[Marcellus]

Originally Posted by Easy 6

Logged in to post about this, here's a little more to the story

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/steve-s...181419824.html

Nowhere in this does he say he prefers Hitchens to play over Bolton.

“Hitch (Anthony Hitchens) to me is the guy who smooth’s everything out,” Spagnuolo said. “He’ll be in there in certain situations. I’m sure we’ll have Nick (Bolton) in there in certain ones. I’m sure they’ll both be in there together, which is a good problem to have. Any time you can have intelligent, good football players at the linebacker spot, I think that’s a good thing for us.”

Asked specifically whether Hitchens could be utilized as the SAM linebacker, Spagnuolo shot down any notion of him playing a different position.

“I don’t know if we’ll go that route,” Spagnuolo said. “They’ll be — there’s usually four of those guys that work in there, really, and they’ll all get work. We’ve got packages for all of them, so we’ll get them in there.”

Bolton should still get opportunities in the base and nickel defense, but Hitchens’ return will cut into someone’s snap count. Whether that someone is Bolton, Willie Gay Jr. or Ben Niemann remains to be seen. Spagnuolo feels like he has a good problem on his hands here, but navigating it and ensuring the right players get snaps at the right times could prove to be a difficult task.