"Keith Bulluck has no reservations about moving to the middle after playing weak-side linebacker for the Titans the past 10 years.

Neither does Tom Coughlin, who has seen enough from Bulluck in Tennessee's nickel and dime packages to be confident the newly signed linebacker can play the middle in the base defense.

"For all the sub defense he's played in his career, he's basically been the 'Mike,'" Coughlin said today during a 10-minute pre-training-camp phone conversation. "First and second down is not beyond range for him to play in there."

But here's where it started to get interesting: Coughlin then began talking about Bulluck's versatility. Sure, the Giants always like their linebackers to be able to play all three spots, but the following quote from Coughlin indicates the competition in the middle isn't exactly over now that Bulluck has arrived.

"We feel like he could basically play any of the three positions if we wanted to go push him into that," Coughlin said. "We'll start him out at 'Mike,' but I think the emergence of the top…"

Coughlin sounded as if he was about to say "the top three linebackers" or something to that effect before pausing. He then restarted with a comment along those lines.

"The overall idea here is to take the ability of the player, no matter who that is, and utilize his ability for the betterment of our team in all the situations," the coach said. "Defense today is situational defense, and we'll go ahead and try to assess the exact way in which each guy can contribute and play them accordingly.""