Nothing's goin on till April so I was just thinking...

DE: Kampman
DT: Pickett, Muir, Harrell
DT: C.Williams, Jolly
DE:C.Jenkins, KGB

Muir has had success as a starter, jolly too.

OLB:Poppinga
MLB:Barnett, Bishop
OLB: Hawk

CB: Harris
CB: Woodson, Tramon
S: Collins
S: Bigby

ST: Tracy white, Jarrett "the cockroach" Bush.

This on paper looks like a pretty stacked D, especially the DL... How did Sanders screw it up?

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Muir played in three games, had four tackles, can't get to the QB to safe his life and was waived after the season.

I'm not quite sure what success as a starter means to you, but that's not doing it for me.

Desmond Bishop was a raw, sixth round rookie. Poppinga has always been very average. Tramon joined the team just a year earlier as an udfa. He wasn't ready to start at that point. Not even ready to play nickel, really. He was little more than our kick returner that year.

Next to that, we have a pretty good defense in 2007, didn't we? That pass rush was what made Sanders' defense work. We were 6th in points given up that year, 11th in yards given up, a 75.6 QB rating against us which was 6th in the league, notching 19 intercetions and 36 sacks.

Admittedly, it's all a tad away from an elite defense, but Sanders far from screwed it up.

The big downfall came the next year, when KGB became ineffective, Corey Williams leaving for Seattle, Cullen Jenkins being injured most of the season, losing Bigby, Al Harris going down later that season, Barnett getting injured for half the season etc...

How many of those guys played starter roles two years after Bob Sanders was let go?

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I miss the 4-3 too. Now.

Back, before the switch, for years, I was hoping we would switch to a 3-4. Made a lot of sense with so few teams running this effective scheme, and so many players available to run it. We failed, over time, to keep our 3-4 stocked with the players necessary to run an effective 3-4. Meanwhile, other teams have piled in and made that switch to a 3-4, All those tweeter DEs that were plentiful are now being scooped up by those other teams.

NE forsaw this and switched back. I think we should decide on our level of commitment in restocking our 3-4, or if we wouldn't be better off going back to a 4-3. Seems we have some good fits right now for the latter. Either way, we are going to need a DE, a NT, a LB and a S. at the very least.

BTW, NE's switch back to a 4-3 wasn't without some pain. I think they did that in 2011 and we were the only D worse than they were in the NFL. They improved quite a bit in 2012, but, so did the Packers. This is a tough call. We need some real maulers added to our defense. Plain and simple.

A 3-4 won the SB.

Maybe it is being more familiar with a 4-3 than a 3-4. I like it better.

You have 4 big bodies taking on 5. Seems to make more sense to me than to have 3 take on 5 and then mix in a LB from the outside. It just doesn't seem to get much pressure on the running game or a pass rush.

I suppose if you have 3 real studs at LB you can get by with a 3-4 but GB doesn't have that luxury.

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I grew up going camp to camp switching from principle to principle in the Midwest way back in the 80's. Both have strength's and weaknesses, both can be attacked offensively via scheme. There are times I think both would be a better choice to run based on situation.

One of the things that I believe hurt us in either choice of alignment is that this staff places emphasis on special teams in terms of roster makeup. At times this sacrifices depth along the defensive front over more multi-faceted athletes to construct more options in special teams. Keeping an extra backer or TE over another DL player that could rotate in and keep the trenches on the Defensive front more fresh. Over the course of a season, that pays dividends or it taxes a defense greatly.

Sorry.. tangent.. but personally, I would like to see more commitment on the depth of the defensive line and allow Capers and company at times to mix the defensive fronts and alignments even more. Play a 4-3 under or over and still allow a player like Matthews be along the LOS. Keep the 3-4 base but vary into a 4 man front at times early in downs... make the offenses plan for different blocking schemes within the same game. When we have to go smaller, because 3-4 lineman are again in demand, counter with a 4 man front.

But no.. I don't miss the 4-3 any more than I missed the 3-4.. the issue for us right now is too many teams are running the 3-4 and consuming the talent required to effectively run it and spreading it across the league. When teams start to buy into concepts.. it dilutes the talent base that is available. This happens when teams try and chase a concept instead of fitting the concepts to the talent on hand. Like this seasons fascination with the running QB will devalue the pocket QB for a while.. so smart team is going to catch a talent that slipped because he doesn't fit a current theme. Those are the teams that prosper.. the ones that collect talent then scheme to fit the talent.

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I prefer the 3-4.

It's a more aggressive philosophy. It also incorporates more surprise.

I look for us to run more of a hybrid though, with the players we have.

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I think when we get Bishop and Perry back a player that could help us might be Minter out of LSU. Big hitter and tackling machine.
We line up CM3, Bishop, Minter, and Perry I see alot of the problems we ran into late this year going away.
I want to note that we have had too many good players sidelined. Bishop/Perry on D, Sherrod/Bulaga on O. That's a lot of talent on crutches and they didn't miss a little time they were out all or most the year.
When your picking in the last five or six spots in the draft and then you lose those guys it's got to hurt. It's bad enough when you watch the draft and see the top 4 or five OL and DL gone and get lucky to grab a decent player and then they get knocked out it really sucks.

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The 3-4 D in 2010 was the best we've had. And a 3-4 D is not 3 against 5 lineman cause you're really always rushing 4 or 5. The 49ers, Ravens AND Falcons are played aggressive styled 3-4 D's. The difference is that they have better personel for it. We need to fix the DL and the OLB and ILB should improve, especially with Bishop back but we could use a few better cover LB's.

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Rios you missed my point. I said they have 3 bodies going up against 5 big bodies. (in the 3-4) Certainly the defense brings at least one more person, typically a LB, but he is not as big as the OT he is usually facing. You have discounted that the offense many times is bringing another blocker, be it a RB, FB or TE, into the mix to counter the 4 or 5th rusher.

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