A Viking 3-4 Defense

This post started as a comment on your post but it quickly became pretty long and I didn’t want to steal your thread.

Like 4-3 teams there are various schools of thought as to which coverage used. Wade Phillips 3-4 is different from Dom Capers 3-4 which is a slightly different flavor from LeBeau’s 3-4 but each of these are very different from Rex Ryan’s 3-4. So it depends what kinds of coverages that your coordinator would believe in.

The only thing the Vikes would need to draft is a NT in my opinion. This is a player they need to get regardless of the style of defense they run. This and the question of how Allen would fit would be the only major questions about making this switch. If they can get positive answers to both of these issues it could be a very smooth transition.

I guess I don’t get where you are getting most of your facts here.

1. Green Bay’s defense isn’t that great this year, granted, but it’s the passing figures that drags it down not the running defense. The run defense is rated at 13th right now which is about average. That’s after AP monster game against them. In fact that has been a consistent part of the defense for the Packers. In 2008 the defense was one of the worst in the league. In 2009 they were one of the better teams against the run and in 2010 they were middle of the road for run defense….so I don’t know if I wouldn’t use the word horrible to describe it. I am more than willing to let people call the passing defense horrible, but the run defense I’m skeptical of that description.

2. Jared Allen is 6’6" 270 lbs. Demarcus Ware is 6’4" 260 lbs. Aaron Kampman is 6’4" 265 lbs. As a result I’m hesitant to say that it’s Jared Allen’s size that would make him a poor fit for OLB. Really what I would say is that his ability to turn his hips and run in coverage. This combined with his general comfortableness with rushing from a two point stance is what caused Kampman to be slow to take to the OLB position and ultimately fail. Ware, who is roughly the same size as Kampman and Allen, does this pretty well, so it’s not really a matter of the physical build of the player but their willingness to work on this technique and his athletic ability (the looseness of his hips primarily) than anything else.

Apart from those things I didn’t necessarily write this to advocate the switch, more to look at how things would look if a switch were to take place since I have seen more fans and a few columnists push for a switch. I get not buying into the hype for it, and even the belief that there aren’t the players on board. I would state that there are more than you may think, but it’s probably a moot point since Fraizer probably won’t make the switch.

The article I cited was from Pelissero who is that station’s beat writer. I think that he’s the main beat guy that’s really pushing that issue for the Vikings to make that switch.

Like you I don’t think it’s going to happen, but it is an interesting idea considering the talent that is there but also the holes present. If a switch was going to happen it would seem about the right time.

(why I’m wasting my breath on a cheesehead I don’t know)

We have no nose tackle, and we don’t have the right mix of LB. There are only two players that would really fit the 3-4: Kevin Williams and Everson Griffen. Jared Allen is the proto-typical 4-3 DE, and forcing him into a 3-4 is idiotic. Our coaches are die-hard Tampa 2, 4-3 defensive guys. So, this 3-4 garbage can be wasted on a site like the Acme Packing Company.

This is a place for fan posts…posts by fans OF THE MINNESOTA VIKINGS. Why don’t you go back to the Acme Packing Company where your fandom resides?

See that’s what I found interesting as I was going through the roster and thinking about this particular post. As I stated a the start it was crazy to think of the Vikings making the switch due to the talent along the line. Now though there aren’t quite as many road blocks for player talent on the roster as one might expect.

An NT is needed definitely if the change were to happen. Every team that is able to stop the run with a 3-4 has one or possibly two of those guys on the roster. The interesting thing though is that I think that this is needed if the Vikes stick with the 4-3 they currently have. The major difference between a guy who would be a 2 gapping NT in a 3-4 and the type of 1 tech that the Vikings need is that the 0 tech or two gap guy might need to be a bit more selfless than the 1 tech since his job is to soak up o-lineman in order for someone else to shine. The 1 tech might be able to get a bit more glory and push for the pocket. Otherwise the job is going to be very similar in so far as the guy’s job is to anchor the line and ensure that the middle can’t be run on.

The other major question is if Allen can make the transition. If not then it shouldn’t be done. If he’s on board then I think he could handle himself in coverage. Just watching what he can do as an opponent of the team, I think that he has the athleticism and flexibility needed to drop into coverage and throw a offense into a bit of confusion. But again that’s one amateur perspective.

