The 3-4 solution

[waldoputty]

myles garrett.... a 4-3 DE....

SOLOMON from stanford...a 4-3 DE.....

first pass rushing LB was TJ WATT taken 30th....but he hasn't even played a down and you assume he will be dominant? ***?

sorry...apply logic to your drivel...you have now completely lost it....

the point of this thread is the top blue chip DEs are taken in the top 5 or 10 slots.
we are not getting there unless we tank like crazy.
this should be clear to any idiot.

and you did not answer my question on what happen to the top 2 FA DE in the market this year.

how do we know if Watt will be dominant - nobody knows.
how do we know Garrett will be dominant - nobody knows.
the only thing we know is the Steelers fans are a lot happier with Watt in practice than Cowboys fans are with Taco in practice - that is all we know.

watt was drafted at 30.
we could have drafted him.
the question is why did we not draft him instead of Taco.
none of us really know, do we?
is it because watt is no good in cowboys books - we dont know
is it because watt was not considered because he does not fit marinelli's definition of a DE and he wanted a DE instead of using Watt as a pass rush LB - we dont know.

 

[waldoputty]

OK, I give you the typo....so did NE defense benefit from their great offense? I am using your logic....

and what happened then to NO...who had a the best offense....yet their defense...need I go there...

what you haven't realized and learning is that it takes players, elite players and great players to make an offense or defense work regardless of scheme.

and as I showed you, 5 of top 10 defenses were 4-3. and 3 of top 5 scoring defenses were 4-3. and they didn't have to draft DE in the top 10....

and you assume...yes assume that any player, meeting your right size ratio can be effective in a 3-4...and if that's the case how do you explain the crappy 3-4 defenses? and how come not all teams go to 3-4 if its as easy as you say? meaning finding pass rushing OLBs? or do you claim to be smarter than all the coaches, GMs and DCs in the NFL?

there is no proof, but i believe great D help their O's stats just like great O help their D's stats.
back in the aikman days, i recall the other team's offense doing stupid things because it seems they felt pressure to score.
look at the pittsburgh game last season, remember all the stupid things the pittsburgh coach did? i cannot remember all of them like the fake punt etc. but they felt the need to score because they felt they could not stop our O. but that is as much proof as we can get.

of course size-weight is not enough to predict a player's success.
all-sparq is one way to look at it, but it is certainly not an exact science

here is an all-sparq of the LBs in the recent draft. and it definitely raises concern with Watt. Great sparq, but poor production ratio. why - i dont know.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

the point of this thread is the top blue chip DEs are taken in the top 5 or 10 slots.
we are not getting there unless we tank like crazy.
this should be clear to any idiot.

and you did not answer my question on what happen to the top 2 FA DE in the market this year.

how do we know if Watt will be dominant - nobody knows.
how do we know Garrett will be dominant - nobody knows.
the only thing we know is the Steelers fans are a lot happier with Watt in practice than Cowboys fans are with Taco in practice - that is all we know.

watt was drafted at 30.
we could have drafted him.
the question is why did we not draft him instead of Taco.
none of us really know, do we?
is it because watt is no good in cowboys books - we dont know
is it because watt was not considered because he does not fit marinelli's definition of a DE and he wanted a DE instead of using Watt as a pass rush LB - we dont know.

So are the elite OLB like Miller, Mack, and Beasley.

In for the 50th time those types of players can play at right defensive end.

 

[waldoputty]

ryan got run out of town because he sucked....he went to NO and he sucked there too....he ended up with the worst defense in NFL history!!! yes NFL HISTORY.

his brother gave him a job and he sucked there too and both got fired...

you are not making a strong case for 3-4.

i dont remember why ryan was ran out of town, but i seem to remember some of it was personality. NO's talent base has eroded over years but i dont follow them so have no idea why they fell off the cliff.

 

[waldoputty]

So are the elite OLB like Miller, Mack, and Beasley.

