Thoughts about the switch to the 4-3

[BritPat]

Great point- someone quoted Dom Capers a couple of months ago, and he apparently said that for 2008, the Pats spent a surprisingly small percentage of snaps in the base 3-4. I think it was down in the ~20% range. They spent far more time in a 4-2-5 nickel.

Which sort of backs up my initial post about the league becoming a predominantly passing league, and the best defenses against the pass being 4-3, or versions and variants thereof.

It would be very interesting to see the defensive break-down going further back, just to see how this year and last year compare to previous seasons and our defensive groupings.

 

[satz]

I am suprised that so much emphasis is put on pass defence and 3-4 naturally asks a qb to identify the mike. the center has to split the blocking per the mike. the mike is not the play caller but the middle spliting of pass rush. Every down the calls needs to be reset in a 3-4 depending on the weak side or over loading. you are stressing the qb and ol.

4-3 you are pretty telling the OL and Qb who are rushing.also the biggest mismatch is a OLB on a TE or RB due to the size of OLB .they out weight a RB or TE by bit. IN a 4-3 your LB are the same size and their is no real mismatch.

Never under stood why the love to make the opponent qb and ol life easier.
when your DL is notgetting it down[gaints of this year] you can move your LB around to create choas.But for some reason we want to make opposing offence life easier.
satz

 

[Patspsycho]

I am suprised that so much emphasis is put on pass defence and 3-4 naturally asks a qb to identify the mike. the center has to split the blocking per the mike. the mike is not the play caller but the middle spliting of pass rush. Every down the calls needs to be reset in a 3-4 depending on the weak side or over loading. you are stressing the qb and ol.

4-3 you are pretty telling the OL and Qb who are rushing.also the biggest mismatch is a OLB on a TE or RB due to the size of OLB .they out weight a RB or TE by bit. IN a 4-3 your LB are the same size and their is no real mismatch.

Never under stood why the love to make the opponent qb and ol life easier.
when your DL is notgetting it down[gaints of this year] you can move your LB around to create choas.But for some reason we want to make opposing offence life easier.
satz

You are forgetting our secondaries- they are the ones making the QB's life pretty hard nowadays.

 

[Synovia]

Still think he is building a team that defies traditional definition, with so many quality safeties and CB's... this will be a much different discussion in the future than we are havnig how..

I agree. Defense should be tailored to the offense.

If you have an offense that can score 40 points a game, your defense should be tailored to playing against the pass, mostly in nickle and dime. You need lots of good DBs for that, and lots of fast LBers.

 

[Synovia]

The one issue in this logic are one more teams still play 4-3.

The only way thats an issue is if you're assuming that theres an equal amount of talent available for each type of system. If there are 3 times as many Dwight Freeneys out there as Richard Seymours, the league should end up 75% 4-3, and 25% 3-4. When BB started, there were only 2 or 3 3-4 teams, so it make sense to go that way, because the talent was underutilized. Now, we're up around that 25%, so it may be easier to find those 4-3 guys.

 

[Synovia]

Which sort of backs up my initial post about the league becoming a predominantly passing league, and the best defenses against the pass being 4-3, or versions and variants thereof.

Except they're really not. Last year the best Pass Defense was the Pittsburgh Steelers, a 3-4. In 2006 it was Baltimore, who plays a hybrid scheme. In 2003 Bal and NE were 1 and 2. Considering how few 3-4 teams there are, the fact that they seem to be the best pass defenses pretty often seems to indicate the opposite of what you're proposing.

Pretty much every year one of the top 3 pass defenses is a 3-4.

 

[BradyFTW!]

The one issue in this logic are one more teams still play 4-3. Can you name the different flavours of 4-3. Nope as in 4-3 the ends are always rushing up and tackles occuping the gaurds and center.

The talent pool for 4-3 players is WAY bigger than 3-4 though, since there are only a handful of colleges that run a 3-4 defense.

 

[Deus Irae]

The talent pool for 4-3 players is WAY bigger than 3-4 though, since there are only a handful of colleges that run a 3-4 defense.

Wish I could find the article, but I read that the proliferation of the spread offenses in college is looked at as being beneficial for the 3-4 linebacker position at the NFL level.

 

[BritPat]

Except they're really not. Last year the best Pass Defense was the Pittsburgh Steelers, a 3-4. In 2006 it was Baltimore, who plays a hybrid scheme. In 2003 Bal and NE were 1 and 2. Considering how few 3-4 teams there are, the fact that they seem to be the best pass defenses pretty often seems to indicate the opposite of what you're proposing.

Pretty much every year one of the top 3 pass defenses is a 3-4.

One, or two - the remainder being 4-3 defenses. Which is the point I was making.

As I said - four of the top five this year are 4-3 defenses (including the top three).....last year only two of the top ten were 3-4 - the remaining eight were 4-3 (including the defenses ranked #2,#3 and #4)....in 2007 four of the top five and seven out of the top ten were 4-3 defenses (including the top two).....2003 is pretty pointless in terms of this conversation as the rules protecting receivers and quarterbacks have been 're-emphasised' and changed since then.

The whole point of this thread is that in the last few years (i.e 2006 - onwards) the league has become a predominantly passing league, and BB has moved us to the 4-3 (or a version of it) to counter that.

 

[BritPat]

The talent pool for 4-3 players is WAY bigger than 3-4 though, since there are only a handful of colleges that run a 3-4 defense.

