It's good to have Payton back running the show

In preparation for Adrian Peterson being named league MVP here's a flashback to last offseason's "best RB" discussion:

How did we not all guess that an old running back coming off ACL surgery would rush for 6ypc over 2k yards? And that Arian Foster would stop eating meat?

Until proven otherwise (and in this case we all were) it's pretty safe to assume a guy in his upper 20s coming off major knee surgery has seen his best days.

[ ] i am shocked at this news

Rob Ryan agrees to become Rams' defensive coordinator

Wow those five minutes sure seemed like forever

Looks like I was right as always

So basically all they need Jeff Fisher for now is signing off on drafting felons and making unspeakably ******ed decisions during the actual games?

Wooooow, and they're planning to switch to a 3-4

I was saying "Rob Ryan one time" but then one of the first headlines on PFT I see is "Rob Ryan soon to be hired by Rams"

Sort of how like those of us who didn't think the Texans' switch to a 3-4 would work didn't realize the team was going to draft a natural 3-4 DE who would immediately become the best player on the team and also turn out to be the best defensive player in the league by his second season.

I got a good lol out of the PFT comments saying "Saints don't have the personnel for a 3-4, this switch is dumb"

I don't know if you guys watched the 2012 season, but the Saints don't really have the personnel for a 4-3 either

i mean whatever billnye. Suppose I was wrong, but Foster seemed to have been extremely fatigued toward the end of the season and they didnt utilize him out of the backfield near as much this year. Peterson goat yada yada.....yada. I'll eat the crow.

Ill know i wont be duped by ACL surgerys any longer though

yea whats the difference? Saints need to blow that defense up for the most part. They dont have the personel to play defense period.

Yeah well you're failing to point out that they had already hired a noted 3-4 DC, and also failing to point out I stipulated "they could draft a good NT with the 11th pick" (they ended up drafting the DE Watt.)

Also I wasn't VEHEMENT in my argument against Peterson. I basically just said I wouldn't trade Foster for any other RB. Totally same thing.
But yeah a team seeing success switching from one of the worst 4-3s ever to 3-4 with a new elite DC and a top 11 pick is no more common than a 27 year old with over 1,500 career touches suddenly running for 6ypc on a team with a horrible QB.

Also I wasn't VEHEMENT in my argument against Peterson. I basically just said I wouldn't trade Foster for any other RB for 2012.

I don't see an issue with it. Some posters will argue to the death that you cannot change from 4-3 to 3-4 no matter if that 4-3 is ranked 32nd in the league. But I think the switch can be done.

Lol plenty of people were weary of Houston's switch to a 3-4 because of Mario Williams. There's reason for skepticism when you ask your best defender to play out of position.

New Orleans obviously needs two edge rushers, but they needed that regardless. They don't have an elite 290 lb DE or a bunch of undersized 3-techs that won't transition well. There's nothing holding them back from a switch.

Not telling ppl to eat crow just remembered that thread and multi quoted a bunch of it. I was an advocate of giving Peterson the 1st month off or so. I had Richardson #1 going forward.

tweedy, There was nothing holding Houston back, either. The only thing holding them back was the argument that you don't move Mario from 4-3 DE because he's just insanely valuable there. And, I guess, that you can't mess with the 32nd ranked defense because don't fix what isn't broken... I guess?

Houston had a good LB corps to work with in Cushing/Ryans/Barwin/Reed (and Mario did OK standing up).

Anyway I don't see how it is in any way analagous to Peterson. Nobody was yapping about how ADP would rush for 2k yards at 6 per carry last year. Literally nobody would have predicted his season. What I said about Houston's 2011 defense wasn't far out of line (and ended up being right anyway).

All I said was with Wade, and assuming a good down lineman was taken with the 11th pick, I didn't see why the worst defense in the league couldn't improve by switching.

This year was rough. While Watt got a lot better on the front line, they had let Mario and DeMeco walk for cap space and Cushing went on IR due to a dirty hit. Add to that Barwin having a down year (or maybe his 2011 was the outlier?) and there was a large drop-off in performance of the front 7.

Compare their 2011 LB corps (Barwin, Cushing, Ryans, Mario) with their 2012 corps (Barwin, Bradie James (who?), Barrett Ruud (lol), Brooks Reed. Huge dropoff.

He turned out to be quite valuable in both schemes. But there's obviously reason to have doubts about asking a guy of his size to stand up. Wasting your best player isn't optimal.

I'm not saying it was bad. Mario was able to handle the switch (his replacements have obviously disappointed). However, it wasn't unreasonable to think the switch would blow up in their faces. Obviously the switch worked out for the unit, but adding two elite players in Watt and Joseph certainly had an enormous effect on that.

Yeah for the 100th time, I said "maybe they can draft an elite NT with the 11th pick".

Also if by "it could have blown up in their face" you mean "they could have gone from 32nd in defense to 32" then I agree.

This isn't analogous to the Vikings benching Peterson for Gerhart then having Gerhart rush for 2k yards and some poster who said "you know I think Gerhart can rush for 2k yards!" being proven right. This was a guy they were going to keep feeding the rock to (Peterson) having an insane year. I don't get it.

It's also ironic that nath wants to make fun of me for taking a major stance (Texans might improve on their 32nd ranked 4-3 defense by switching AFTER hiring a 3-4 coordinator and maybe drafting a good down lineman with the 11th pick) when in this very thread he just said this about the Saints' AIDS-infeseted defense:

"I got a good lol out of the PFT comments saying "Saints don't have the personnel for a 3-4, this switch is dumb"

I don't know if you guys watched the 2012 season, but the Saints don't really have the personnel for a 4-3 either"

rofl just because you're already a bad defense, doesn't mean you blissfully ignore your personnel

If by "blissfully ignoring" you mean taking Mario from 4-3 down lineman to 3-4 OLB and drafting JJ Watt to take his place then OK....

You're right though - they benched him! The future highest paid defensive player in the league!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111111

Reading, how does it work?

I didn't say Houston blissfully ignored their personnel; you said it basically couldn't get any worse for their defense so it's nbd if you ignore Mario Williams.

Yeah the transition went smoothly, but in general, teams should build around the pieces they have.

Wow, I totally forgot that Edge James played with the Seahawks in 09.

/random wikipedia discoveries

Coaching can play quite a factor dictating how smoothly the transition occurs imo