In for the 50th time those types of players can play at right defensive end.

the elite OLBs will go early like Miller at 2, but Beasley went at 8, not top 5.
i think we would target players 1/2 level lower like the OLB equivalents of the barnetts of the world. i think those can go later, though may not be as late as Watt at 30.

look at what playing RDE did to Ware
Gregory was marginalized as DE and got hurt quickly.

but the most fundamental reason i prefer the 3-4 is that it is much easier for multiple passrushers to hop around the different gaps, making the OL's life difficult.
i dont see any 4-3 implementing anything like that.

stunts, imo, take too long to work, particularly with 3 step drop type offenses.

 

[Irvin88_4life]

i dont think many are calling taco a bust.

Oh but they are.

 

[big dog cowboy]

watt was drafted at 30.
we could have drafted him.
the question is why did we not draft him instead of Taco.
none of us really know, do we?

It's not a big secret. After the draft the Cowboys came right out and said they wanted a bigger player and a true 4-3 DE who could put his hand on the ground every play.

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

the point of this thread is the top blue chip DEs are taken in the top 5 or 10 slots.
we are not getting there unless we tank like crazy.
this should be clear to any idiot.

and you did not answer my question on what happen to the top 2 FA DE in the market this year.

how do we know if Watt will be dominant - nobody knows.
how do we know Garrett will be dominant - nobody knows.
the only thing we know is the Steelers fans are a lot happier with Watt in practice than Cowboys fans are with Taco in practice - that is all we know.

watt was drafted at 30.
we could have drafted him.
the question is why did we not draft him instead of Taco.
none of us really know, do we?
is it because watt is no good in cowboys books - we dont know
is it because watt was not considered because he does not fit marinelli's definition of a DE and he wanted a DE instead of using Watt as a pass rush LB - we dont know.

the point of the responses are that top blue chip ROLB are taken in the top 10 as well. crap falls below that. if you think you can plug any 240 ROLB in a 3-4 and add a little magic dust and vallah you got a great pass rushing defense, then you have no clue about football. any idiot knows you need talent to build a defense (or offense). yet you, yes you claimed you stick Crawford here, you make Taco into a 3-4 De (he has never played 3-4) and make Tapper an OLB or worse yet, we can draft a great pass rushing OLB in the 20s.....Ware, Miller, Mack all were top 10 drafted LBs. there are 15 teams playing 3-4 defense in this league. a lot of them aren't that good.....and they have 250lb OLBs.....you can't be this dense.

and you are basing all of this because you and a few like you are unhappy with Garrett, but Steeler fans are happy with Watt....
so you are basing your entire argument on liking Watt and using him as a single example that ROLBs fall in the draft.....

based on one year draft that you remember, given you haven't even looked into previous drafts, you haven't even analyzed other 3-4 defenses and you think building a real NFL team, is just like Madden football or your Yahoo fantasy football league....

and how did Minn, Carolina and Seattle ended up as good pass rushing teams without drafting top 10? and they all play 4-3?

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

there is no proof, but i believe great D help their O's stats just like great O help their D's stats.
back in the aikman days, i recall the other team's offense doing stupid things because it seems they felt pressure to score.
look at the pittsburgh game last season, remember all the stupid things the pittsburgh coach did? i cannot remember all of them like the fake punt etc. but they felt the need to score because they felt they could not stop our O. but that is as much proof as we can get.

of course size-weight is not enough to predict a player's success.
all-sparq is one way to look at it, but it is certainly not an exact science

here is an all-sparq of the LBs in the recent draft. and it definitely raises concern with Watt. Great sparq, but poor production ratio. why - i dont know.

ok, now you are starting to admit that its not a given and size-speed-weight ratio is not the only thing and you just listed a bunch of OLBs, but not all can play rush OLB in a 3-4. all OLBs aren't equal. similar to 1-tech, vs. 3 tech DTs and RDes vs. LDEs, etc.

and as you attempted to point out, it takes a great athlete and further more and elite football player to make things work.

going to 3-4 is no guarantee to make the defense better or the pass rush better. a defenses job is to stop the other team from scoring...that's what our defense did. they were one of the worst in 3rd down completion percentage, but they were great inside the 25. they gave up yards in the middle of the field. yet they didn't give up many points, once teams got to the redzone. as an offense you have to be able to score inside the 20. and as a defense you have to stop teams from scoring TDs when inside the 20.

