GoonBoss
Finheaven Templar
I like the 4-3 and always have. It's easier to find players, for starters.
Which defense is easier to find player for, the 3-4 or 4-3?
- Thread starter LikeUntoGod
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ebozzz
Starter
I think that it would help if they found some type of consistency. I mean , you can't keep making as many changes to the team's direction, staff and players as they have done over the past several years and expect to have an outstanding team. At some point you have dig in and give things some time to develop....
Now on the 4-3 vs. 3-4 question. IMO, a GOOD 3-4 requires you to have more versatility in your players.
I don't agree. The biggest mistake we made going into this year is that we actually stuck almost 100 percent to the defense, minus Channing Crowder. We dug in and let Vontae Davis and Sean Smith "develop" even when last year's New England game should have been a real red flag that these guys weren't half as good as they thought they were. We should have brought in at least 1 viable free agent option to compete. The d-line as well doesn't really have a player on it I can think of that wasn't with us last year.
beanh8er
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Well jeez. I wonder why we didn't bring in anyone on the line. Was it because we had two top 5 3-4 DEs and a top 5 NT last year with an amazing amount of depth. Yea let's take what was our presumably strongest position and add players when we have holes all over the place.
Just refuting the previous poster's claim that we didn't let guys "develop" when. Not saying they should have brought in anyone there.
While I miss the 4-3, most of the guys we have on our roster don't profile as 4-3 players, especially on the d-line which even though they are underperforming are still one of this roster's biggest strengths (not saying much),
ebozzz
Starter
Spud,
Development typically tends to take longer than a year or so to happen. And, during the last few years there have been other factors that have hindered that development IMO. Changes in scheme, staff, players and the direction of the team. You know, it wasn't that long ago that size seemed to be the priority in finding players. Now, speed seems to be of utmost importance.
I'm not saying which approach is the right direction to take (probably being big and fast... :)) but this regime certainly focused on size more during their first few years. There's been a shift now. It takes time to get the right pieces in place and to figure out how to best utilize those pieces.
They have been a conservative team also during the last few years and now they want to say that they have adopted a more aggressive, attacking mentality. So, if that is the new direction there is still some developing to be done, right? I mean they just started the implementation of this NEW course of action during a crazy off season that included quite a few changes with the staff, offensive philosophies and players. I agree that the defense didn't make many changes but as beanh8er mentioned previously, that appeared to be one of the areas that didn't need to be tweaked that much.
I guess what I am ultimately trying to say is that they really need to make up their mind about what they are trying to accomplish, who/what they feel gives them the best chance to succeed (players, staff, philosophies, etc.) and then let it marinate for a while. You can't just keep churning the team as a whole hoping that you get lucky. At some point they need to hang their hat on something and work that plan.
IDENTITY
juniorseau55
Go Fins
You need to understand what happens in the 3-4 defense. This defense is mainly a linebacker oriented defense. The defensive ends, and the nose tackle act like blockers to allow the linebackers to have more room. Finding a linebacker in the 3-4 is not hard at all. A lot of times the most athletic defensive end in a 4-3 is usually picked to play the 3-4 defense as a linebacker. The linebacker on the weak side usually lines up against the LT and is usually a guy that is quicker on its feet and is able to defeat blocks. Great talent is hard to find in either 4-3 and 3-4.
LikeUntoGod
The Oracle
I think one thing we should do, maybe not this year but the next is to switch back to a base 4-3 defense. I do not vote or post my ideas in the first couple of days of a poll I start. But I think you can find a lot of good players to play a 4-3 then you can to play a 3-4. More and more NFL teams have went to the 3-4 in the last couple of years partly because it is a copy cat league. But it has made finding the 3 special players needed to play it well harder to find and more expensive to own.
One of my problems with the 3-4 is that is needs three special, hard to find and costly players. The NT, and two pass rushing OLB's. Of ours, LOLB Cam Wake only has one pass rush move, the low speed one. ROLB Jason Taylor has a little juice left but is going to retire and K Misi is not a 3-4 OLB at all. Right now we only have 2 and 1/2 of these 3 special players and JT will be retiring soon. And we have our NT as our franchise player.
