Is it any surprise? Hasn't Payton's MO for years now to get the right players for one scheme and then change it completely? Now we're one or two pieces away from running a great 3-4... Perfect timing for changing it up and forcing square pegs into round holes.

You know what's funny? Last year Carolina's draft was widely considered atrocious... But what was the difference? Coaching.

One thing I really like about the 3-4 scheme is that you don't have to rely on big, athletic defensive linemen with shelf lives of 3-4 years which are the rare breed of the specialties;

Errr what? That is exactly the biggest issue with 3-4 defenses that you need big athletic defensive linemen that are actually rarer to find than a decent LT. Really good NTs for example are very far and few in-between.

But the 2-gap 3-4 front is more difficult to play in today’s N.F.L. Those planet-like defensive linemen are getting harder and harder to find. Players generated by today’s college defenses are built for speed. Not many defensive line prospects can hold the point of attack against a monstrous OT and control two gaps. Not many 245-250-pound linebackers are agile enough to elude a guard on every play and still run down a ballcarrier with 4.45 speed. With the number of coordinators running the 3-4 now, those players are even hotter commodities than before.

As a result, a majority of the 3-4 fronts today are based on the 1-gap schemes designed by Bum Phillips or those that use other wrinkles to bring pressure and disguise coverage. Other than Parcells’ Dallas and Miami teams in recent seasons, every other contemporary 3-4 defense mixes in 1-gap techniques liberally, some exclusively. The true 3-4 front has become a dinosaur of sorts as an every-down defense.
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