I think the Redskins should Go to A 3-4 Defense.

[freddyg12]

Originally Posted by BeastsoftheNFCeast

I believe the 3-4 is going to go downhill the more teams transition to it (which is what is happening). I believe a big success of the 3-4 is that the teams draft players that 3-4 teams value more than 4-3 teams so they get more value for their pick when the 4-3 teams pass over them. Also its a defense that is not seen as much so offenses are not as familiar about what to do.
However, nobody can deny its success in recent years, so it is important to ask if the Redskins switch, would it give us the same success?
I believe that it is not in the Redskins best interest to do so. Not because we dont have talent currently on our roster (between Evans, Daniels, Golston, Griffin, and Montgomery we could find 3 players to fit the DL, Rocky, Fletch, Blades on ILB, Washington, Taylor, Carter at OLB), but because of our salary cap situation I believe we NEED to cut JT AND either griffin or Washington (maybe both). Doing so I believe will either definitely completely screw over our OLB's or will cripple our LB's and DL enough to make a very week front 7. We do not know who will do well in the 3-4 and we need to have enough options to give us security...a defense is only as strong as its weakest player.
And we cannot buy players to fit our system because I believe that our O-line is the number one priority right now. Due to poor performance and an ancient age, we need to get young talent on the OL NOW.

That's similar to what I said earlier, most notably the Skins have passed on a lot of 3-4 OLB/DEs in years when we drafted defense high, e.g. Merriman & Ware in 05. I know that those guys didn't fit the mold of our 4-3, neither did guys like Woodley, who was rated high at one point, then dropped to the 2nd round.

Teams that play the 3-4 well seem to be getting great production from these tweener guys. I think they're as much or more key to it than the nose tackle. btw, J. Ratcliff of Dallas isn't that big but he's quick & strong. Maybe he's not a good example of a 3-4 NT but he's the only smaller one I can think of that's any good.