-season, nickel is the new base. I think the run stopping front seven version of this looks as so:

Fanene-Love-Wilfork-Deaderick

Ninkovich-Spikes-Mayo

Or how about the 3-3-5 front. Something like this maybe:

Fanene-Wilfork-Scott

Hightower-Spikes-Mayo

Question on that one is who comes off, Ninkovich or Hightower?

For the 4-2-5 nickel I think you pull Hightower or Spikes, unless you put Hightower with his hand in the dirt to rush off the left end. Then you pull Ninkovich.

It’s not a direct position battle but there is definitely some role battles between Hightower and Ninkovich. And Carpenter I guess, but I’m really not expecting him to be a big contributor just because he was out there in mini-camp.

(via Setting the depth chart: Defense – Extra Points – Boston.com)