I'm not surprised of Hull being mentioned. He's a high motor guy and a hard worker. McMillan has some work to do to knock him out of the rotation but athletic wise McMillan shouldn't have a problem breaking into the rotation once he picks up the defense.
It's a good problem to have honestly.
Honestly Hull did OK at MLB last year. Not great, but he could have easily started over Paysinger and Hewitt, except that Kiko wasn't really cross-trained enough to play Will at that time. One of the advantages of everyone knowing the system already is that they can spend more time cross-training guys like Kiko so that if they need to play someone like Hull, they can shift Kiko around and make that happen.
But, Hull isn't the real impetus. We now have 4 competent LB's: Kiko, Raekwon McMillan, Lawrence Timmons and former starter Koa Misi if he ever gets healthy (hopefully he can still play without further neck injury). Guys like Hull and Hewitt are going to be strictly bench players this year unless we lose 2 LB's to injuries.
Last year we had 3 LB spots and only 1 NFL caliber LB, this year we'll have 4 so we can field an NFL caliber LB corps even if we have 1 injury.
Last year we spent most of the year with a secondary in shambles. Reshad Jones played only a handful of games, and we had no SS replacement really. IAQ, who played admirably, was not a great player and couldn't hold it all together by himself, then he got injured too. Michael Thomas is a poor safety, and Bacarri Rambo proved to be very hot and cold with a lot more cold as the year progressed. So, going into the season we thought we had a good safety pair ... but both went down and for the playoffs we fielded a joke safety pair of scrubs. Similarly, our cornerbacks were devastated. We started the year with an injured and clueless Byron Maxwell, then eventually he healed up and figured things out, giving us mostly very good games. Then he got injured and disappeared again. All in all, he started and finished invisible and in the middle showed he could be a good CB. Xavien Howard had an impressive rookie season repeatedly marred by injuries. Tony Lippett was thrown into the deep end before he was ready, but really progressed because of it. This year all 3 look healthier and improved compared to last year. Then we added another quality prospect at boundary CB. This should make us a lot deeper with more quality and less learning the defense on the fly. And adding TJ McDonald and Nate Allen in place of IAQ should allow Michael Thomas to be a nickel CB, which I think is where he is much more effective.
So, Burke will have more faith in his secondary, and rightfully so. He will not need to use his LB corps to protect his DB's as much as Vance Joseph did. And, Burke should have actual NFL caliber LB's. This cross-training allows him to shuffle them around should we have injuries. Our second year in the scheme allows guys like Kiko, Misi, Hull and Hewitt to figure out multiple positions, just in case. I do think they're limiting what McMillan sees, because he's 20 years old and it's a big jump, but I think he can make the jump and learn on the field in games, because he's naturally talented, smart and hard working.
