I've been thinking that a 3-4 scheme would fit our personnel much better this year. The reason: with the single exception of Joseph, I'm not sure we have any 4-3 DEs. If you play a 3-4, however, Pruitt and Willman and McBride can all line up opposite Joseph, or spell him, you have stephen and Campenni in the middle at DT and you use Stewart and Ashiru as outside LBs, backed up by Norris, with Vann and Donohue fighting for the second ILB spot next to Smallwood.
The combination of better talent at LB than DL and the lack of a true Trevardo type WSDE makes this a very interesting possibility.
In my humble opinion, the key to being able to send pressure across the line of scrimmage regularly in both run and pass down and distance, comes from your entire approach to the game, in finding ways to be able to demand a double/combo blocks somewhere, which will allow someone else to either be matched up single, or have a free run, based on the offensive formation.
Also, I think the concepts of strong side / weakside are quickly becoming obsolete in defensive systems. There are so many multiple TE and loaded backfield sets now in the offensive game, as well as the basics of defending the zone/read/option play systems, that the concept of strong side/weakside is pretty much gone from teh game on D. IMO.
Trevardo is a special player because he has an incredible burst of speed out of the three point stance. Very, very fast out of his stance and getting his feet and ass down and moving. Combine that with learning hand placement, leverage and pass rush techniques, and lots of playing time, and you get the career UCONN sack leader. He'll be missed. BUt somebody else will fill in his shoes.
Defense all starts with defending the run, in my book, everything is built off of stopping the run. I disagree on the 3-4 thing, I think we're at least a year away, and will be playing a lot of 4 man hands down defensive lines again.
I think that in a true 4 linebacker playing upright, 3-4 system, we aren't ready for it yet, because the hardest part of building a really powerful 3-4 system, is finding three defensive linemen, that are big enough, have arms long enough, and are strong enough to play two gap control run defense, if they need to, head to head with any one of the 5 man offensive front. I think with the DT's we've recruited recently, we'll be ready for a true 4 linebacker defensive system in a year or two. We're certainly stocking up the barns with linebackers for it, but we don't have the space eaters on the DL ready to go up and down the line yet with a three man front at least two deep on the depth chart (because you absolutely need to rotate fresh legs in on the DL to do it) - but when you look at who's coming in, and who've we've got, it looks like we'll be ready in a year or so.
That's what it looks like to me at least, that is.
