The Baltimore Ravens had what every other NFL team wanted following the 2000 season: a Super Bowl title and a record-setting, smothering defense.
Rex Ryan helped devise that 4-3 scheme, with hefty Tony Siragusa and Sam Adams anchoring the middle of the Ravens’ dominant defensive line. The coach laughs at what happened next.
“People tried to get the two biggest guys they could find and put them at tackle,” Ryan said. “That was the trend.”
Well, Ryan broke the trend a few years later, switching to a 3-4 base defense, which he now brings with him to the New York Jets. Other teams have followed suit, raising the question: Which system truly is more effective?
That really depends on who you ask, and when.
“It’s all cyclical,” Minnesota coach Brad Childress said. “It really is. Whether it’s people running the football or the Smurfs, the five-wides. It’s whatever is in vogue.”
In 1998, 25 teams used the 4-3 scheme as their base defense. At least a dozen teams enter this season with a 3-4, including Green Bay and Kansas City, who switched from 4-3s.
ound for years and people have run different things off of it, but I still think the 3-4 is really going to keep gaining momentum,” Ryan said. “People are putting more talent on the field offensively, whether they’re spreading you out or whatever the style is. I think you’re going to need as good athletes as you can find, and that’s what you get out of a 3-4.”
Dallas coach Wade Phillips uses a 3-4 and helped run Buddy Ryan’s defense in Philadelphia in the 1980s, as well as several other teams during his career. He says the fundamental differences between the two are simple.
“In the 4-3, you’re really depending on the defensive linemen,” he said, “and in the 3-4, you’re depending on the linebackers.”
Oklahoma coach Bud Wilkinson is generally credited with creating the 3-4 scheme in the late 1940s, and the 1972 Miami Dolphins are acknowledged as the first NFL team to incorporate it into their defense. All those Dolphins did was go undefeated and win the Super Bowl.
New England coach Chuck Fairbanks and Houston Oilers coach Bum Phillips, Wade’s father, are believed to be the first to use the 3-4 as their base defenses in the 1970s.
kers are also needed to put pressure on quarterbacks.
Last year, three of the top four sacks totals were from outside linebackers in 3-4 schemes: Dallas’ DeMarcus Ware (20), Miami’s Joey Porter (17 1/2) and Pittsburgh’s James Harrison (16).
“I feel like we can get a better matchup as far as the rush is concerned,” Wade Phillips said. “In a 3-4, you’re going to rush five guys. … When you rush four guys, you’re going to have exactly the same coverages. That’s what you do most of the time. In a 3-4, you don’t know where the fourth guy is coming from. In a 4-3, they’ve got their hand on the ground. Those are the guys who are coming.”
The 4-3 defense consists of four down linemen and three linebackers, a scheme often attributed to Tom Landry. In the 1950s, Landry, then the Giants’ defensive coordinator, started using Sam Huff as a middle linebacker, rather than lining him up over the center.
“The positives are you’ve got four bigger guys in there to stuff the run,” Ryan said. “I think a lot of times you’ll see four true defensive linemen and three true inside backer-types in a 4-3.”
The main idea of the 4-3 was to have a balanced attack to stop the pass, using strong and speedy defensive ends to rush the quarterback, and frustrate a team’s running game with physical linebackers.
rano said. “I think it is a little bit easier to find those defensive ends and defensive tackles.”
With the spurt in teams using 3-4 defenses, players who can play both outside linebacker and defensive end – usually referred to as “hybrids” – are placed at a higher premium. They can rush the passer like defensive ends and cover like outside linebackers, an ability that turned players such as Terrell Suggs and Willie McGinest into Pro Bowlers.
“Most of the 3-4 outside linebackers in this league are better going forward than going backward, but still at times they do have to do that,” said New England’s Bill Belichick, who runs a 3-4. “Moving laterally and being able to slide down the line of scrimmage and contain plays, (those are) sometimes things that the defensive ends don’t have to do, so their lateral movement and their backward movement in a 3-4 are a little bit different than a defensive end’s more-forward movement in a 4-3 front.”
Having the right personnel is the primary factor in the success of the schemes, so most coaches choose to mold their defenses around the talent.
“It’s always players over scheme. Always.” Ryan said. “Whatever fits your team, that’s what you use.”
And the type of defense a team runs can, in turn, affects the makeup of the rest of roster.
e more linebackers on your squad,” Phillips said. “Therefore you’re going to help your special teams. …
“Plus, with the salary cap, it became harder and harder to get four defensive linemen that could really play like we did when I was at Philadelphia. We had Reggie White, Clyde Simmons, Jerome Brown – but Reggie left. You can’t keep all those defensive linemen that can rush the passer and dominate. You’re not going to have four of them. You can have four pretty good linebackers.”
Detroit’s Dewayne White, a defensive end in the Lions’ 4-3 scheme, thinks it’s all just another case of the NFL being a copycat league.
“I think in the NFC North, everybody uses the 4-3,” the six-year veteran said. “In the AFC Central, I think everybody uses the 3-4, probably because Pittsburgh has had success with it. So, teams feel like they need to match up that way to keep up.”
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AP Sports Writers Jaime Aron in Irving, Texas, Dave Campbell in Eden Prairie, Minn., Larry Lage in Allen Park, Mich., Howard Ulman in Foxborough, Mass., and Steven Wine in Miami contributed to this report.
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