In a quarterback-driven league, elite outside linebackers are the pass-rushing demons who thrive on driving those men under center into the ground.
Think of them as chaos-causing, counter-punching spread defenders with the versatility to drop into coverage or stop the run when they're not harassing, hurrying and pummeling signal callers in an increasingly pass-heavy, wide-open game.
Exotic zone blitzes are built on the backs of whirlwind outside linebackers who run like deer and keep offensive coordinators up nights plotting ways to block the relentless disruptors ESPN analyst and former quarterback Trent Dilfer calls game-plan wreckers.
Many of these human wrecking balls play in the 3-4 defensive alignment favored by roughly half of the league's 32 teams. The linebacker-heavy scheme exploits their speed and disguises where they are coming from on any given pass play.
The league's top five outside linebackers (as voted by USA TODAY's NFL panel) —Dallas Cowboys five-time Pro BowlerDeMarcus Ware, the Pittsburgh Steelers' James Harrison (the 2008 defensive player of the year) and LaMarr Woodley, the Green Bay Packers' Clay Matthews (runner-up for 2010 defensive player of the year honors) and Baltimore Ravens four-time Pro Bowler Terrell Suggs — play in the 3-4.
All reached double-digit sacks in 2010 and led their teams in the category except Woodley, who trailed Harrison by a half-sack.
Four of the next five players on USA TODAY's rankings also operate out of the 3-4 and led their respective teams in sacks: the Kansas City Chiefs' Tamba Hali, the Miami Dolphins' Cameron Wake, the San Diego Chargers' Shaun Phillips and the Washington Redskins' Brian Orakpo.
"The college game now is giving us more players tailored to a 3-4 than fit the 4-3 scheme," NFL Network and CBS analyst Solomon Wilcots says.
Lance Briggs, who toils in the Chicago Bears' Cover 2 defense, was the only 4-3 outside linebacker in USA TODAY's top 10.
"The premium outside linebackers are hybrids," Wilcots says. "The 3-4 defense is more flexible, so the players who fit it are more athletic. ... Is Clay Matthews III getting as many sacks (23 1/2) his first two seasons in the league if he's playing in a 4-3? The answer is no."
Why is the 3-4 so effective at accentuating these explosive pass rushers?
"You can get faster guys on the edge against these (offensive) tackles," Wilcots says.
"The tackles aren't able to match up to the speed-power, versatility combinations of a DeMarcus Ware, a James Harrison and a Clay Matthews III."
Because so many colleges run some variation of the spread offense, the NCAA's defensive pipeline is feeding the NFL more athletic, versatile edge rushers.
"The same thing that helps quarterbacks, the spread offensive system, helps the defensive guys and outside linebackers because we have to play that much more in pass coverage and be able to play in space and blitz," says former Boston College linebacker Mark Herzlich, the 2008 Atlantic Coast Conference defensive player of the year who went undrafted after beating bone cancer in his left leg but hopes to be signed as a free agent when the lockout ends.
Steelers director of football operations Kevin Colbert says the spread effect is molding more of the 3-4 outside linebackers the Steelers have been famous for employing for more than two decades.
"There's some changes going on in the college game, things going on with the spread offense," he says. "You're getting more 3-5-3 kind of defenses, which are more similar to what we run. So there's actually some defenses in college that are changing that and supplement some of the extra demand in the NFL."
Consider the Denver Broncos' selection of former Texas A&M linebacker Von Miller with the second overall pick in the 2011 draft as a case in point.
"When you're looking to build your defense, it starts with stopping the pass," says NFL Network analyst Bucky Brooks, a former player and scout in the league.
"That's why Von Miller went second after Cam Newton to (the) Carolina (Panthers). When you're going to pay somebody No. 2 overall money, you're going to pay them a lot, and you want the quantifiable stats — the sacks, the quarterback pressures (and) turnovers.
"The evolution of the passing game dictated what we saw at the top of the draft with Denver taking Miller and (the) San Francisco (49ers) drafting (Missouri's) Aldon Smith (seventh overall). You have to have guys who can affect the passer."
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