Denver D in 2011

I too am in favor of switching over the 4-3…I found in a recent post that about 60% of the MHR community is open to the idea. Then again, when your defense is this bad most will be open to any idea. lol I vote hiring 11 girl scouts and let them play defense for us…ouch!

We need to stop this musical chairs crap, and settle in on a D here in Denver. If we could hire a great, D minded head coach, I’m all for giving Wink another go-round. It’s not like Wink has had alot to work with this year – a bunch of backups and injured vets.

There are a few FA’s coming up that we should try to target. Here is a list of some of the 3-4 DT’s that will be available. Personally, I like the first three.

Haloti Ngata, BAL
Aubrayo Franklin, SF
Johnny Jolly, GB
Chris Hoke, PIT
Travis Johnson, SD
Cullen Jenkins, GB
Ray McDonald, SF
Ron Edwards, KC
Paul Soliai, MIA
Robaire Smith, CLE
John McCargo, BUF
Bryan Robinson, ARI
Gabe Watson, ARI
Alan Branch, ARI

I’ve been repeatedly trying to make the point you make above but it often seems to fall upon deaf ears.

I’m very resistant to the idea of blaming the scheme itself for our problems. This seems to be recurring theme of late (actually, going all the way back to firing Greg Robinson at the end of the 2000 season). There was justification for rebuilding the defense in 2009 at the beginning of the McDaniels era because our defense has fallen into such disrepair that there was nothing left to preserve, but we’re not in the same situation now. Moreover, as most people have noted, we’ve yet to draft a compliment of front seven players suitable for the 3-4, so the rebuilding of the defense is still incomplete.

Blowing the defense up every year, or so, is the pattern that perpetual rebuilding teams fall into — to their own disservice. At best, it may work eventually for the simple reason that it yields an enormous bounty of high draft picks that are used re-populate the defense with stellar talent. But this strategy artificially depresses team performance for prolonged periods in order to reap that bounty of high picks and it also misuses and wastes talent.

There is no shortcut to rebuilding and the ‘blow it up’ attitude seems to be an impatient response to the necessities of rebuilding rather than a pure football perspective. The same conditions that are being used to justify blowing up the defense could just as easily be used to argue for building up the defense. And it’s quite clear that the building up approach has yet to be tried in full form, unless you somehow consider the last two crops of inexpensive FAs to be a rebuilding.

At this point we don’t know exactly who will be available in the draft (we will after Jan. 20th), but it’s shaping us as a terrific year to be looking for DE34s. It’’s also a good year for CBs. Considering how poorly we did in sacks and interceptions, it’s surprising that the idea of building up the DL while concomitantly building up the DBs isn’t more popular. What people tend to misunderstand is how non-linear unit performance is, which is because of the weakest link dynamic that causes breakdowns that make everybody look bad. Impact players such as Peterson or Fairley can have a sudden effect on defensive performance when combined with the return of players such as Dumervil. There’s a lot of possibilities for upgrading our team with our high draft picks + FAs. And I wouldn’t want to underestimate the value of adding LBs who can cover, besides adding pass rush ability besides what Dumervil contributes. Filling leaks can have a dramatic effect on defensive performance.

I would agree jamal hasnt played terrible but he is far from dominant, I would be fine with losing royal for haynesworth that would be ideal. I do agree I hope champ decides he wants to finish his career in Denver it would be huge if we lost him

4-3 linemen need to be quick and smaller except for one of the tackles—in the mold of the Indianapolis Colts’ and New York Giants’ front four. A front four of Haynesworth, Williams, Vickerson, and Doom/Ayers would be slower than molasses.

No thank you.

 Just because I didnt give you a name to draft doesnt meen I dont know how the draft works, when you are projected to have the 2nd pick in the draft and carolina is in need of a qb it would be pretty hard to miss. But if you want names its a little too early at this point ask me after the bowl season and the combine. When its comes to the next Al Wilson there is no next anybody I was just trying to say we need a bad ass MLB and he was the last one we had here IMO. I would agree with you that we are as far away from a good 34 as we are a good 43 defense my point is that it is more difficult to get the players for a 34 and I think that two of our best defenders are playing out of there natural positions Dumervil is still dominant from the LOS and Ayers was a great De in college

You have some good sense SSMT. I like McBath when healthy, but when is the dude actually healthy – never. We can and will do better.