Eric Mangini, on his defense of choice: "What I've always liked about the 3-4 is that you?ve got the flexibility to have that double bubble over the guard in the standard, or what you would think of as the traditional 3-4, and you can move one of those ends down and rush an OLB and conceptually it's the same exact thing as a 4-3. Or you can bring both ends down and rush both OLBs and now you have like a 46 look, like the Buddy Ryan Bears look. And with four LBs, those four pieces can replace defensive linemen to build any front that you want. And you?re not forced to adjust with the secondary on movement, you can just adjust with LBs. When you have four big guys in there, they can really only go to certain spots and the little guys have to adjust."
It's funny you brought in this quote because there is another discussion going on about the 3-4 and whether or not D'Rob can handle the NT position (big surprise that is a topic of discussion). What I liked last year, and it sometimes complemented Vilma to not get doubled up, was the movement on the second tier and occassionally from the secondary. There were some nice schemes put together and I think we were too new to the system and a little too outsized to win those moves we made, but that was last year. D'Rob will be more comfortable and more familiar lining up in front and the rest of the guys should feel the same. As the leader on D, Harris, Hobson, and Thomas (and maybe Harris) should and hopefully will allow Vilma to return to his 2005 type play - tackling everyone in sight.
