I think they move him all around (Epenesa). he can play 5t, 3T and rush OLB. I mean, we had Ferguson playing rush backer and Suggs, though he was as smart as they come, was never what I would call athletic or particularly apt dropping. Epenesa can play that role along with moving a bit.
The other thing is that we play so many 2 down looks and he can certainly rotate that way on passing downs particularly.
exactly - he becomes a chess piece on your DL who's not coming off the field
he starts at Rush LB most likely but could also flex inside and play on the interior with someone like Jaylon outside him (and vice versa)
and thinking about the running game he's someone who comes in and immediately becomes physical enough to set the edge which was a huge problem last year - he's not a great technical run defender yet but he has all the tools and football iq to be great at it and he's already so effective on the edge - and has shown the processing ability to penetrate from the interior on running downs
If our evaluation of Ferguson was high enough that we liked him, I don't see why we wouldn't also like AJ Epenesa - outside of the 40 time, Epenesa has Ferguson beat on everything else and we still drafted Jaylon despite all that and playing lower competition