FOXBORO, Mass. – Being in the trenches. It’s in Dan Klecko’s blood – digging in, getting low, pushing forward, grinding in first gear to move 350-pound offensive linemen out of his way to get to the guy with the ball.

Now, he’s being asked to make the switch from defensive lineman to linebacker. It almost seems unnatural for someone who made a name for himself in college as a nose tackle and whose father, Joe, was an All-Pro defensive lineman with the New York Jets.

All of his life, he was taught by his father to keep his motor running, his legs churning and to never give an inch of ground. Don’t think, he was taught, just push.

Now, he has to think before he reacts. Sometimes he has to give a few inches to make the play.

It’s a tough adjustment. Mistakes have been made, and more will come, as will the subsequent tongue-lashings from his coaches. Yet Klecko isn’t back-pedaling from his new role.

“I got a couple of kicks in the butt, but I need that,” Klecko said a few days following his debut at linebacker in New England’s first preseason game. “I need to know what I’m doing wrong.”

If Klecko does something wrong, he’ll have a lot of help correcting it. He calls veteran linebackers Tedy Bruschi, Ted Johnson and Roman Phifer his “go-to guys” when he needs to learn about his new position. Among them, he knows he has at least one sympathetic ear.

“I look at him and I can relate because I was making the same mistakes he’s making right now,” said Bruschi, who converted from a college lineman to linebacker at the start of his pro career. “Those will correct themselves with time and experience and more repetition and seeing more plays.

“He’s going to get it because I think he’s got a couple of things you need to have to make the transition,” he added. “You’ve got to have a head on your shoulders, first of all, and you’ve got to have good instincts.”

Klecko, for his part, downplays the significance of the move.

“It’s a little more running. I’m not really overwhelmed by anything. I’ve just got to get used to seeing things,” he said. “Some play action, I still kind of get sucked up. I’ve just got to work on that stuff.”

Yet as the man who is making Klecko change his stripes points out, going from a three-point stance to playing with just your feet on the ground requires some adapting.

“The two biggest adjustments are one: pass coverage, and two: seeing and reacting to more people,” said Patriots head coach Bill Belichick. “When you are lined up on the line of scrimmage with a hand on the ground, you are usually about this’ far away from your opponent and things happen quicker. When you are back further off the ball, you can be threatened by more people, different angles. It happens slower, but there are a lot more multiples.”

Klecko is used to multiples.

The second-year player out of Temple started the first preseason game this year at fullback, not at linebacker.

Unlike linebacker, fullback isn’t completely new to him. He played the position some in high school, and as a rookie last year, he saw time at fullback in short yardage situations.

With no pure fullbacks on the roster, some have speculated Klecko could be lining up in the backfield more regularly this year.

“It’s still situational,” he said. “My role on offense really hasn’t changed since last year.”

Klecko’s role on the team, however, seems to be changing with the seasons. Belichick, who as much as any coach in football values versatility, insists it’s not because he’s just trying to get Klecko on the field.

“If he is there, it is because he has earned it,” Belichick said.

“He has good athletic ability and size. Those two things make him potentially involved in a lot of different situations,” Belichick said. “He is also a very instinctive player. I think the game comes relatively easy to him, or naturally to him. He picks things up pretty quickly.”