Coach Selection, the Cap and Rebuilding Question

[Football Man]

Bill Belichick is a 3-4 coach, too, and he inherited a salary cap mess from the Grier-Carroll regime in New England. But he built a defense around the players he inherited (buttressed by cheap free agents), and stuck with a 4-3 alignment for his first two years with the franchise. He would often work in 3-4 fronts, but, given what he had to work with, he maintained the 4-3 as his base.

That didn't work badly -- Belichick won the Super Bowl with a 4-3 in 2001 (a rookie Seymour playing inside, Hamilton and Pleasant on the outside, etc.). But he gradually picked up players that allowed him to integrate 3-4 flexibility -- smaller college DEs he could shift to OLBs in the pros (Vrabel, Colvin, Banta-Cain), big DEs who were DTs in college (Seymour, Warren, Green), and a big-ass NT who could clog up the middle (first Ted Washington, the Wilfork when he plummeted in the '04 draft).

So it can work. But this model assumes a smart personnel group that finds later-round talent in the draft, signs underrated free agents to value deals, and, most importantly, manages the cap effectively. The moron twins (Danny and his fluffer Vinny) are the antithesis of this.