Recent Switches to 3-4 Defense Usually Mean Improvement

[GTripp0012]

So why did the Redskins not reap any improvement in 2010 on the defensive side of the ball?

NFL Minds Blog: The Immediate Impact Defense's Have When Switching From a 4-3 to a 3-4 Defense

To an extent, I think the Redskins ran into a player supply issue. They had more 3-4 pieces on the roster already than the Buffalo Bills did, which is why the Bills failed so spectacularly that they had to switch back to a 4-3 defense. But in 2010, about half of the league is playing 3-4 defenses, so while it still offers a medium-risk, high-reward alternative to the traditional 4-3, finding players from around the league to play in it is now costly as ever. The Redskins DID NOT invest resources into their defense (beyond 1 or 2 year contracts to relatively unwanted players such as Holliday, Carriker, and Kemoeatu).

The bigger issue for the Redskins -- why they didn't improve in the first year of the 3-4 -- has to do with reasons that aren't directly related to scheme. They got less aggregate return out of Haynesworth than before, despite the fact that Haynesworth played as well as ever on a per-snap basis. Rocky McIntosh may not have been a good scheme fit, but he was bad at the fundamentals as well as the 3-4 nuances in 2010. The other thing was that the Redskins had done unreasonably well in the injury category over the prior two years on defense. That effect regressed heavily in 2010 when LaRon Landry missed the second half of the season, when Carlos Rogers missed the end of the year, when Orakpo missed the Jacksonville game and had limited effectiveness in the second half, Chris Horton on IR, etc. The team should have been better on defense in the second half than the first given their coverage gains, and they just weren't, because of the injuries.

So in my estimation, the Redskins didn't hurt themselves with a switch to the 3-4, but if Mike Shanahan was relying on any sort of defensive bump by going to a more wide open style of defense, any element of surprise was eliminated by the fact that personnel issues from the 2009 season were not fixed in the offseason. And in 2010, the virtues of the 3-4 switch turned sharply for the worst, not just for the Redskins, but for the Bills as well. Like everything that went wrong for the Redskins this past season, you could argue that Shanahan's move would have worked out in 2004, but by 2010, the "new philosophy" he and Jim Haslett brought to the Redskins was, perhaps, outdated already.