In an appearance on The John Murphy Show on Monday evening, Buffalo Bills defensive lineman Jarius Wynn told the titular host that, at the team's urging, he is moving to outside linebacker for the 2016 season.
"They've got me playing a little bit of outside linebacker now, so it's totally different," Wynn said of going back into the Rex Ryan playbook. "Last year I was playing the big end, the defensive end. Now they've moved me to the outside linebacker."
Prompted to clarify his new role a bit, Wynn replied: "Sometimes you're going to be rushing from the outside, (and) sometimes you're going to be dropping back in coverage."
That would be a fairly significant role shift for Wynn, who admitted in the interview that he hasn't done much dropping in his football career - both collegiately and professionally. As soon as he heard the team was planning to move him, Wynn started to compensate by dropping weight (the team has listed him at 285 pounds for the last two years).
"As soon as they told me - I got the call a few weeks ago, asking me how I feel about playing outside linebacker - as soon as I got that call, and they're telling me that they figured they wanted me to play it, I started dropping weight then," Wynn told Murphy. "Right now, today, I'm like 265."
Wynn missed all of the 2015 season with an ACL injury, though Wynn also told Murphy that he only had a partial tear of the tendon, and that he felt like he could have returned to action last season. His position switch leaves the Bills even thinner along the defensive line, but a tad more diverse with their edge-rushing group. Our depth chart page has been updated to reflect Wynn's position switch.