Clay Matthews is Happy, Could Be Even Better

It was no secret that Clay Matthews never wanted to play inside linebacker. He did it out of necessity — out of failure of the Green Bay Packers’ personnel department to find an actual inside linebacker.

In the process, he helped improve the defense and became a better leader.

Now Matthews is back at his beloved outside linebacker position and he’s happy.

“I think it’s my most natural position, my most impactful position,” Matthews said. “And I think we’ll see that on a more consistent basis this season.”

Something else that isn’t a secret around Green Bay is that Matthews loves gaudy statistics and the one he loves the most, are sacks.

You don’t get many of those playing inside linebacker, as Matthews has for the past season and a half. He often had to drop back into coverage on passing downs, that limited his pass rushing opportunities and resulted in just 6.5 sacks in 2015, the second-lowest total of Matthews’ career.

The entire defense’s success is predicated on getting to the quarterback. That’s how Dom Capers’ system is designed. Matthews’ return to the outside will bolster the defense as a whole.

The Packers do have more flexibility with Matthews knowing two positions now, however.

“From the first five and a half years here, I guess I was a true outside linebacker [but] I was still moving around so I don’t anticipate that changing at all,” Matthews said. “Perhaps it might even help put me back inside on more occasions. We’ll see, but right now they have me on the outside with my hand in the dirt.”

While we and probably everyone else, expect the Packers to move Matthews around, the inside linebacker move my actually make him more effective when that does happen.

Instead of being just a pass rusher, Matthews has a much greater skill set after having played inside.

That can only help the team and confuse opposing offenses further if Capers wants to use Matthews as a sort of defensive Swiss Army knife.