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My thoughts:
Houston is a DE in the 4-3. He has zero ability to drop back and cover as a LB, but he's pretty physical in the run game and can set the edge.
Dee Ford will not be able to play DE in a 4-3. Way too soft in the run game. He might be able to transition to LB. He's too expensive to keep as a pass rush only DE. Realistically, probably a tag & trade guy with the new scheme. If we could get a pick or any defensive starter for him, that would be great. Pass rushers are in demand, so I would think he would have some good value out there.
Speaks and Kpass may make fine DE's. They were never OLB's so it makes you wonder if we saw this move coming.
Jones can play DT or DE in a 4-3.
Nnadi will make the transition easily to DT.
Bailey is expensive. I would let him go.
Williams and Hamilton can be solid DT depth, and Speaks/K-pass can probably play the 3 technique on passing downs.
DOD, Hitchens and Niemann will be fine. Ragland will need to go. We'll need to draft 1 and find at least 2 FA at LB.
DB's aren't affected too much by the change, but obviously we need to find at least 1-2 CB's and a safety.
We will need to go heavy on D in this draft, and hopefully it's successful so we can start to balance out our drafts after that. By 2020 we'll need to be thinking about drafting some OL and offensive players as well.
This draft we'll probably take 1-2 CB's, 1 safety, 1 LB, 1 DT, 1 RB most likely in no particular order.
Hopefully DOD, Speaks, Watts, Ward and Smith are all ready to contribute this year. Niemann would be a huge bonus as well.
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