LOL!!

"easily replaced in a trade"

Where did you get that idea? Trading is extremely difficult in the NFL when dealing with player salaries and that is IF you can even find a willing trade partner with something you would want in trade.

But, since Allen isn't going anywhere you can come up with all the fantasy scenarios you want. If you can pretend the Saints could and would pick up Phillips I guess you can also pretend that it could be made to work instead of being yet another disaster that comes from that revolving door at DC as was mentioned earlier.

No, it's more like you always saying we don't have the people to run a 3-4 when we do and never answering the question to justify your post on this particular subject. I see your better with the cap numbers than your judgement of players and schemes and that's not fantasy.

A good example of why changing schemes is a bad idea, watch the Browns next year. They booted there 3-4 DC and brought in Greg Williams and his base 4-3. The Browns have a million draft picks and they are still gonna be the laugh of the league because of choices like that.

First of all, as halloween pointed out, our two, and perhaps as many as our FOUR best defensive players are not 3-4 type players. As he mentioned, we would have to get rid of Cam Jordan and Kenny Vacarro and not retain Fairley. He also assumes that Rankins, who looked like a stud in the 4-3, could seamlessly convert to a NT. He would be wasted at that position.

Now, as for the last few years, in 2012, Coach Spagnuolo attempted to pigeon hole players that were primarily 3-4 players into his strict 4-3. It was a disaster. In comes Rob Ryan in 2013. As he had done previously at Dallas, he introduced a stripped down version of his 3-4. There was enough 3-4 personnel to make it work that first year. In 2014 he fully implemented his defense which to say it is complex is an understatement. The defense looked lost. Some of the players were still more suited to a 4-3, such as Jordan. In 2015 Payton saw that the Ryan experiment wasn't working and brought in Allen. Allen quickly started using players to their strengths. This past season you know what happened with the injuries. Allen is flexible in his scheming, not like Phillips who is strictly a 3-4 coach.

That's great and all, but still none of it addresses MY point, that this defense has been historically bad for too long, whether it is a 4-3, 3-4, 2-3-2, 1-1-1-1-1-1-1, whatever, that it may take someone who really knows what he's doing to figure out what can be done with what the Saints got.

Also, stop making statements like "Allen is flexible, Phillips is strictly 3-4". Please...

And don't tell me what happened 2013-2014. I saw the games. Ryan's system wasn't complex; on the contrary, his system was so simple, he got figured out, just like he's gotten figured out the next season everywhere he's been.

A source within the Saints organization said most of the sideline issues revolved around Ryan's calls coming in late or the wrong defense being called. The source, who was granted anonymity to speak freely of the situation, said that happened "at least 40 or 50 times this year."

"It was awful," the source added.

...

It drove Payton crazy that Ryan's defenses turned into a whirlwind of chaos and confusion, plagued by misalignments and personnel issues due to Ryan's penchant for mass substitution packages.

"There were a few things that you looked at from a year ago and you said, 'We can't have X number of snaps with not the right number of guys on the field. We can't burn timeouts, you know, every other week because we can't get the right personnel on the field.' We just can't do that," Payton said Wednesday. "We can't have guys looking left and right at the snap of the ball. There's a game last season where the first eight plays of the game, we're misaligned and we don't even cover down the right way. Those were just facts."

Rob Ryan runs a multiple scheme that is complex in nature, and heavy on personnel groupings.

Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones clarified this week that Ryan was dismissed for a mass defensive confusion caused by too many schemes.

"We felt like too many schemes can cause problems regardless of how good they are and how sound they are," Jones said, according to The Dallas Morning News. "If there is more than the players can digest in this day and time -- as you don't keep players for long, they move on and you have injuries."

It's a fair point. Ryan is known for mixing up concepts and deploying his personnel in creative ways. His defense worked well at full capacity, only to give way to communication breakdowns when inexperienced players were forced into the lineup. It certainly didn't help that Ryan lost five starters and two role players during the 2012 season.

Sorry, but YOU are wrong.
... argumentum ad verecundiam links snipped...

And Allen HAS been very flexible using what he has available to their strengths. Once again, common knowledge.

Of course, of course. Look, you can post all the links to "what sources said" pieces all you want, sprinkled with your own suppositions (which apparently you can do, but you don't like others doing). All you got is a few reporters regurgitating what the son of Jerry Jones (whatever his name is) said about why the Cowboys fired Ryan. Unless "complex" is used to team "undisciplined, and overall not sound".



Of course. No one else does that. Well, maybe 1 or 2 others, but surely not Wade Phillips, no Sir!

I get it. You feel the need to defend Allen. And who knows, Allen may turn out to be the next Bill Belichick.

However, the point still stands: the Saints have 2-3 more years with one of the best QBs in the history of the NFL. Do you at least take a shot at luring one of the best DCs around, who is currently not signed, with a proven track record spawning several years on different teams, or do you go with the unproven commodity?

Personally, I'd at least try to get the proven commodity in here. If he tells me "no thanks" or "it'd take me a couple years to get the players I need", ok, then...