im aware we will be running the 3-4 and it will most def be a part of our defense. but wat u must realize is mangini comes from a team that doesnt strictly run a 3-4 , theyll run both a 3-4 and a 4-3 depending on which gives them the better shot to win. which leads me to believing mangini plans on doin the same. so for all those who think we should trade or cut neone who doesnt fit the 3-4(ex: victor hobson and dewayne robertson), mayb this will make u reconsider.
I dont know if this post will make anyone reconsider, but I dont think Mangini has even said what they will run. I could be way off and missed it but I remember him saying something like we will run whatever gives our team the best chance to win.
my point is that u would think mangini plans on running the defense he used in NE(which use 3-4 and 4-3 fronts). which eliminates the purpose of getting rid of players that dont fit in 3-4.
TO be fair, he inherited a team which already had the system and the personel in place for the 3-4, there was no sense changing it as it had won them championships. Like I said, I dont remember him saying that we are running this or we are running that, I do remember him saying that we are going to run what gives us the besst chace of winning. If that means altering a system to fit our specific players then I think he will do it. One of the biggest knocks on herm was that he made players play into a system regardless of their physical abilities. I think we were all happy to hear that Mangini will look at the personel and adapt his system, whatever that may be accodingly
Well your agrument holds weight only if the players that are brought in can only play the 3-4. But what will likely happen is that they will be better then them in the 3-4 or the 4-3. I don't know about anyone else, bUt I think Robertson as an 9million dollar cap hit is the worst defensive starter in the leauge and should be gone next season. Plus Ellis in my eyes has been the best DT on the team since DR was drafted(joking). The players you named just aren't good enough to be limited to the 4-3. But if we got a guy like Mario who is 295 and we already have Ellis who is 285-290 ish........ those are some big Ends. The bull rush is going to be crazy.
At no point has Mangini stated that he wants to run the 3-4 at least part of the time. This is largely just speculation, but its a fact that most of the Parcells tree favors switching up defensive fronts, and Parcells himself favors the 3-4. That said, the Patriots under Belichick have tended to lean in favor of the 3-4, but theyve just played to their strengths. I forget who it was that they lost a couple years ago and teams said that the loss of X player meant they couldnt run their 3-4 so much, and they ran more 4-3 that year. The point is that if Mangini is anything like the coaches hes learned the game from, hell go with whatever defense puts the best 11 players on the field during any given week. At this point, itd probably be the 3-4 because we dont have too many great defensive lineman, but weve got a lot of solid linebackers. While many of our current players are more what youd want for a 4-3, we dont have any kind of a replacement for John Abraham, and that RE spot is real important in the 4-3 these days. I think the ideal situation for this defense would be to draft Mario Williams at the four spot and play the 4-3 this year with Williams and Ellis at end, Pope/Von Oelhoffen and Robertson at DT, Vilma at MLB, Hobson and Barton on the outside. Thats a rock solid front seven.
If you look at the Pats they run a 3-4 with a lot of guys who are natural DL men playing both LB and DL. The Pats have a great front 7. Willie McGinist plays both DE and LB so did Roman Phifer so does Vrabel and Klecko. It isn't about the scheme as much as it is about having big, fast smart players. The Pats have a great scheme but they have great personal. They can run you down or over power you.
And that's the real point here. He can't install a defensive front for which he doesn't have the correct players. Maybe DW or NightOwlTom can confirm or correct this, but when Belichick first landed in New England, he didn't run a 3-4 front. They didn't have the personnel for it. If I remember, switching back and forth was more a function of personnel than scheme - they just didn't have a true 3-4 nose tackle until they signed Ted Washington. Even then, I believe Washington was injured the better part of the year, so they didn't have much of a choice but to switch things around. I think - and, again, I could be wrong - that New England didn't become a predominant 3-4 defense until they drafted Vince Wilfork.
Yes....duh. Mangini will run a 3-4 most of the time with Vilma and a linebacker from the draft as the playmakers. But then they will most likely have one of the OLB's line up and rush the passer from a three point stance, in a 4-3. Thats why Mangini won't draft a guy like AJ Hawk, who is strictly 4-3 OLB. He'll draft a Mario Williams, MAnny Lawson, Bobby Carpenter guy, someone who can drop back in coverage and line up too. And who ever said we would be strictly 3-4.
I agree with you that most of our guys are not 3-4 type players. Vilma may be small to play MLB in a 3-4, but he has proven us wrong before when people said he was too small for a 4-3. Hobson is too slow to play OLB in a 3-4, where more pass rush is needed. Dewayne has struggled and hasn't shown he could handle the duties of a 3-4 NT.
This will be gameplanned to each opponent week to week...teams that run up the middle you have to play a 4-3 to get the bigt bidies in there....teams that like to dink and dunk and run sweep plays, the 3-4 front is more effective. I've also seen New England run a play with one DT and 6LBs! We're in for some changes definitely, but look for the gameplan to change on the fly
