For years and years, many posters pleaded for the return to the 3-4 defense. But I'm surprised I haven't seen more celebration on the site for its return.
The last time the Giants ran a 3-4 defense (1993), Dan Reeves was head coach. It's literally been a quarter of a century.
Psyched? Indifferent? Curious?
The 4-3 needs great DEs....not sure we have any right now.
The 3-4 needs great NT....which Snacks is one of the best!
So I am all for it
Also, this roster was closer to having the personnel to make this move than most realized. It takes advantage of our best player in Snacks and it also puts our biggest money player in a position to succeed in Vernon. I did not like that we had so much money tied up on our DL yet could not get pressure with 4. Even prior to trading JPP, I felt the switch gave us a little more versatility to get another dynamic pass rusher in the mix that could attack the quarterback on a near every down basis.
I'm souped about Vernon too, I expect a great year from him. He was kind of miscast as a 4-3 DE, a more natural fit as a hybrid 3-4 leo-joker-predator.
I also think JPP was team leader and still had some in his tank (despite hand injury he is only 29 years old!! )
I can easily see our Defense being team weakness
I am pumped!
My feeling was that your best pass rushers should -- to a degree -- determine which kind of formation you use. Guys like Strahan, Osi, Tuck, and JPP may not have fit a 3-4.
We all kind of saw how you . . . negate, shall we say, a 4-3 pass rusher by making Kiwanuka into a 4-3 LB. He was an OK LB, but drafted as a pure, 4-3 pass rusher. It would have been interesting to see him play his whole career in that role, but the DL was loaded, the LBs weren't and they were trying to get him on the field.
As we all know by now, Betcher's D is a multi-look hybrid -- NOT a traditional 3-4. But one PLUS to running it is that the Giants will need better LBs than they've had in decades.
At this point, Vernon is the only proven pass rusher on the team. Betcher seems smart enough to exploit that. He AND JPP were not enough to get to QBs last year. In the 4-3 SB years, the Giants always had THREE pass rushers. Just two never gets it done, and now they're down to just Vernon and a bunch of unproven guys (unless Ogletree provides some). Hopefully some of them will emerge as legit pass rushers, because they're gonna need to generate a rush from somewhere. Will it come from the Edge LBs? Will one of the new DLs turn into a Leonard Marshall? Who knows?
I honestly don't care what formation they use as long as they stop the run and rush the passer.
Looking forward to it.
Anything that will improve this critical area will be welcome.
Good to see quicker more mobile lbs in there to address the short and intermediate zones.
Hard to see any improvement in the back of the secondary and with regard to secondary depth...
So you can manufacture wide open pass run lanes.
It's not just the front 3 as you worry it may be. It's an insane blend.
Giants don't have an LT though - I DO believe having 4 down linemen every play is a liability in todays pass happy league - 3-4 offers more creativity and flexibility - if healthy, Giants should be VERY effective in this alignment.
Hell, Snacks is 2 men on his own anyway.
Couldnt have said it better.
Bettcher from what I have read runs more of a one gap 3-4 defense which is not the 3-4 defense that most Giants fans know from the 80's and early 90's. Also from what I have read the Giants will play in a nickel defense 605-70% of the time..
So its not important to me whether they run a 4-3 or a 3-4. Good defense is good defense.
However moving JPP opened the door wide for them to move to a 3-4 defense. Vernon can and has played off the line in Miami so its not something he is unfamiliar with.
Bottom Line.. i dont care what they call it.. as long as its good.
That's 6.
You have 5 defenders on the line or soon to be on the line. -Each- can at least occasionally smash face with a offensive linesman and defend that space. A few of your 5 could do that all game long, and defend both sides, i.e. two gaps... or all game long and just the one. But each of the five can do it to some degree.
Then. Each of your 5 can also jump gaps. Some more instantly than others, but, given a wide open gap all can do it, even big Harrison, and some can also create space for themselves as Harrison, Hill and Tomlinson should, others fly into it so quickly or use a blended technique maybe McIntosh. But given an unnacounted for spot all can do it.
Then, while doing that, all five are also able, to varying degrees, to get sideways and grab runners heading for gaps or ends -other than- the one that they just went through. Playing run on the way to the passer. All five but in various ways. So that should account for all six spots.
So it's infinitely variable.
Set plays. Known to all 11 defenders, so if weak spots are created in the line, on any given set plays, then those are accounted for by some of the other 6 players, in a scripted manner.
Then, obviously. Your remaining two lbs ought to have some PD chops and chase chops.
Zero.
3-4
4-3
5-2
4-7
Doesn't matter.
Do the Giants have the talent to raise this defense to respectability in 2018?
That's all the matters.
But glad to see JPP gone. Really hard to root for a team when it's star defensive player is taking 50% of the plays off.
And last but not least... one mo' chance for Eli Apple. If he fucks up, put it on Jerry Reese's tombstone.
what I am most concerned/excited for in this scheme change is to see our guys being put in positions to succeed. we give snacks room in the middle to dominate as NT, give OV a little more flexibility to stand up, come off the edge and rush the passe. bring Landon down in the box and let him shoot gaps to make big plays.
the past few years it has felt like we have been forcing these guys to play into specific roles within the system rather play into their strengths, and it seems by labeling this a change to a 3-4 front may be a signal they are moving away from that.
I'll have to go watch a little Arizona film to refresh my memory on Bettcher's version of the 3-4 but from what I remember he dropped his ws OLB off the line often and slid his frontage over to resemble a 4 quite often.
They had to have been gassed at certain points.
I might be in the minority, but I've been very happy with Vernon's play. I've not seen him be a liability and he's shown he'll play through injuries. I think too many get caught up in his salary.
The bad news: we don't have all the right pieces in place for it to work effectively yet. We need another OLB who can run the field, and until we see Lorenzo Carter in action it's hard to figure out who that will be.
The good news: lots of quality college programs use the 3-4, which means finding LBs and DLs accustomed to that system in the draft isn't that tough. I thought it was harder to find good 4-3 guys, actually.
I'm guessing we might have a really interesting and effective defense by 2020. But it'll take that long to get everything in place.
The 4-3 needs great DEs....not sure we have any right now.
The 3-4 needs great NT....which Snacks is one of the best!
So I am all for it
I am very happy, but don't think the 3-4 defense will take off until the Giants draft a top notch pass rushing OLB. I'm hoping Lorenzo Carter is that guy -- I was very happy with that pick. I'm not sure whether he'll be a true pass rushing specialist though.
But yeah, I think having a 3-4 brings more athleticism and versatility to the defense. I'd rather have a Von Miller than a J.J. Watt. Both elite defensive players and pass rushers, but I think the defensive coordinator can do more things with an OLB like Von Miller than they can do with J.J. Watt.
That too. Other teams' "tweeners" are a 3-4 team's gems.
I also think that those teams fare a little better in the short passing game than 4-3 teams do because, in theory, you have an additional mobile player that can play at least a little in that first ten yards of the LOS