You can’t take everything that happens in the preseason as a sure thing. Offenses and defenses are vanilla, and there’s plenty of experimentation.
But what you can do — especially when it comes to inside linebackers — is watch them closely and study how quickly they diagnose and attack simple running plays. If you see a young player hesitate, chances are he has more work to do in recognizing plays.
One player who used to fit this description is Chiefs inside linebacker Ramik Wilson, a third-year pro who went from being hesitant to aggressive last year. Wilson was cut by the Chiefs last September, a year after he was drafted in the fourth round, but bounced back to the 53-man roster after a rash of injuries and reestablished himself as one of the team’s better inside linebackers.