and in the GB game, that is the point of contention for everyone's argument. we had 3 sacks. in fact 2/3s of our sacks came in second half of the season. the team's pass rush wasn't an issue by the end of the year. fact is we played prevent defense dropping 8 into coverage to cut off passing lanes, keep the ball in the middle of the field and not allow a long completion. what happened was Rodgers, a HOF QB with two superbowls and probably a top 5 all time QB, made a great play by inches. perhaps we should have played convetional 4-3 front given we were able to put pressure on Rodgers consistently in the second half. we had three sacks and 9 pressures on Rodgers in that game.

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

i dont remember why ryan was ran out of town, but i seem to remember some of it was personality. NO's talent base has eroded over years but i dont follow them so have no idea why they fell off the cliff.

no it wasn't just personality. his defenses sucked and weren't prepared. and NO talent eroded, but their defense got continuously worse. and they had the speed-size ratio. Ryan sucked. end of story.

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

the elite OLBs will go early like Miller at 2, but Beasley went at 8, not top 5.
i think we would target players 1/2 level lower like the OLB equivalents of the barnetts of the world. i think those can go later, though may not be as late as Watt at 30.

look at what playing RDE did to Ware
Gregory was marginalized as DE and got hurt quickly.

but the most fundamental reason i prefer the 3-4 is that it is much easier for multiple passrushers to hop around the different gaps, making the OL's life difficult.
i dont see any 4-3 implementing anything like that.

stunts, imo, take too long to work, particularly with 3 step drop type offenses.

ware had injury issues towards the end of his career. played DE for him made things worse. I agree. but that's ware. he did get to rest one year because of injuries and healed. and came back to have a great year and great run. it helped him to have Miller on the other side (how many teams can boast that) and took pressure and double teams off of him. in the end, he got injured again as a 3-4 OLB.

and in 4-3 you can have LBs, safties and CBs blitz. Zimmer's defenses often do that. and they are successful at it. you can play the same hide the rusher game with a 4-3 alignment. the goal is to bring more rushers' than the defense can handle, from a side where there is less protection. having a ware, miller, mack, Harrison, helps to make a 3-4 defense elite. else they are average as well. having a Haley, Hardy, etc. on the 4-3 makes the 4-3 defense elite.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

the elite OLBs will go early like Miller at 2, but Beasley went at 8, not top 5.
i think we would target players 1/2 level lower like the OLB equivalents of the barnetts of the world. i think those can go later, though may not be as late as Watt at 30.

look at what playing RDE did to Ware
Gregory was marginalized as DE and got hurt quickly.

but the most fundamental reason i prefer the 3-4 is that it is much easier for multiple passrushers to hop around the different gaps, making the OL's life difficult.
i dont see any 4-3 implementing anything like that.

stunts, imo, take too long to work, particularly with 3 step drop type offenses.

Ware started getting hurt before the switch. Gregory had 1 injury. OLB have to take on OT any way. The way we play the SAM on the line, the formations are not overly different. We rotate early and often.

The standard 3-4 2 gaps its DL which mean 3 rushers reading and reacting as opposed to penetrating. Most go to a 4 man line on the nickel. Nevermind our use of a 3 man line on passing downs as it is.

You cannot move edge rushers anymore in a 3-4 and the 4-3 sets up the 3T isolated on a guard. We happen to have a good one in Collins and he doesn't have the build you want in a 5T so he would be wasted.

No OLB. No NT. No depth. Throw away Taco, Mayowa, Tapper, DLaw, Paea, and Collins.

It's a terrible idea.

