Recent Switches to 3-4 Defense Usually Mean Improvement

[davy]

Short answer. It was a dumb idea to switch in the first place.

Shanahan fell in love with the 3-4 during his year out and decided to implement it despite the obvious lack of personnel on the roster capable of playing it.

The strength of the front 7 the previous season were, Haynesworth, Orakpo, Carter and Fletcher, all of whom are ideally suited to 4-3.

I said before the start of last season that the defence would stink because of mismatched personnel/scheme and so it proved. I don't see it getting better any time soon.

Shanahan is known as an offensive coach for good reason.

[30gut]

Originally Posted by davy

I don't see it getting better any time soon.

Why don't you think the defense will be better?
They're in their second year and added upgrades at 3 of the most essential positions (NT,RDE,LOLB) and improved the depth at those positions in the process.
They had far below average play at 2 key spots (NT,RDE) which resulted in near league worst yards allowed virtually any moves they made at those position will be an improvement.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by davy

The strength of the front 7 the previous season were, Haynesworth, Orakpo, Carter and Fletcher, all of whom are ideally suited to 4-3.

Only in the case of Carter did one of those four actually look out of position in the 3-4. I think Orakpo and Fletcher benefited from the defensive switch, and Haynesworth's problems seemingly had nothing to do with the scheme and more to do with the coaches and teammates. I get that he feels that being a nose tackle is a bad career move...but I think he'd be good at it.

And to be fair, that was a big one. The scheme change might have cost us our best defensive player from 2009. But I don't think any coordinator was going to come in and build around a 31 year old Andre Carter anyway, and I don't think switching to the 3-4 necessarily shortened his career here. Just his effectiveness.

[Defensewins]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Only in the case of Carter did one of those four actually look out of position in the 3-4. I think Orakpo and Fletcher benefited from the defensive switch, and Haynesworth's problems seemingly had nothing to do with the scheme and more to do with the coaches and teammates. I get that he feels that being a nose tackle is a bad career move...but I think he'd be good at it.

And to be fair, that was a big one. The scheme change might have cost us our best defensive player from 2009. But I don't think any coordinator was going to come in and build around a 31 year old Andre Carter anyway, and I don't think switching to the 3-4 necessarily shortened his career here. Just his effectiveness.

Regardless of how individuals looked, the results are undeniable. When you go from a top 10 defense to 31st and second to last, that is usually a sign of failure. In the NFL people usually lose their jobs for that kind of result.
Our defense was not a problem area and Mr. Shanahan's decision made our defense an instant weakness. The Monday Night Eagles game was one the worst defensive performance I have ever seen.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Defensewins

Regardless of how individuals looked, the results are undeniable. When you go from a top 10 defense to 31st and second to last, that is usually a sign of failure. In the NFL people usually lose their jobs for that kind of result.
Our defense was not a problem area and Mr. Shanahan's decision made our defense an instant weakness. The Monday Night Eagles game was one the worst defensive performance I have ever seen.

Well, our finish and performance in 2010 weren't very good. I don't think I'd want to be caught saying that I was happy with our performance on that side of the ball in 2009 either. Our defense in 2009 was a single strong unit (the d-line) and a crap ton of often ineffective spare parts

I think the unit was aging, and I think we went from a really strong D-Line in 2009 with Carter-Haynesworth-Griffin-Daniels to a really weak-but-younger one in Carriker-Kemo-Golston. And you're right that they turned a strength into a weakness. But the strength was built around three veterans in Griffin, Haynesworth, and Carter, and I think it would have been worse for a new DC to come in and try to ride out those three players rather than bring in fresh blood.

Regardless of how the unit performed last year, we're almost certainly better up front with Carriker, Jenkins, Bryant, and whatever they can milk out of Haynesworth than with a bunch of guys in their mid thirties who were excellent players under Grilliams...in 2007.

I feel like if Gregg Williams had stayed, we would have continued to win games and make the playoffs through the 2009 season, but even then, the day which we could no longer rely on Carter and Griffin as defensive staples was quickly approaching. And the truth is: without them, we didn't really have any 4-3 specific personnel anywhere on the roster.

[SirClintonPortis]

Bruce Allen and Mike Shanahan were outsiders to the organization and the 3-4 defense, and hence, they were not as well versed as long-tenured FO people in either the nuances of the players or what they exactly need for the system to work. Hence, their appraisals relied more on tangibles, such as TALENT, than the more difficult-to-ascertain intangible factors such as culture(turrible state for winning a championship). Remember Hunter Smith mentioned in that interview of his that he thought we could have been a contender due to the TALENT he saw. I would suspect Shanahan and Allen thought the same thing. Hence, their epicly failed gambles on McNabb, Haynesworth, Kemo, etc.

However, AH is a hopeless case of player wanting his way and coach wanting the coach's way. The style of AH is probably incompatible with MANY coordinators of various stripes because very few coordinators have a system of "one DT does whatever, everyone else compensates", which apparently is likely the ONLY system AH would agree playing for.