Matty's Mailbag: Williamson talks nickel defense, Marshawn Lynch, and the Fins

Matt Williamson is a former scout for the Cleveland Browns and spent 10 years at ESPN as a scout and co-host of "The Football Today Podcast."

Welcome to Matty's Mailbag, a semi-regular feature where I answer questions solicited from NFL fans on Twitter. Here is this week's offering:

Why don't defenses consider the nickel package as base? More are playing extra DB than standard LBs now on more plays.
- Brian Hunt (@brihunt28)

Well, there are some semantics involved here.

I know this makes no sense, but every defense in the league plays most of their snaps with extra defensive backs on the field, and these are still referred to as "Sub Packages." When in reality, if they're playing the most snaps in said personnel grouping, you'd think that should be considered their base defense.

Inside team buildings, teams now look at their nickel or dime package (whichever they prefer) as the more important grouping and, therefore, spend more money and draft picks to fortify their pass defense with extra defensive backs on the field.

Soon, the media will start referring to nickel or dime as "Base" I would think, much as how we refer to a team as either a 4-3 or 3-4 scheme today. I hope that makes sense and isn't too confusing, but the NFL has changed very rapidly in this regard.

What can we expect from Martavis Bryant and Marshawn Lynch after they've missed a year of football? Both for (different) reasons.
- Jamie Walsh (@jwalsh115)

I am certainly speculating here, as, like you said, we haven't seen either player for some time.

Both played last week, but that's a difficult barometer. Watching both Bryant and Lynch in Week 3 of the preseason might allow us to see how both players are moving around. I'm fortunate enough to also work for Steelers Nation Radio, so I've seen Bryant up close since his return. He looks amazing. He's bigger now and quite possibly even faster.

The team is cautiously optimistic about what Bryant brings to this Pittsburgh offense opposite Antonio Brown. Bryant should be in store for a monster season. As for Lynch, that's a tougher one and Oakland would be wise to keep him as fresh as possible for the season. In fact, they might even want to keep him on some sort of pitch count for the early portion of the year.

I do certainly have concerns about how well Lynch can hold up for an entire 16-game (and hopefully more for Raiders fans) season at his age, with his running style and after being away from the game. Lynch is obviously a special player and runs behind one of the league's best offensive lines, but in the end, I'm more optimistic about Bryant.

Why are the Dolphins pinning their hopes on Mike Pouncey when they need to rest him after ONE practice?
- Landry for President (@WeNeedPlaymakrs)

Pouncey's injury history is extremely concerning and it very well could be something that holds him back or sidelines him for his career in some way. However, don't look too much into Pouncey not practicing.

Adam Gase realizes how very important he is to Miami's line and as many coaches are doing this time of year, Gase isn't going to take any chances with his most important players. The Dolphins offensive line is night and day different when Pouncey is in or out of the lineup. In fact, Pouncey is reportedly starting the third preseason game, so there's no reason to think this is anything more than Miami just being cautious and smart.

However, I did find it shocking that Miami didn't do more to fortify their guard spots flanking Pouncey this offseason. Adding a true starter there would have been wise, as would have been adding a swing interior offensive lineman to give them options at guard and center if Pouncey can't go at any point.

A normally aggressive organization sat on its hands in this area in the offseason and it very well could come back to bite the Dolphins in a big way.

Which rookie RB of Dalvin Cook and Joe Mixon do you see perform best this year and maybe next based on talent, competition and environment/O-line.
- Tore Bonke Jeppesen (@torebonke")

This is a tough one for sure. In a way, they're in similar situations as both players are loaded with talent and are well rounded in how they can punish a defense. However, Cook and Mixon, both of whom also have off-field concerns, also went to teams with big problems on the offensive line.

While the Vikings went out of their way to improve what was possibly last year's worst offensive line (and it was the NFL's worst running game), the Bengals let their top two blockers leave a line that was going backwards even before those departures. Mixon is the slightly more talented player, mostly because of his size and how accomplished he is in the passing game.

But Cook's situation is much better for 2017 and he should see less competition than Mixon from other running backs on the roster. So, if I had to pick one for this year, it would be Cook. But for the long term, assuming Cincinnati actually invests in its offensive line, I give the edge to Mixon.

Tough call, though!

(Photos courtesy: Action Images)

Copyright (C) 2017 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.