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an interesting thing to watch

Rymanofthenorth

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The Texans will attempt to move to a 3-4 this season, they have more depth and talent at LB than we did but had issues at DT like we did (and like GB did not). They also have one of the best young 4-3 DE's in the league in williams and a great young OLB and MLB in Ryans and Cushing. currently on the roster are Barwin who should be solid at OLB and Cushing (who they say they will use INSIDE)

Some things to watch will be how aggressive they are in going after players to fit what they are gonna do and how well they adjust the scheme they want to the players they have. We didnt really go after many scheme specific players and we counted on too many guys having major roles that were radically different.

so lets go with an over/under type bet.....


by the end of the season,
who here thinks that the Texans Defence will radically improve?
Will they stay about the same?
Will they drop off?

Im going on the Record as saying that this team was already pretty bad on defence but IMHO its completely dependant on how active they are in the draft and FA, if they try to pull a redskins and just move guys around they will be worse, if they sign some actual 3-4 guys, they could see some slight improvement overall.

if they do improve it will validate a lot of the criticism of haslett and Shanny for our switch.
 
Won't they also have a free agent list, this year, with 3-4 times more names on it to choose from than we did last year?

And, already having a defense that sucked, how could they be much worse?

Their fans won't have to suffer the fall we did.
 
This will be a deeper free agent class to be sure, those sorts of things should maybe be factored in when making a switch. and I agree ax, they wont sffer what we did but I also think that they have a better DC and still this is a team that could have been very good in a 4-3 with a great dc.
 
With Wade Phillips running their 3-4 and Haslett running our's, there is no doubt in my mind they will have far less difficulties adjusting then we did, draft prospects notwithstanding.

I put nearly as much of the blame on Haslett's scheme as I do on the lack of qualified players in it.
 
Yup but thats because Phillips will adjust, they will cater to their players strengths and modify the scheme, something we did not do at all until near the end of the year. but still, the texans are more suited to a 4-3, so they will need to make some serious moves to make this work.
 
NT is the game-changer. If we'd have convinced fatty to play NT without griping or Kemo had fully recovered from his injury, our D would have looked a lot different. This is why I think the Redskins will make a move this draft to grab Phil Taylor, or another similar guy.
 
I think the Texans D will improve and mainly because Phillips is going to be there. He is a way better coordinator than Haslett. IMO the top two things you need with a 3-4 is the nose tackle, and the play calling. Phillips and a handful of other guys are better at calling the 3-4 than Haslett.

Now, outside of QB, the hardest postion to fill is the NT. The only reason I say this is because a lot of teams are moving to the 3-4. This position is becoming very valuable (not that the position was easy to fill in the first place).

Houston is rumored to be interested in trading Okoye. Good luck with that. If they find a NT, then they may flat out release him. I do not think they will have any takers for a trade.

I think they have enough talent at the LB position to make the switch, but DL and DBs are a major concern.

A major difference between the Texans and the Skins is their talent level. They have way more offensive talent than the Skins have had in the past decade. I think this will make it a little easier on their transition because they can spend a lot of time and effort into the defense.
 
The issue is after Fat Al took as our 21 million dollar check last offseason, Shanahan thought he had his nose tackle. I think even when he missed training camp, Shanny thought Haynesworthless would get on board. He never did. Haslett had a plan to move Haynesworth all over that D-line. Sometimes he would be at Nose and other times at End. With Haynesworth not on that line, it was bad. With no penetration from the D-line teams were getting chunks of yards on our Skins everytime they hiked the ball. This year getting a true Nose will be near the top on Shanny's priority list. Since effective Nose Tackles never make it to free agency, then they will look to draft a NT in either the first or second round in the draft. I am sure that you'll have seen this before but here is a list of Nose Tackles.
http://www.redskins.com/gen/articles/Redskins_Expected_to_Eye_Nose_Tackles_In_the_Draft_192525.jsp

Taylor will probably be gone before pick 42, but I think everyone else could be there for us in round 2. Unless we trade down in round one and take Taylor.
 
Haynesworth sucks and you mis-spelled defense. LOL, hi there Ryman.

It will be interesting to see what happens there. I just hope the Skins get that NT and the LBers they need to run the 3-4 properly here.
 
So, after almost a year, the Texans have lost "one of the best young 4-3 DE's in the league" in Mario Williams because of the switch, and as of yesterday, traded one of the better interior LBs in the league, DeMeco Ryans, because he wasn't a great fit in the 3-4.

We ended up keeping Rocky, but Ryans >>>>>> McIntosh, and Williams >>>>>> Carter. So, the 3-4 switch has cost the Texans some very good football players. Yes, they improved more than we did in the first year of the switch, but it still cost them dearly in terms of talent.
 
Them losing need for Ryans, and therefore trading him to the freakin Eagles for a ham sammich, sucks big time! If he's healthy.
 
Cool, let's snatch RGIII's teammate Nick Jean-Baptiste in the 4th round-he's considered an excellent NT prospect. ;)
 
Last edited:
Lanky Livingston said:
So, after almost a year, the Texans have lost "one of the best young 4-3 DE's in the league" in Mario Williams because of the switch, and as of yesterday, traded one of the better interior LBs in the league, DeMeco Ryans, because he wasn't a great fit in the 3-4.

We ended up keeping Rocky, but Ryans >>>>>> McIntosh, and Williams >>>>>> Carter. So, the 3-4 switch has cost the Texans some very good football players. Yes, they improved more than we did in the first year of the switch, but it still cost them dearly in terms of talent.
Click to expand...


it absolutely cost them in talent but because they had a competant DC who actually knows the 3-4, they schemed for the players they had instead of the players they wanted and instead of a severe drop in every measurable stat, they actually improved despite an injury to Williams.

the trade of Ryans for a ham sandwhich is brutal but the truth is he doesnt fit well in the 3-4 and is better off, losing williams hurts as well, but unless they were gonna bring in a DC who is a fit for 4-3 they had to bite the bullet.

the reason I wanted people to look at the switch was simple, they had far more 3-4 ready talent than we did, and they had a DC who knows the 3-4 but more importantly, how to scheme with the guys he has. Haslett is very limited in his skillset, he is a great motivators a terrible adjuster and not a great schemer. after 2 years and massive turnover, our defence is still middle of the road, and worst of all we had a brutal year before making some moves to become decent, the Texans improved and invested hardly any resources because they had players who fit but also schemed for the guys who didnt.

this shows the value of a DC's ability to adjust
 
Disagree - Williams & Ryans together are more 4-3 talent than they have in the 3-4. Their big problem has always been the secondary; their defensive transformation had more to do with the signings of Jonathan Joseph & Daneal Manning - not to mention drafting JJ Watt. You keep forgetting - our JJ Watt was injured in the preseason; our D could have been just as good.
 
JJ Watt was a beast, I dont think Jenkins even healthy will be even close to watt, he will be solid I think and maybe even possibly really solid, but JJ is maybe the best 3-4 end in the game right now, and the kid was a rookie, hes only gonna get better.

our D wasnt just hampered by the loss of a rookie who was going to be playing 3-4 end for the first time. we lack a true NT, we dont scheme as well as Philips does and we dont disguise our blitzes as well as the texans did. arguably we had better players with Kerrigan, Rak, carriker, london and stephen, but the secondaries are a wash, my point for watching them (and yes it was born out,) was that the texans werent going from 11 to 31st they would actually improve (I figured slightly if they didnt sign some free agents but they did and they got a beast in JJwatt) they ended up improving quite a bit. and yes they lost a lot of talent to do it but they didnt drop to the bottom before "improving"
 
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