Getting into part two of the Irish Breakdown podcast, brought to you by our friends over at Fanduil.

It's a Friday free-for-all mailbag and getting us kicked off.

In part two, we have James Mertz.

What tools do you look for in a player that allows him to be a better fit at Nickel?

You want to take a crack at that threat since I've been talking for the last 20 minutes?

Yeah.

Me personally, good feet, good hand, good hand discipline. I mean, I know some of that you could just find in, you know, really just cornerback play in general. Nichols, and this is more of a personal preference, I don't love them to be, like, I like my nickels to be a specific build specific build like I don't think it's a mystery that

Notre Dame hasn't gone out into the portal to sign nickels that are like six two six three

guys they're always in that five 10 to six foot range and Thomas Harper being the bigger one of

those guys devante smith being on the bigger side Jordan Clark being a little bit on the smaller

side but the tools good open field tackler.

That's something that absolutely has to be present at the nickel position.

Jordan Clark was a very underrated open field tackler.

We obviously know what Thomas Harper was able to do.

Devante Smith, I think, different sample size because he didn't play all 12 regular

season games. I think he ended the year with two total missed tackles. And I can tell you for sure there

were more than two total mistackles against Texas A&M when Devante Smith was not playing at the

nickel position. I can guarantee you that. So open field tackling, really good feet, good

hips. Those are some of the tools that I look for.

Big picture for the nickel.

Size isn't really a big thing for me there.

It's just a different type of position than what you look for in a boundary corner.

...