AP Photo Takeo Spikes

Brian Simmons on Takeo Spikes, and why the two of them are close friends instead of bitter competitors:

"Spikes is competitive. He's more outgoing about meeting new people. I think that's the biggest difference.

"I don't know how many times it happens, especially in the first round, where two guys come in at the same position like we did. I think that's been part of the reason we've been able to have some success out there as starting linebackers. Part of our friendship is because of the likeness of our situations. We came to minicamp that first year. Neither one participated because of some issues (written injury protection). Then we had basically that same one-day holdout. Our friendship could have gone either way.

"We could have formed a good relationship, or, because we were playing the same position, we could have hated each other. But, both of us, when we got here, we wanted to help make the team better, the defense better, so we had that in common. He worked hard. I felt like I worked hard. And it just clicked."