A Final Look at the New 3-4 Defense

Going into the offseason it had to be a tough on Mike McCarthy and Ted Thompson to decide what they wanted to do to make over a Green Bay defense that struggled last season.  They could have decided that the Packers struggles were not due to scheme and instead were due to injuries to Cullen Jenkins, Nick Barnett, and Atari Bigby.  They chose instead to switch up the scheme entirely, bring in a new defensive coordinator, bring in new assistant coaches and bring in some new players to fit the 3-4 scheme.  It had to be a harder choice because Ted Thompson knew going in that he probably wasn't going to go out and sign a bunch of players to fit the new scheme, he was, as usual, going to build through the draft and with value free agents.  It was going to be on the new coaching staff to take the majority of the players on the roster and fit them to a new scheme.  Over the last few days we have detailed many of the adjustments, personnel changes and ideas that will go into making over the new defense and today I just want to sum up some of those ideas and throw a few more out there.

Here is a breakdown of the players that I think will be better in the 3-4, about the same, and worse.

Players who are better suited for a 3-4 than a 4-3:

Justin Harrell, Michael Montgomery, Jarius Wynn, Brad Jones, Clay Matthews, Jeremy Thompson, Atari Bigby, Will Blackmon, Jarrett Bush, Aaron Rouse, and Anthony Smith.

Players who are suited for a 4-3 or a 3-4:

Cullen Jenkins, Ryan Pickett, B.J. Raji, Brady Poppinga, Brandon Chillar, A.J. Hawk, Nick Collins, Tramon Williams, and Charles Woodson

Players who are better in a 4-3 than a 3-4:

Johnny Jolly, Nick Barnett, Desmond Bishop, Aaron Kampman, Al Harris, and Pat Lee

Some additional thoughts on the 3-4:

- The Packers did a great job of hiring defensive coaches that will help this team transition to the 3-4 as smooth as possible.  Dom Capers has been using the 3-4 for as long if not longer than anybody and knows the ins and outs of the entire defense.  He also had to teach the defense to a new set of players when he was the head coach for Houston's inaugural season which should help in his ability to transition the Packers defense.  With all the cleaning house that the Packers did on defense they were able to hang on to inside-linebackers coach and assistant head coach Winston Moss who is a highly talked about coach who interviewed for head coaching vacancies in the offseason.  Kevin Greene will bring a tremendous amount of passion and emotion to the entire team and who better for C. Matthews, J. Thompson, A. Kampman and B. Poppinga to learn from.  Darren Perry was a defensive backs coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Packers were able to snag him away to be their new safeties coach.  Of course Pittsburgh plays the 3-4 defense as well so he will bring a tremendous amount of knowledge, experience and insight.  Finally Mark Trgovac who was the Carolina Panthers defensive coordinator last year has signed on to be the Packers defensive line coach.  All in all a very well rounded and knowledgeable staff who can make this transition happen much easier and hopefully much quicker.

-There is still some doubt in my mind of whether or not the Packers should have changed over to the 3-4 at all.  Lets say for a minute that the Packers were staying with a 4-3 and so instead of taking Clay Matthews (an obvious 3-4 player) they chose somebody like Rey Maualuga or Clint Sintim who are much more 4-3 linebackers.  How good on paper would a defensive line of Kampman, Raji, Pickett and Jenkins be.  Not to mention Jolly and Harrell backing up at the tackles and Montgomery and Thompson backing up at ends.  That is a solid 4-3 line with a good rotation as well.  At linebacker Maulaluga would play middle with Hawk and Barnett on the outsides or Barnett would play middle with Hawk and Sintim on the outsides.  The bench would include Poppinga, Bishop and Chillar.  Again a solid group of starters and backups.  As for defensive backs, Harris and Woodson with Bigby and Collins starting and Williams, Blackmon, Lee, and Rouse backing up.  On paper it is an extremely good 4-3 defense with the addition of Raji and one of the linebackers.  

Taking that last point as my point of doubt here are a last group of positives to keep in mind when heading into the switch:

1.  The NFL both offensively and defensively is based on unpredictability.  Every coaching staff in this league is skilled enough to pick apart any opposing team if they know what is coming.  The 3-4 defense allows for a much greater surprise and unpredictability factor because offenses don't know who is blitzing who is in man, who is in zone and what the assignments of the defensive players are.

2.  Look at the success of teams using a 3-4 the last few seasons.  Pittsburgh, New England, Baltimore, Miami, and Dallas all used the 3-4 extremely effectively and look where it took those teams.

3.  The 3-4 defense allows for much more athletically gifted linebackers who make plays and because of this 3-4 teams have much better special teams.  Linebackers who have great speed and can get down the field and tackle are a plenty on a 3-4 roster and as many of those guysthe Packers can find to play special teams the better.

4.  Nobody else in the NFC North will be running the 3-4 and in the NFC only Dallas, Green Bay, and San Francisco will be running it.  Most NFC teams will not be used to seeing the 3-4 on a consistent basis.

5.  The run defense for Green Bay should be much improved this season.  Maybe not necessarily because of the switch to the 3-4, but because of the addition of B.J. Raji and the hopeful return of Justin Harrell from his plethora of injuries.  Adding a 337 rookie defensive tackle never hurts a struggling run defense.

6.  The use of the 3-4 defense has in the past meant that 3-4 teams can take players that fit their defense much later in the draft than 4-3 teams.  Defensive ends in a 3-4 are usually "tweener" end-tackle guys in 4-3 so sometimes 4-3 teams shy away from drafting those players.  Same thing at outside linebacker, OLB's in a 3-4 are "tweeners" between a defensive-end and linebacker so again 4-3 teams generally shy away.  This isn't as much of an advantage as it used to be because of the amount of teams using the 3-4 now, but the amount of teams using the 3-4 is still less than teams using the 4-3.  (12 out of 32 or 37.5%)

In case you are interested here are the NFL teams that currently are using a base 3-4 defense: Dolphins, Patriots, Jets, Steelers, Browns, Ravens, Broncos, Chiefs, Chargers, Cowboys, 49ers, and Packers.

The Packers transition to the 3-4 will hopefully be as smooth as possible but to say there will not be players who struggle and bumps in the road would be foolish.  There will undoubtedly be players who shine in this new defense and play at a level that nobody thought they were capable of playing at and there will be players that have played at a pro-bowl level who will probably not be back with the team as soon as next season.  The biggest and most important thing is that everybody is on the same page with the defense as soon as possible.  If people are ready in game one and have the knowledge of the defense down the success level of the Packers will go up drastically.  If it takes until week 8 or later until the Packers truly have the defense down pat then the playoffs begin to look less and less likely.  There is no perfect defensive scheme in the NFL which is why teams use the 4-3, Tampa 2, 4-6 and 3-4 defenses.  There are different philosophies and different schemes that fit different teams.  If one scheme were perfect everybody would be using it.  The Packers just need to get everybody transitioned to the 3-4 and utilize everybody's talents and there should be no problem playing and winning in the new defense.