Originally Posted by
RuthlessBurgher
Shark seemed to play more slot corner against the Giants, and more traditional safety against the Skins. His ability to do both is what impressed the Steelers (see Carnell Lake talking about him covering USC's Robert Woods man-to-man all over the field last season for Syracuse; Former Syracuse head coach and current Buffalo Bills head coach Doug Marrone thought enough of Woods that he selected him in the second round of the draft, by the way). When Cortez is back healthy, our starting secondary will obviously be Taylor-Allen-Polamalu-Clark. But in the nickel, instead of automatically inserting Gay into his usual slot corner spot, Thomas may be giving the coach's pause...if he's the nickel back, they can do a lot more with him out there than with Gay (everyone knows where Gay is going to line up, but they could theoretically line the Shark up anywhere). However, the only time that I wouldn't consider this is if we are playing a team with an elite TE like a healthy Gronkowski or a Jimmy Graham type. Cortez showed that he can face off against a healthy Gronk with success, so in a case like that, if they want to move Cortez inside in the nickel to handle an elite TE, then they'd want a nickel DB who can play outside corner like Gay over someone like Shark.
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