 

[waldoputty]

the point of the responses are that top blue chip ROLB are taken in the top 10 as well. crap falls below that. if you think you can plug any 240 ROLB in a 3-4 and add a little magic dust and vallah you got a great pass rushing defense, then you have no clue about football. any idiot knows you need talent to build a defense (or offense). yet you, yes you claimed you stick Crawford here, you make Taco into a 3-4 De (he has never played 3-4) and make Tapper an OLB or worse yet, we can draft a great pass rushing OLB in the 20s.....Ware, Miller, Mack all were top 10 drafted LBs. there are 15 teams playing 3-4 defense in this league. a lot of them aren't that good.....and they have 250lb OLBs.....you can't be this dense.

and you are basing all of this because you and a few like you are unhappy with Garrett, but Steeler fans are happy with Watt....
so you are basing your entire argument on liking Watt and using him as a single example that ROLBs fall in the draft.....

based on one year draft that you remember, given you haven't even looked into previous drafts, you haven't even analyzed other 3-4 defenses and you think building a real NFL team, is just like Madden football or your Yahoo fantasy football league....

and how did Minn, Carolina and Seattle ended up as good pass rushing teams without drafting top 10? and they all play 4-3?

who in the world is saying any athlete with the weight size ratio will make a great DE or OLB???
that is ridiculous. you are putting words into my mouth.

a couple months ago, the DE draft threads already covered the all-sparq/performance ratio charts. several of us posted the physical traits for taco, hardy, bosa and many others. they were similar. so there was hope. however, as was discussed in a separate taco thread, the great ryan russell from the 2015 draft had similar spec also. and that shows up in the performance ratio part of the chart. however, there is a lot of give and take. why did certain athletes show up in the wrong quadrant. is it because of the system (e.g. tapper) or injury (e.g. watt?). if you live football, you know all this and it does not have to be stated.

you did not answer the FA question. the top 2 FA DE were franchised.
while nick perry was not.
though melvin ingram (DE/OLB) was franchised.
as most of us knows, the franchise strategy allows the team to nail down the player to a long term lower value contract most of the time.

nobody said getting a good passrusher is easy. but from the draft and from FA, some research shows it is easier to nail the 3-4 olb than the 4-3 olb. not just from the 2016 draft, but from previous drafts. von miller went 2nd, but i am not talking about getting a top 10 type player in the twenties of a draft. i am talking 1 tier down. the slot that has players like watt and nick perry who was drafted at 28.

i am not going to break it down for you. but there are more 240 lb players to choose from the the DE size-weight range. look at bowser in the 3rd and the guy bengals took in the 4th this year. there are just more of them, but it is still not easy. if you read most of this thread, i wanted to take a OLB in the 1st, NT in the 2nd, OG in the 3rd and OLBs for much of the remaining picks. obviously taking multiple picks increases our odds like we did with 3 CBs this year.

yes i know perry did not do well for a few years, but you put the right players in the simplest best situation for them to perform - the opposite of Marinelli.

nobody said sprinkle a little magic dust and viola you got a 3-4 killer OLB. you are reading too much into my writing style.

 

[Plankton]

I'm waiting to hear at this point how the 46 defense was an offshoot of the 3-4. Would bring back great memories.......

 

[waldoputty]

ok, now you are starting to admit that its not a given and size-speed-weight ratio is not the only thing and you just listed a bunch of OLBs, but not all can play rush OLB in a 3-4. all OLBs aren't equal. similar to 1-tech, vs. 3 tech DTs and RDes vs. LDEs, etc.

and as you attempted to point out, it takes a great athlete and further more and elite football player to make things work.

going to 3-4 is no guarantee to make the defense better or the pass rush better. a defenses job is to stop the other team from scoring...that's what our defense did. they were one of the worst in 3rd down completion percentage, but they were great inside the 25. they gave up yards in the middle of the field. yet they didn't give up many points, once teams got to the redzone. as an offense you have to be able to score inside the 20. and as a defense you have to stop teams from scoring TDs when inside the 20.

and in the GB game, that is the point of contention for everyone's argument. we had 3 sacks. in fact 2/3s of our sacks came in second half of the season. the team's pass rush wasn't an issue by the end of the year. fact is we played prevent defense dropping 8 into coverage to cut off passing lanes, keep the ball in the middle of the field and not allow a long completion. what happened was Rodgers, a HOF QB with two superbowls and probably a top 5 all time QB, made a great play by inches. perhaps we should have played convetional 4-3 front given we were able to put pressure on Rodgers consistently in the second half. we had three sacks and 9 pressures on Rodgers in that game.