So as of the end of this year, we stand to lose our starting NT (or pay him out the butt money) and our "best" ROLB. You can say that we really need to add another faster efensive end to play a 4-3 but I'd counter that we also need a new 3-4 OLB. I think a good 4-3 DE is easier to find then a 3-4 OLB is. Not to mention perhaps needing to find another nT>
The 3-4 is good against the run but unless you have two top pass rushing OLBs it is weak against the pass. Most NTs like ours, are almost useless on passing downs.
We should trade away P Soliai for a high draft pick or...a QB, young DE, a good young corner etc etc.
Langford, Starks, Odrick, Merling and even Igor would make good 4-3 DTs who could be rotated. All of them could play a NT in a 3-3-5 etc. We could play Wake and Taylor back at their natural DE positions. We need to work a 10 man DL rotation like Saban used to do. We used to wear down opposing OLs.
Misi would also now be a DE or a simple OLB. No more trying to force a good college defensive end into being a 3-4 OLB. We need to stop trying to find and then beat square pegs into round holes.
No more needing Wake and Taylor to make all our sacks. Right now we almost totally depend on them for sacks. Now we could have four DLs, 3 LBs and a couple of DBs who can reach the QB from their positions. Langford, Starks, Odrick, Merling etc might be slow as DEs but they have good speed for DTs. And of course, we can always zone blitz and/or blitz one or more LBs along with the 4 DL. Taylor, Misi and Wake would be great at zone blitzes.
Most teams that run a 3-4 have one starting NT who might play only 2 downs. In a 3-4, the NT and even the DEs do not really make "plays", they allow one of the LBs to make one. Without a very good NT, the whole idea of today's 3-4 does not work well. And today's 3-4 is a lot different the the Dolphins Super Bowl 3-4 which was based more of speed. Our NT used speed to get into the back field to make plays, he once jumped over the center and sacked the QB before he could hand the ball off.
In a 4-3, I would expect all four of the defensive lineman to make plays. And I would really like to stress again the difference a true 9-10 DL rotation would make. I remember when Roth and Carter played the LE position under Saban and they simply worse out the RTs trying to block them. And on the other side was Jason Taylor and D Bowens. In the middle we had 5 good DTs who would rotate in and out. Some of the 10 DL were old but they only had to play a couple of good downs.
I'm not sure if any teams have a NT good enough to rotate in.
Find college players who have mostly played one position and allow them to play that same position in the NFL instead of trying to change them.
The other massive change we need to make is in the secondary. We drafted two good corners and we thought we were done, one reason being that our defense is stuck in the 1990's. That was Parcells glory(0) time and he built this team based on that time period instead of the date really being 2009. We need at least 3 "starting corners" and some safeties who can pass cover.
Right now we cannot handle a team that have at least one good pass catching TE and can go 3 wide. This is now a pass first league and our FO needs to come to grip with that. I find it a little disturbing that they did(after a couple of years) change the offense to a more modern one but the defense still looks like it is from 1992.
For us I think a lot of our problems are just poor coaching. But not having the right players does not help
We need to adjust.
One of my problems with the 3-4 is that is needs three special, hard to find and costly players. The NT, and two pass rushing OLB's. Of ours, LOLB Cam Wake only has one pass rush move, the low speed one. ROLB Jason Taylor has a little juice left but is going to retire and K Misi is not a 3-4 OLB at all. Right now we only have 2 and 1/2 of these 3 special players and JT will be retiring soon. And we have our NT as our franchise player.
So as of the end of this year, we stand to lose our starting NT (or pay him out the butt money) and our "best" ROLB. You can say that we really need to add another faster efensive end to play a 4-3 but I'd counter that we also need a new 3-4 OLB. I think a good 4-3 DE is easier to find then a 3-4 OLB is. Not to mention perhaps needing to find another nT>
The 3-4 is good against the run but unless you have two top pass rushing OLBs it is weak against the pass. Most NTs like ours, are almost useless on passing downs.
We should trade away P Soliai for a high draft pick or...a QB, young DE, a good young corner etc etc.
