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Strong Safety: When I predicted the regression of Bernard Pollard, mean ol' MDC made fun of me. /sniff/ As I long argued throughout 2009, we were able to succeed because we were able to stuff the box with Pollard. The moment he had to cover, we were screwed. Pollard's numbers reflect this. His 124.9 passer rating against is atrocious. On an overall basis, Pollard ranked 70th out of 86 for all safeties. The vast majority of his value is as a pass rusher, not in either stopping the run and especially not against the pass. In fact, his negative rating against the run is a testament to his poor angles and, quite frankly, inability to finish tackles. You have arms for a reason, Bernie.

No matter how you examine the situation, Pollard is a tremendous liability to the team when asked to do the "normal" things a SS is asked to do. He was exposed all year as a fraud in coverage, and his 2009 looks increasingly like an outlier.

Safety is the hot spot. Veteran Mike Brown, formerly of the Chicago Bears, is vying for the strong or free safety job with last year's starters Jarrad Page and Bernard Pollard. Brown, a 10th-year veteran, brings savvy, diagnosis skills and won't be fooled the way Pollard was at times last season. Pollard appears the odd man out, considering he was a liability in coverage at times last season and could be used more as an extra run defender on early downs.