Reggie Herring Thinks Everyone Should Chill Out With All The Worrying About Mario Williams Moving To OLB

Nick Scurfield sat down with your Houston Texans' new linebackers coach, and the man who'll be charged with transforming Mario Williams from a homely DE into a comely OLB has a message for everyone who's freaking out about the transition: RELAX.

"There’s been a lot of what I would say a lot of overreaction as to us moving him out there," Herring said last week in his office at Reliant Stadium. "There’s a lot of anxiety built up for no reason. At the end of the day, over half the game, our outside ‘backers are down in our sub package rushing outside, which is what he did anyway and has done in college."

"And the other half of the (time), he will just be in a two-point (stance) outside rushing from an outside position, and very, very seldomly dropping," Herring said. "We’re different in structure from most 3-4 teams, and I think everybody breaks out the 3-4 manual and kind of broad brushes just what we’re doing with him, and they don’t really understand our 3-4 defense.

"Our 3-4 defense is we determine who rushes on every snap, not the formation. Nobody can dictate by formation who rushes or drops by motioning the tight end over and creating a strong set to the weakside. We say who’s going to rush, and they rush. And at the end of the day, regardless of what formation it is, we’ll dictate how many times Mario rushes and drops. So people can forget about that."

"People are saying, basically, ‘How can you tell us that he’s only going to (drop) three times a game, maybe?’" Herring said. "Well, because we dictate that. We do have the capability of dropping him. What he does is a very easy drop."

See? Nothing to worry about, folks. Super Mario's going to do what Super Mario does.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to lay down. All this talk about a defense that dictates, instead of being dictated to, is giving me the vapors.