Langford, Starks, Odrick, Merling and even Igor would make good 4-3 DTs who could be rotated. All of them could play a NT in a 3-3-5 etc. We could play Wake and Taylor back at their natural DE positions. We need to work a 10 man DL rotation like Saban used to do. We used to wear down opposing OLs.
Misi would also now be a DE or a simple OLB. No more trying to force a good college defensive end into being a 3-4 OLB. We need to stop trying to find and then beat square pegs into round holes.
No more needing Wake and Taylor to make all our sacks. Right now we almost totally depend on them for sacks. Now we could have four DLs, 3 LBs and a couple of DBs who can reach the QB from their positions. Langford, Starks, Odrick, Merling etc might be slow as DEs but they have good speed for DTs. And of course, we can always zone blitz and/or blitz one or more LBs along with the 4 DL. Taylor, Misi and Wake would be great at zone blitzes.
Most teams that run a 3-4 have one starting NT who might play only 2 downs. In a 3-4, the NT and even the DEs do not really make "plays", they allow one of the LBs to make one. Without a very good NT, the whole idea of today's 3-4 does not work well. And today's 3-4 is a lot different the the Dolphins Super Bowl 3-4 which was based more of speed. Our NT used speed to get into the back field to make plays, he once jumped over the center and sacked the QB before he could hand the ball off.
In a 4-3, I would expect all four of the defensive lineman to make plays. And I would really like to stress again the difference a true 9-10 DL rotation would make. I remember when Roth and Carter played the LE position under Saban and they simply worse out the RTs trying to block them. And on the other side was Jason Taylor and D Bowens. In the middle we had 5 good DTs who would rotate in and out. Some of the 10 DL were old but they only had to play a couple of good downs.
I'm not sure if any teams have a NT good enough to rotate in.
Find college players who have mostly played one position and allow them to play that same position in the NFL instead of trying to change them.
The other massive change we need to make is in the secondary. We drafted two good corners and we thought we were done, one reason being that our defense is stuck in the 1990's. That was Parcells glory(0) time and he built this team based on that time period instead of the date really being 2009. We need at least 3 "starting corners" and some safeties who can pass cover.
Right now we cannot handle a team that have at least one good pass catching TE and can go 3 wide. This is now a pass first league and our FO needs to come to grip with that. I find it a little disturbing that they did(after a couple of years) change the offense to a more modern one but the defense still looks like it is from 1992.
For us I think a lot of our problems are just poor coaching. But not having the right players does not help
We need to adjust.
Right now I am not sure you would get anything higher then maybe a third out of Soliai. He isn't playing at the level he was last season and nobody likes one hit wonders except the 80's.
ciscoholgate
Winning is a Habit
IMO it is harder to find two true 4-3 DEs than it is to find a true 3-4 NT or 3-4 SOLB.
For that fact alone, I say they are just as hard to find players for both schemes.
It really is about talent and it is just hard to find elite players on both sides.
For that fact alone, I say they are just as hard to find players for both schemes.
It really is about talent and it is just hard to find elite players on both sides.
Soliai has done nothing in all but one year here. If you're a big guy and you play with a motor, you can make an impact in any scheme, but it looks like Paul is one of the many who ramped it up for one season so he could get paid, not one of those who ramps it up because he wants to be good.
the other thing thats overlooked but is something huge to consider is that our defensive line is built to play 3-4 yet we end up only playing it what? 35% of the time? we end up in nickel over 50% of the time anyways, so we end up with 4 downlineman. so we end up drafting guys that cant play every down, and they take up roster spots and cap room and they limit our defense. we get absolutely ZERO pass rush up the middle. NONE. because we dont have anybody on the roster thats capable of doing it. WHY?? because of what we ask our lineman to do in the 3-4 and what we looked for in lineman, and it doesnt make any sense. if we are going to be in nickel more than half the time anyways shouldnt our line be built with this in mind??
its just counterproductive to build a line and ask your lineman to hold the point of attack, stand up their blocker, shed him and make a tackle. and then somehow think that these same lineman will be able to penetrate and create pressure on the qb when we switch to a nickel defense. weve got to be able to create pressure up the middle, and if we cant do it with our lineman we must be able to do it with scheme. so far weve done neither