Yeah, We'll Get Right On That...

Read through this Courier-Post story today and you'll likely come away with the impression that the Eagles really, truly, could be running a fair amount of 3-4 defense this year:

With the team's 2008 training camp fast approaching, Johnson said no one can afford to get complacent, and that may include a longer look at the 3-4...

The major upside of the 3-4 -- versatility -- would seem to be right up Johnson's alley, but the Eagles' franchise-wide premium on defensive linemen has never quite allowed it.  Maybe 2008 will be different...

In the past, the Eagles have struggled to find the three or even two productive linebackers needed to play their base defense, let alone the four it would take to move to the 3-4.  Now, the linebackers have gone from weakness to strength...

We do get one caveat:

But the depth the team has stockpiled on the line makes it seem extremely unlikely the Eagles will fully abandon the 4-3.

There's more, but that's a pretty good selection.  Just as an experiment, though, try reading the article but only focusing on Jim Johnson's quotes:

"I try to go into training camp and have our total package at maybe 90 percent, but trying to experiment a little bit," he said. "Some things might work and some things we might throw out, just like we talked about with the 3-4. You can't be the same every year. You just can't."

"The biggest thing I think we have is we are a faster team," Johnson said. "We're trying to get that speed on the field. You want to be physical and you want to make sure you have speed.""How much will we do it? We'll do it some," Johnson said. "We've done it a little bit before. It's always kind of a mixture for us.

"I think it comes down to our linebackers and our depth at linebacker."

"There will be a little bit of that 3-4 mixed in there," Johnson said. "There is always that possibility when you have those kinds of athletes.

"That's not going to be a main thing, but it might be a part of it."

Doesn't sound to me like the salty old dog is quite ready to abandon his old tricks just yet.

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Another quick point on this.  It's really not accurate to call what the Eagles did last year against the Patriots a "3-4" defense.  It was a 3-3-5, in that Johnson had his nickel corner on the field almost the entire game.

Furthermore, even though the personnel were in a 3-3 up front, the truth is that Gocong played many, many plays as a straight up defensive end.  It was really more of a disguised 4-2-5 than anything else. 

All of which means you don't really need four linebackers to run it. 

There's a lot more detail in the Patriots video rewind I did last year if you're interested.  Scroll down to the second half where I covered the defense.

Incidentally, I just-rewatched those videos from that post.  I think they all hold up, but you should really check out that last one if you're interested in why the Eagles' return teams struggled so much last year. 

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Finally, this search order result is a clear sign my obsession with Chris Gocong has gone too far.