Restricted most of last year by Charlie Peprah's athletic limitations, the Green Bay Packers are poised to unleash their most flexible and possibly best safety combination since the four-year run of LeRoy Butler and Darren Sharper ended a decade ago.
Free safety Nick Collins, the mainstay, ranks with Washington's LaRon Landry as one of the top two safeties in the NFC.
Strong safety Morgan Burnett, just 22, is showing signs of becoming one of the finest young safeties in the league.
Together, Collins and Burnett have the speed to glide from sideline to sideline and the size to play effectively at the line of scrimmage.
Whereas defensive coordinator Dom Capers used Peprah generally in the box after Burnett blew out a knee in Week 4, he will enter the regular season at ease interchanging Collins and Burnett because of their similar traits.
"There were times last year because of what we were doing scheme-wise, it was better just to keep Charlie down and keep Nick in the middle," Capers said. "As we put our defenses in through training camp, we want guys to be equal so we can do both with them. I think we can with both of those guys."
Collins, 5 feet 11 inches and 209 pounds, is most valuable patrolling deep in zone coverage.
"Nick's best asset is roaming the middle of the field because he has such great range," said Darren Perry, who coaches the safeties. "You certainly don't want to take that away, but Morgan has the same type of range."
When the Packers dropped a safety down in Collins' first six seasons, he usually remained back because he could chase anyone down and was more athletic than his cohort. The list of his partners included Mark Roman, Marquand Manuel, Aaron Rouse, Atari Bigby and Peprah.
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