It's Talent, Not Coaching.

[SirClintonPortis]

Originally Posted by Beemnseven

See, I just don't agree with this at all. People seem to think that if it weren't for Jim Haslett and occasional use of the 3 - 4, the D would be back to top ten form.

The guys we have playing defense aren't that good, the players who were good in seasons past are deteriorating, and it wouldn't matter if we had Greg Blache or Gregg Williams running the 4 -3 100% of the time -- I maintain that the D would be just as bad either way.

This assumes that 4-3 players and 3-4 players are perfectly interchangeable.
Essentially, your saying a lot of the guys here can't play football at all. However, Rocky Mac and Andre Carter have proven themselves as capable of playing in a 4-3 but have struggled in the 3-4. The secondary is not much different outside of Landry, but thanks to Landry, they have actually improved.

The players in the front 7 are a misfit for the 3-4 for the most and that's why this D has sucked. The 3-4 requires its Dlinemen LB to have a specific mental and physical skillsets or else face "Swiss cheese" syndrome.

To start, not having a nose tackle is death for a 3-4 because the O-linemen who gets to block a LB have a huge advantage in their favor. Our NT is inconsistent and thus our LBs have suffered.
The other 3-4 Dlinemen all have to be big powerful space eaters. Carriker fits, but Golston did not. Golston is not very good, but being a filler run stuffer suits him better than being a guy trying to emulate Haloti Ngata and "control" the olineman l. His mediocre play has been turned into horrid play because of the switch to the 3-4.

And AH drew more than enough double teams last season. He also played 70% of his snaps, which was more than the 60% of snaps in Tennessee.

[Beemnseven]

Originally Posted by SirClintonPortis

This assumes that 4-3 players and 3-4 players are perfectly interchangeable.Essentially, your saying a lot of the guys here can't play football at all. However, Rocky Mac and Andre Carter have proven themselves as capable of playing in a 4-3 but have struggled in the 3-4. The secondary is not much different outside of Landry, but thanks to Landry, they have actually improved.

The players in the front 7 are a misfit for the 3-4 for the most and that's why this D has sucked. The 3-4 requires its Dlinemen LB to have a specific mental and physical skillsets or else face "Swiss cheese" syndrome.

To start, not having a nose tackle is death for a 3-4 because the O-linemen who gets to block a LB have a huge advantage in their favor. Our NT is inconsistent and thus our LBs have suffered.
The other 3-4 Dlinemen all have to be big powerful space eaters. Carriker fits, but Golston did not. Golston is not very good, but being a filler run stuffer suits him better than being a guy trying to emulate Haloti Ngata and "control" the olineman l. His mediocre play has been turned into horrid play because of the switch to the 3-4.

And AH drew more than enough double teams last season. He also played 70% of his snaps, which was more than the 60% of snaps in Tennessee.

No it doesn't. I'm saying -- and I thought I made this pretty clear -- that whether we're in the 3-4 or 4-3, the players we have just aren't that good. That whatever success we've had in the past was bound to start going downhill. That no matter what sort of alignment they're in or what scheme or system that's in place, we'd be in just about the same shitty statistical situation.

Again, people seem to believe that all we have to do is fire Jim Haslett and go back to the 4-3 and everything will be fine. I just don't buy it.

[Coff]

Originally Posted by Beemnseven

No it doesn't. I'm saying -- and I thought I made this pretty clear -- that whether we're in the 3-4 or 4-3, the players we have just aren't that good. That whatever success we've had in the past was bound to start going downhill. That no matter what sort of alignment they're in or what scheme or system that's in place, we'd be in just about the same shitty statistical situation.

Again, people seem to believe that all we have to do is fire Jim Haslett and go back to the 4-3 and everything will be fine. I just don't buy it.

But the defense was good last year. And very good the year before. I'm not jumping on the "fire Haslett" bandwagon just yet, but you can't honestly compare this year's defense to last year's and say that the coaching has nothing to do with the difference. The personnel is nearly identical; the scheme is what has changed; and we've gone from 10th in the league to 32nd. (And thankfully there are only 32 teams in the league.)

Perhaps the difference is just the growing pains of learning a new system, perhaps the difference is just bad luck. Who knows? But the one consistency on defense between last year and this year is the players, so you can't say the players are the reason this defense is terrible.

[SirClintonPortis]

Originally Posted by Beemnseven

No it doesn't. I'm saying -- and I thought I made this pretty clear -- that whether we're in the 3-4 or 4-3, the players we have just aren't that good. That whatever success we've had in the past was bound to start going downhill. That no matter what sort of alignment they're in or what scheme or system that's in place, we'd be in just about the same shitty statistical situation.

Again, people seem to believe that all we have to do is fire Jim Haslett and go back to the 4-3 and everything will be fine. I just don't buy it.

Well, I'm not buying what you're selling that everyone on the D simply sucks because of the players being oh so horrible, especially since a good deal of the defense sucking last year was because of LaRon Landry, who is our most improved player this year. Not only that, I've cited at three guys who have had at least some success in the 4-3 and now are falling like rocks thanks to the 3-4. The aspect of the D that has stayed mostly the same is the secondary outside of Landry. And anyone with a brain(i.e Spags) would have put LL in the strong safety role.

You can't have it both ways. There is AMPLE evidence of stud 4-3 players sucking in a 3-4 and vice versa.

[Beemnseven]

Originally Posted by SirClintonPortis

Well, I'm not buying what you're selling that everyone on the D simply sucks because of the players being oh so horrible, especially since a good deal of the defense sucking last year was because of LaRon Landry, who is our most improved player this year. Not only that, I've cited at three guys who have had at least some success in the 4-3 and now are falling like rocks thanks to the 3-4. The aspect of the D that has stayed mostly the same is the secondary outside of Landry. And anyone with a brain(i.e Spags) would have put LL in the strong safety role.

You can't have it both ways. There is AMPLE evidence of stud 4-3 players sucking in a 3-4 and vice versa.

Right. So all we have to do is get Orakpo, Haynesworth, Golston, and Carter back up at the front four, with McIntosh, Fletcher, and Blades or Wilson at linebacker -- then we can sit back and watch the magical defensive turn-around.

This team just isn't as good as you think it is.

[SirClintonPortis]

Originally Posted by Beemnseven

Right. So all we have to do is get Orakpo, Haynesworth, Golston, and Carter back up at the front four, with McIntosh, Fletcher, and Blades or Wilson at linebacker -- then we can sit back and watch the magical defensive turn-around.

This team just isn't as good as you think it is.

Considering that Orakpo was stuffed into a 4-3 OLB role last year, Landry sucked major balls, and that Blache held them back in 1000 way--one of them being making Landry sucking major balls--, that line and D would actually be performing better than what they did in 2009. Seriously, there has to be someone from a D guru tree that knows how to run a 4-3 better than Blache.

It seems like you're assuming Blache's philosophy is the end-all be-all of 4-3 philosophies.

And Buffalo started magically playing better once they scrapped the 3-4. Instead of coughing up 30+ points every week, they started having games in which they gave up less than 20 points, although they seem to struggle against elite playmakers.