admit what about size-speed ratio players?
the all-sparq-performance ratio charts were discussed 2 months ago after the taco pick.
this is well known to most who read these threads.

our D was not good last year. it was because the DL sucked.

it is not juts about the GB game and definitely not just about the last play in the GB game. the D as shredded in the Pittsburgh game.
the D's stats simply benefited from the dominant play of the offense.

switching to a 3-4 does 3 things.
1. allows us to nail the passrusher with higher probability. no guarantee, but improves our chance in both the draft and FA.
2. takes your best passrusher (RDE) and remove him from the LT, the best OL on the offense.
3. allows the passrushers to choose ther gap and move around to different gaps as well overload different zones.

in short, 3-4 scheme increases our chances of getting the right specs and puts them in the best possible position to perform.
the 4-3 we play forces us to draft players that are harder to draft, less available in FA, and does not put the players in the best position to succeed.

finally this is a hypothetical scenario, if the D fails us again this year. if the DL steps up (taco, tapper, whoever), then obviously no one wants to change schemes.

 

[DogFace]

I avoided this thread for several days.

I now hate it more than I expected.

 

[waldoputty]

Ware started getting hurt before the switch. Gregory had 1 injury. OLB have to take on OT any way. The way we play the SAM on the line, the formations are not overly different. We rotate early and often.

The standard 3-4 2 gaps its DL which mean 3 rushers reading and reacting as opposed to penetrating. Most go to a 4 man line on the nickel. Nevermind our use of a 3 man line on passing downs as it is.

You cannot move edge rushers anymore in a 3-4 and the 4-3 sets up the 3T isolated on a guard. We happen to have a good one in Collins and he doesn't have the build you want in a 5T so he would be wasted.

No OLB. No NT. No depth. Throw away Taco, Mayowa, Tapper, DLaw, Paea, and Collins.

It's a terrible idea.

ware started getting hurt way before the switch, but the switch toasted him.

the 3-4 would move our best rusher and free him from the LT.
this is a hypothetical if the D fails this season.
Paea, Mayowa and Dlaw would already be gone.
That would mean Tapper/Taco/Collins/others failed us so it would be no big loss to use some of them as 5T.

we use the 3DL a lot in prevent.
that may be because we refuse to get the players to attack in a 3DL front.
i am just saying getting those blitzing players for the 3 man front is easier than nailing the RDE.
this has eluded us since the switch to the 4-3.
you can say Gregory was good, but we had to take the character risk to go with him so we still have no player.

finally LBs produce sooner than DLs - stats posted in a taco thread yesterday.

 

[waldoputty]

no it wasn't just personality. his defenses sucked and weren't prepared. and NO talent eroded, but their defense got continuously worse. and they had the speed-size ratio. Ryan sucked. end of story.

i like his defensive schemes. i remember he had issues but not the details.

 

[waldoputty]

ware had injury issues towards the end of his career. played DE for him made things worse. I agree. but that's ware. he did get to rest one year because of injuries and healed. and came back to have a great year and great run. it helped him to have Miller on the other side (how many teams can boast that) and took pressure and double teams off of him. in the end, he got injured again as a 3-4 OLB.

and in 4-3 you can have LBs, safties and CBs blitz. Zimmer's defenses often do that. and they are successful at it. you can play the same hide the rusher game with a 4-3 alignment. the goal is to bring more rushers' than the defense can handle, from a side where there is less protection. having a ware, miller, mack, Harrison, helps to make a 3-4 defense elite. else they are average as well. having a Haley, Hardy, etc. on the 4-3 makes the 4-3 defense elite.

the 3-4 also allows us to RDE away from the LT.
if your scheme allow us to hide the RDE from the LT, we are essentially playing a 3-4 but without the NT because Marinelli is not flexible.

and i forgot to add, LBs generally produce results sooner than DL.
those stats were posted in a taco thread yesterday.

 

[waldoputty]

It's not a big secret. After the draft the Cowboys came right out and said they wanted a bigger player and a true 4-3 DE who could put his hand on the ground every play.

that is what they said.
but did they really mean it that it was a system thing.
or did they simply not like watt like fuzzy said.