Bill Belichick sees ‘strong trend’ in NFL with hybrid defensive players

4:10 PM ET

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The hybrid is all the rage across the NFL.

This was a topic that was touched upon in Sunday’s quick-hit thoughts/notes piece with the New England Patriots and sixth-round draft choice Kamu Grugier-Hill of Eastern Illinois; a linebacker in college, Grugier-Hill is a hybrid who projects to either the more traditional safety role in the NFL, or a linebacker in the substitution defense.

The reason for the hybrid category: At 6-foot-2 and 215 pounds, he is on the bigger side for a safety but light for a linebacker in the team’s base defense.

ESPN NFL analyst Louis Riddick tweeted on the trend Monday morning, which had me revisiting some of Bill Belichick’s comments from the final day of the NFL draft.

As the “hybrid” LB becomes all the rage in the #NFL, I’m watching the run:pass dynamic on offense.

— Louis Riddick (@LRiddickESPN) May 16, 2016

“I think that you are definitely seeing a strong trend in the league towards corners that play safety or corner-type athletes that play safety, bigger safeties that play linebacker. Both of those are trends,” Belichick said during the draft.

“We’ve always put a lot of premium on the passing game even going back to when we had Eugene Wilson [second round, 2003], who played corner at Illinois, and started for us at corner for a couple weeks and then we moved him to …

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