What is Su’a Cravens role with the Redskins?

Su’a Cravens was an interesting draft prospect because of his versatility and the fact he didn’t perfectly fit a specific position.

The Redskins took Su’a Cravens in the 2nd round of the 2016 NFL draft. This pick was a bit surprising, no one really had them linked to Cravens throughout the draft process. He didn’t visit DC or with the Redskins’ staff and the Redskins were linked to other strong safeties pretty heavily. If you believe the rumors, the Redskins were pretty hot on Karl Joseph and hoped he would make it to 21.

Cravens is a bit of a curiosity for the Redskins’ defense. Nominally, they were a 3-4 front but played a lot of hybrid fronts using a 6-3-1-5 defensive line with a 7 lined up at outside linebacker and traditional 3-4 inside linebacker roles for the final 2 spots of the front 7. And so far Cravens has been working with the inside linebackers a lot.

The coaches must see something not on Cravens’ tape. Cravens, in my opinion, is at his best when he’s setting up on the edge of a defense and can attack the backfield or cover in the flat. This is what he excelled at during his time at Southern Cal. In NFL comparison terms, his role would be best if used much like LeVonte David has been in Tampa(a Weakside attacker) or Troy Polamalu was in Pittsburgh(3-4 strong safety who played essentially as a 5th linebacker).

Playing him as an inside linebacker means that at 226 lbs, he has to play the deeper weakside inside linebacker role which asks him to cover in space farther back. This is not something he did well at Southern Cal. He was recruited to play strong safety but the coaching staff appears to have quickly realized that he was a major liability for them playing back and came up with this hybrid linebacker/safety role so that they could take advantage of his unique talents to attack the backfield.

Unless the Redskins are going to play more of a traditional 3-4 front, then it’s hard to see how Cravens contributes much outside of subpackages where he can lineup like he did with Southern Cal. Considering that they brought back Junior Galette, who seems like a bad fit for the 4-3 hybrid front they ran in 2015, this would be a logical end game for them. Having Cravens-Junior-Preston Smith-Ryan Kerrigan could represent a fierce enough attacking threat to make up for a substandard defensive line on passing downs.

One potential way for Cravens to fit into their 2015 defensive philosophy would be in a role similar to what Deone Bucannon plays for the Cardinals: a hybrid strong safety/inside linebacker role which they call the “moneybacker.” Bucannon has been given freedom to choose his spots and what he’ll do on any given play. This is much like how the Steelers used Polamalu only in a 3-3-1-4 set. The Cardinals can pull this off because their defensive line is stout enough to survive being in a base nickel but the Redskins don’t have anywhere near the same level of talent on their defensive line.

Cravens is going to be a person of interest in DC this season and moving forward. He has some intangibles which make him a potential contributor to an NFL defense but his limitations mean that it might be awhile before he finds a role with the Redskins’ defense.