Ryan Pickett is no Albert Haynesworth.
But he wasn't happy either.
When the Green Bay Packers coaching staff decided to move Pickett out of the one position he has played since 1998, he wondered who had spiked their coffee.
"I liked the nose," said Pickett. "I got comfortable there."
For the last four years, Pickett had been Green Bay's run-stuffing, block-absorbing nose tackle. Nose tackle had been 'Pick's' spot for nine years in the NFL and three before that at Ohio State. He has been reliable, relatively injury-free and a wall of brute strength and force that every center had to try to contain.
[img_r]http://otrsportsonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/RyanPickett.jpg[/img_r]
But the coaches had to find a way to get last year's first-round draft pick, B.J. Raji, on the field, and that means putting him at nose, his best spot. By promoting Raji to starting nose, they had to slide Pickett to left defensive end this summer.
Pickett made the move without ever questioning the sanity of the coaches or worse.
"Who am I to, you know?" said Pickett. "It was best for the team for me to play end. Obviously, B.J. is a good nose and I can play the end. To help, the team I will play end."
He's playing great. Opposite Cullen Jenkins, he's been solid in the pass and stable as ever against the run, even while given a limited number of practice repetitions there. And when he's taken all the reps he's held up. He's made tackles, and he's chased down quarterbacks.
"It took me awhile to accept it. I was disappointed for a little while," said Pickett. "But after that, I started playing it and started liking it."
The drastic differences for Pickett are spacing and assignments, and both changes have forced the 31-year-old to study the game from his entirely new viewpoint.
"It's a lot different. There's a lot of space out there," said Pickett. "The nose actually is immediate. You don't have time to really think. On end you have time, you can mess up and recover. On nose you really can't.
"At nose, you always have one thing to do. That's it. The A gap. At end, you never know, it depends on what the call is, what gap you have, how to play the technique. So it's a lot of that you have to get used."
Pickett has worked closely with line coach Mike Trgovac on assignments.
Otherwise, he's enjoying a new phase of his career: single blocks. For what probably amounts to 98% of his career, he's always gone up against the center and another blocker. Take one guy away now.
"That's cool," Pickett said. "That gives me an opportunity to make a lot more plays."
His role is clearly defined: to stop the run first. The Packers had the top-ranked run defense a year ago, allowing just an average 83.3 rush yards per game. After that, if Pickett can rush the passer, all the better, although that's not his No. 1 objective. The Packers design several schemes to get pressure from all sorts of places, but a surprise rush from Pickett now and then is always welcome.
Trgovac said he's been impressed with Pickett's athletic ability along with his high standard of play tackling the run.
"If you saw the Seattle game when they tried to reach him (a reach block), he went right down the sideline and made the tackle," said Trgovac. "He can move."
The natural curiosity over this switch is how the 338-pound man will hold up with all that running. He says he has the endurance for it.
"It's a combination of transitioning in to the rush, so it is a little quickness and strength," said Pickett. "But you want more strength to get the tackles back in to the quarterback's lap. But with single blocking, I feel fresh coming in. It's a lot more ground to cover, but I'm not going to let it wear me down.
"My thing is, I think I have an advantage over most tackles because they're normally taller guys, not as strong, more athletic. Used to blocking smaller D-ends. And I think I'm the biggest D-end in the NFL right now."
"I'm sure he is," said Trgovac. "We're a big defensive line."
Raji is 337 pounds and Jenkins 305. And Pickett's stamina does not appear to concern the coaches either.
"He took every snap of look team" on Tuesday in practice, said Trgovac. "When it's a big nickel day in practice, he goes and works the other team's stuff and works hard at it so he is getting the snap of that, just working on his stamina. He and I talked about it today, I said, 'You're not going to play a lot in this game. You didn't play a lot last week.' He took every look-team snap just to keep himself going."