CHARLOTTE -- It used to be that playing the Atlanta Falcons meant Thomas Davis had a very specific set of instructions.
Now, his list of responsibilities is smaller, and his stat sheet's filling up instead.
The Carolina Panthers' fourth-year linebacker is flourishing now that he knows exactly what he is, and what they want him to do.
"Definitely," he replied Thursday when asked if he was playing more freely than ever before. "I think a lot of it has to do with my third year of ever playing linebacker. I'm really starting to get comfortable in the position.
"I'm very excited about the possibilities right now, and our defense is playing well."
He's a big part of that, just as they envisioned from the moment they drafted him.
Of course, when they chose him 14th overall in 2005, they weren't sure what to do with him either, but they craved the options. At the time, they thought he was a younger Mark Fields, a run-the-field instrument of mayhem, who could make explosive plays wherever they lined him up.
He played a hybrid safety-linebacker spot in college, and they tried him in the secondary his rookie year. That lasted one ill-fated game, and he spent his rookie season backing up and playing special teams. Then he was moved to linebacker, but they parked him on the strong side, covering tight ends and hoping his athleticism enabled him to make plays in coverage.
That worked OK, but he still felt stifled. This offseason, they moved him to the weakside, put him in space, so he could use his gifts without fighting through traffic.
"With the position change and I think a lot of people are crediting that to it," Davis said. "And with the coaches simplifying the defense and me becoming more comfortable with the position, all of that had something to do with it, and just going out and playing.
"You know, we're not playing perfect games right now but we're playing a lot better. We have chemistry on defense so when we make a mistake you have another guy stepping in and taking over for you. So you have everybody running to the ball and a lot of that is covering up some of the things that are negative. All in all, we're playing pretty good defense."
His own role is central to that. Standing next to middle linebacker Jon Beason, there are more plays flowing his way this season, and he's making more of them.
Davis has 89 tackles this season, second only to Beason's 102 on the team list, something that's become a point of contention between them.
"We go out and we challenge each other every play," Beason said. "So we're in competition with each other. It makes both of us better, we're out there having a lot of fun."
Davis might not catch Beason, but he's about one good game from surpassing his career-best 96 tackles (set in 2006). He's also added 1.5 sacks, two pressures, a forced fumble, a recovery and two passes broken up this year, clearly his best.
"I think every year you get a little more in tune to what's going on," Beason said of his counterpart. "The coaches have done a good job of just letting him use his speed, his ability to just make plays.
"He really has a good grasp of what's going on, and its enabling him to play really fast."
In the past, Davis would get bogged down. The one exception was when he played Atlanta, when he slid into role a that looked natural to him at the time. He was essentially drafted to be part of the Panthers' solution for Michael Vick, the former Falcons quarterback who made more plays with his feet than his arm. Davis -- one of the few on the Panthers' defense who could run with him -- would spy on Vick, playing outside the normal rules to make sure the explosive quarterback couldn't get into the open field.
Now, he has to play more straight-up, a conventional player who has to be ready for both the run and the pass, and a quarterback who's not going to bail out at the first hint of trouble.
"From when I first got here to now, it's a world of difference," Davis said. "You had a guy back there, No. 7, Michael Vick, very dynamic, could create stuff with his legs. You've got Matt Ryan now, he's a great passer. Him and (receiver) Roddy White, they've got a great chemistry, and they have a running game that's totally awesome.
"I'm playing the normal linebacker position now, and I'm getting acclimated to it and getting back to making plays."
Of course, he spent his first three years doing that.
The changes themselves were part of the issue, perhaps as much as what he was being changed from or to. He shrugs when asked about that, saying that in his fourth season, he finally feels comfortable in his own skin, and able to justify the expectations.
"I really feel it falls back on me becoming more comfortable playing linebacker," Davis said. "You look at it, I had to get some of that safety mentality out of me, you know, trying to react to the run first, and it's making a world of difference. I'm able to get to the ball quicker, and being out in space has definitely helped me out, not being on the line of scrimmage, just a whole bunch of things I feel like is going into me playing a lot better than I have in previous years.
"It's hard to say what it is, because you don't want to talk about what we're actually doing (schematically). But we're doing a lot of things different right now and its definitely showing on the field."
