Shelterdog said:
That's my guess as well. He has them keeping a bunch of small ST types but not really any big ones and they always seem to have some ST specialist LBs. Do you happen to have a sense of the approximate size of the various players you line up in the kicking game?
Yeah, I did this (based on the 2012 season):
http://daveonthepats.blogspot.com/2013/08/special-teams-lineups.html
KR was 2 S (Wilson, Ebner), 3 LB (White, Koutouvides, Rivera), 1 RB (Bolden), 1 TE (Hoomanawanui), 1 OL (Wendell), 1 RB (Vereen). Back men / returners were McCourty and Slater.
KO was 2 CB (Cole, Arrington), 1 DE (Scott), 1 WR (Slater), 3 LB (White, Koutouvides, Rivera), 3 S (Wilson, Ebner, McCourty), plus Gostkowski kicking.
PR was 2 CB (Cole, Talib), DL of Slater / White / Koutouvides / Rivera / Wilson / Bolden with Chung and Ebner lined up as LB, and Welker returning
Punt was Cole and Slater at WR, DL of Koutouvides / Scott / Aiken (long snapper) / Ninkovich / Rivera with Bolden and White as the wings, Chung as personal protector, and Mesko punting
Last year of the top STers, you had 3 LB (Collins, White, Fletcher), 3 S (Ebner, Wilson, and McCourty), WRINO Slater, DE Buchanan, and CB Cole. Cole and Fletcher are already gone, Wilson and Buchanan have a good chance of being cut, and Collins figures to play a lot less ST with a bigger role on D (he averaged 23 snaps on ST in the regular season, but just 10 in his two playoff games as he became an every-down contributor). So I think either one of White or Hull is safe and maybe both; the wild card is Beauharnais, who they thought enough of to redshirt all year but only played 10 ST snaps in 4 active games.