That's not strictly true though - look at our All World D-line during their time together - Sey was a 4-3 DT at Georgia, Ty was a 4-3 DT at Texas A&M, and Vince was a 4-3 DT at Miami.

You don't need to have played in the 3-4 in college to be able to play it to a high degree of success in the NFL.

 

[Synovia]

One, or two - the remainder being 4-3 defenses. Which is the point I was making.

As I said - four of the top five this year are 4-3 defenses (including the top three).....last year only two of the top ten were 3-4 - the remaining eight were 4-3 (including the defenses ranked #2,#3 and #4).

Right, which means, given that there are 5 times as many 4-3s as 3-4s, seeing them AT ALL in the top 5 means that the 4-3 is not in any way superior. You should expect the majority of the top teams to be 4-3, just as the majority of bottom teams are 4-3, because the majority of ALL teams are 4-3.

You're making the point that 4-3s are better against the pass. They're not.

 

[BritPat]

Right, which means, given that there are 5 times as many 4-3s as 3-4s, seeing them AT ALL in the top 5 means that the 4-3 is not in any way superior. You should expect the majority of the top teams to be 4-3, just as the majority of bottom teams are 4-3, because the majority of ALL teams are 4-3.

You're making the point that 4-3s are better against the pass. They're not.

So why are they at the top of the pile? The number of teams running each respective scheme means nothing too, you're either good at something or you're not.

Why are the Panthers, who couldn't stop a Pop Warner team running on them, the best team against the pass this year?

Look at 2006, the top two teams against the pass were the Raiders and the Colts....yet the Colts were stone last against the run and the Raiders ranked 25th? In 2007, the Dolphins were 4th against the pass, the Chiefs 5th - yet the Phins were ranked dead last against the run and the Chiefs 28th?

I could go on, but you get the drift.

What causes such disparity?

Anyway, this is detracting against the main premise of the thread.

 

[Synovia]

So why are they at the top of the pile? The number of teams running each respective scheme means nothing too, you're either good at something or you're not.

They're also the bottom of the pile. Why are all of the worst pass defense teams 4-3s? Its simple: theres much more of them.
Let me give you another example: You have 32 people are in a room. 27 of them are male.

You have them take a test, and 4 of the top 5 scores are Male. Does that mean men are better at the test? Not necessarily, because with 5 times as many of them taking the test. They dominate the top, bottom, and middle, so them dominating the top isn't necessarily significant.

Now, if you see all 5 of those women at the bottom, or the top, it means something.

Why are the Panthers, who couldn't stop a Pop Warner team running on them, the best team against the pass this year?

Because you're looking at the wrong statistics. You're looking at the NFL's ranking of total yards, arent you? Its useless.

Bad teams get run on a lot, because they're behind. They don't get passed on because teams are trying to kill the clock.

The Panthers pass defense is completely mediocre. They're about 20th in the league. They don't give up many pass yards though because teams don't bother to throw past about halftime.

Look at 2006, the top two teams against the pass were the Raiders and the Colts....yet the Colts were stone last against the run and the Raiders ranked 25th? In 2007, the Dolphins were 4th against the pass, the Chiefs 5th - yet the Phins were ranked dead last against the run and the Chiefs 28th?

Again, you're looking at totally useless total yards stats. Check out DVOA.

 

[BradyFTW!]

That's not strictly true though - look at our All World D-line during their time together - Sey was a 4-3 DT at Georgia, Ty was a 4-3 DT at Texas A&M, and Vince was a 4-3 DT at Miami.

You don't need to have played in the 3-4 in college to be able to play it to a high degree of success in the NFL.

Of course not- if the only way to become a capable 3-4 player was by having played in one in college, then nobody would be able to run the 3-4 in the NFL.

That's the whole point: that the process of scouting, drafting, and coaching up a player for the 3-4 is exponentially more difficult than for the 4-3, since you have to extrapolate out a player's ability to play his position based on how he plays a different position. That's not a small task. Even more importantly, few players are well-versed in how to play the 3-4 before they're drafted, so they pretty much have to learn it as they go. In Belichick's case, he just makes a habit of drafting them in the first round, because that's what it tends to take to get a guy who you *know* can make the conversion into a 2-gap lineman.

 

[I HEART BELICHICK]

Great thread... and some great points being thrown around. However, it seems to me like the fundamental issue that is being overlooked, regardless of scheme, is the link between personnel and coaching on a given defense's success against both the pass and the rush. Execution by far supercedes the significance of a team's base D.

Whether a team's base D is a 3-4 or 4-3, the impact of a dominant pass rush and/or a shutdown cornerback is enormous. Not to mention, the impact of coaching adjustments week in and week-out, and series to series.

Fortunately for the Patriots, the defense has the benefit of the great defensive mind that Belichick brings to the table, and those to whom he comfortably delegates. He will use the base D that gives us the best chance to win based primarily on available personnel and the likely success of the resulting match-ups on a week to week basis. And regardless of the base D, (which as has previously been mentioned represents less than a quarter of the season's snaps), the in-game coaching adjustments made and the execution of the personnel being utilized in the sub-packages that are most frequently used to defend in high probability passing scenarios are the key to a team's sucess against the pass. Not so much the "base D" that a team calls their own.

One man's opinion.

 

[patsox23]

What "switch to the 4-3?"