I don’t know if Capers looked like an idiot after the first year. What people tend to forget is just how bad the Packers defense was in 2008. Really that was the reason that the Packers lost so many games that year more than the play of Aaron Rodgers. Teams would just run up the middle on the Packers and the defense would fold for that last score to put the game away. The 3-4 defense fixed much of that in 2009, but struggled in the passing game and especially against elite level QB’s. It’s actually similar to the problems that the Packers are facing this year.

The Kampman thing was the greatest shame of the transition. He was still getting good pressure on the QB and starting to get into the swing of things before his knee was shredded. Really he just never bought in and that’s why I would always say that Allen would need to sign on. If he believes in it and buys in then I think he would be great in the system. If not then it’s not worth the Vikings time.

Last small correction. Matthews was drafted in 2009, the same year as Raji. So Matthews was on the team as the same time as Kampman. Originally Poppinga beat out Matthews for the starting role for the first few games of that year playing opposite of Kampman. By the time that Matthews was emerging as the Packers primary pass rusher Kampman was lost to the season ending knee injury he suffered.

To be fair to the system, it has produced some of the best pass defenses of all time (or at least recent history) (e.g., the Dungy Bucs and Lovie Smith’s Super Bowl Bears squad). I think the Vikings problems implementing have a lot to do with weird personnel fits. Their linebackers have never had great skillsets for it as none cover that well; they’ve struggled to find adequate DBs, even in a DB-friendly scheme; and they’ve valued run defense (even in the 2nd and 3rd levels) probably too much at the expense of overall team speed, which is really the soul of the system’s philosophy.

That said, I agree it’s definitly lost it’s luster a bit as a lot of bad teams have tried to run it and haven’t exactly looked great, but it’s tough to say how much of that is offenses adapting and how much of it is simply bad execution by the teams.

I think turnover rates have declined since Dungy and Kiffen first started tinkering with the concept way back with Minnesota, while at the same time passing percentages are increasing. These two trends are definitly not good for the Vikings’ philosophy. Part of the appeal of the idea of taking away big plays and forcing teams into sustained drives is they used to reward you with either an interception more regularly, or the offenses simply weren’t sophisticated enough to pick up enough first downs to finish a 12 play drive. Now, to use an extreme example of Aaron Rodgers, quarterbacks are more than happy (and capable) of completing 70% of their attempts while still taking care of the ball. They’ll throw 7-yard completions to the flats or on screens all day if they have to. Again, part of this is due to personnel (the Bears still manage to consistenly defend halfway decent (relatively speaking) against Rodgers, or at least about as well as anyone else does). But it’s probably a combo of both.

I guess that’s a long way of saying I agree with you. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to run a philosophy when you don’t have the horses for it, particularly when that philosophy isn’t as rewarding as it once was.

In all honesty, given the division, (beyond of course simply fielding more talented players) the Vikings might benefit from a mindset of adopting nickle/dime packages as their “base” defense. Nobody in the division (and, with a few exceptions, the entire league) hangs their hat on the power running game (although the Packers have gotten good at it when it comes to clock-milking time, a la the Saints). Maybe they should study some of the stuff teams like TCU do and try to incorporate some of that, as well. This would naturally require a tremendous turnover in the secondary (they already can’t field an acceptable secondary even with a simple, zone-heavy philosophy)), but that probably needs to happen, anyway.

The ones who suffer the most are pass rushing DE’s and the DT who is going to be the two gappers.

One guy who benefited was Ryan Pickett. He was a fairly successful DT playing something akin to what Pat Williams did for the Vikings back in the day. He was moved to the nose and basically got less opportunity to rush the passer and more opportunity to face down two guys and get hit. He kept an open mind and became the key NT through 2009 when Raji was nursing an ankle sprain. He did pretty well and entered free agency being able to boast about his flexibility in schemes and was in pretty high demand. Also pretty necessary to the Packers and got a pretty good contract from the team even though he’s on the wrong side of 30 and TT doesn’t sign many of those guys.

Another story is one I’ve told many times through this thread and in the post itself, the story of Aaron Kampman. He was moved to OLB from being his three point stance as a DE. He never protested because he’s a stand up guy, but you could tell he never really liked the idea. He had troubles dropping into coverage and struggled getting a consistent rush from the standing position. By the time he was getting comfortable and into the flow of the scheme he blew out his knee and then left the team in the following offseason.

It can work it just takes the guy to be willing to buy in, just like any other scheme change.