A narrow notch, groove, or opening, such as a keyway in a piece of machinery or a slit for a coin in a vending machine. Also: 1. a position, place, or time in which someone can be found; a position on a stage, team, or crew; a berth in a ship or airplane; a window, vacancy, or niche.
The NFL has never been a more dependent on the slot receiver than it is now, and it’s only getting more crucial as offenses move away from traditional spread formations and toward the 3-1 receiving/back combo. That’s because, unlike the outside wide receiver (wideout), the slot receiver is able to run almost any route imaginable and can play up, down, or in between the tackles.
That versatility has led to the rise of the “slot” as one of the most important positions in the game, and the best players at it are among the league’s most dangerous weapons. Generally speaking, slot receivers are shorter and quicker than traditional wideouts, and they need to be agile enough to beat defenders to the ball in coverage while possessing the strength to break down and catch tough passes.
As a result, slot receivers often have to be more precise in their route running and have better chemistry with their quarterbacks than most other wideouts. They also need to be nimble enough to get open in traffic, while still being fast enough to blow past defenders on quick slants and out routes.
They are often required to be more durable than wideouts as well, since they’re expected to absorb a lot of contact and make contested catches. While some are smaller and more agile, others are larger and more robust — such as the 6’3” Cooper Kupp of the Los Angeles Rams – and need to be tough enough to hold their own in man coverage.
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A slot is also an engineering technique for adding capability to a computer, in the form of connector pinholes that can accept expansion cards with circuitry to add features such as video acceleration or disk drive control. Most desktop computers have a set of slots, and most laptops come with them as well. Many of these slots are reserved for specific expansion cards, while others can be used for general purposes. The number of expansion slots on a particular motherboard may be limited by the amount of available RAM, which is usually limited to 4 GB or less. However, modern processors often have multiple slots that can support several expansion cards simultaneously. This allows them to have much greater processing power than older computers, and may even allow them to replace them entirely.
