The Sticker Comes With Added Responsibilities

In the NFL each team chooses an offensive and defensive player to wear the green dot. The sticker is placed on the helmet of a team captain and it designates the player who will be receiving audio signals from the offensive and defensive coordinators, respectively.

This season the Ravens defensive captain and the recipient of green dot responsibilities is CJ Mosley.

How will this alter Mosley preparation? Press play for more or read the transcript below…

Clint Mosley, Jr. just turned 24 years old in June. He’s entering his third season in Baltimore and now he’ll be challenged as the captain of the Ravens defense.

CJ will be donning the green dot.

With the green dot there comes responsibility. When that fluorescent sticker is slapped to your helmet, you have to be completely dialed into the game plan. You must be on the same page as your defensive coordinator. You must put in extra hours of film study in order to make the proper pre-snap adjustments at a split second’s notice.

For Mosley this is an opportunity for him to take his game to a new level.

He has the physical tools.

But questions abound!

Does he have the proper work ethic? The acute cognitive skills? The on-the-fly intelligence to quickly and succinctly diagnose formations in order to get his defense in position to win, on any given play?

With the added responsibility Mosley will be challenged mentally and when players are forced to think too much, it slows down their response times, makes them less instinctive until they’ve mastered the playbook and an opponent’s tendencies.

Therefore it isn’t outside the realm of reason to expect Mosley to get off to a slow start in 2016 unless he goes overtime in the classroom and sits beside a projector like he’s Steven Spielberg this summer.

But if CJ does make a successful transition into the role of leader, it will not only improve his earnings power in the not to distant future, it can help make him indispensable to the Ravens and lift a defense that is currently more like the sum of parts, rather than a greater whole.

Clint Mosley, Jr.

You are going to have to NOT act your age this fall.

Otherwise the Ravens might fall!