Body Type.
Dom Capers came in and while saying all the right things about fitting the scheme to the players and working to their strengths, he also mentioned in his opening press conference that they would have different body type ideals for a front seven than a traditional 4-3 would and that these requests would need to be passed along to the personnel department to use when evaluating defensive talent. Judging from Matthews, Raji, Jones and to a lesser extent Obiozor, they seemed to have meshed.
McCarthy and Jeff JustHoldOnaMinuteIamInterviewingForAnotherShortTer mJobJagodzinski came in at year one and had to do something similar with running backs and O lineman. McCarthy had never run this rushing attack and Jags was never the O Coord of such an attack. Is it possible that they were not as successful in communicating their needs to the personnel side?
Question 2, more important than the first, since Jags left after year 1 (before the offseason began in earnest) did any hope of quickly getting this correct leave with him?
But perhaps the missing piece to the puzzle is Question 3: Did McCarthy's decision to move slowly away from the ZBS from year 2 on have an effect like changing a coordinator on the O line in terms of personnel acquiring talent that fit the body type needs of the new-to-them scheme?
They spent two years drafting and collecting line talent for one system. It was a new system for them, new enough that there were probably some miscalculations for players with the new body type. Then they modify/switch schemes to be more power oriented and traditional. It takes time to acquire and develop the new correct body type talent. But it seems to have had the following effect:
Lang and Sitton are both clearly succeeding where earlier picks struggled (Colledge, Spitz, Giacomini). Are they simply now, in year four and five, doing a better job of identifying the correct body type for the lineman they want? And is it possible that without Jags, these players and scheme fit better with their coaches than the earlier talent?
Dom Capers came in and while saying all the right things about fitting the scheme to the players and working to their strengths, he also mentioned in his opening press conference that they would have different body type ideals for a front seven than a traditional 4-3 would and that these requests would need to be passed along to the personnel department to use when evaluating defensive talent. Judging from Matthews, Raji, Jones and to a lesser extent Obiozor, they seemed to have meshed.
McCarthy and Jeff JustHoldOnaMinuteIamInterviewingForAnotherShortTer mJobJagodzinski came in at year one and had to do something similar with running backs and O lineman. McCarthy had never run this rushing attack and Jags was never the O Coord of such an attack. Is it possible that they were not as successful in communicating their needs to the personnel side?
Question 2, more important than the first, since Jags left after year 1 (before the offseason began in earnest) did any hope of quickly getting this correct leave with him?
But perhaps the missing piece to the puzzle is Question 3: Did McCarthy's decision to move slowly away from the ZBS from year 2 on have an effect like changing a coordinator on the O line in terms of personnel acquiring talent that fit the body type needs of the new-to-them scheme?
They spent two years drafting and collecting line talent for one system. It was a new system for them, new enough that there were probably some miscalculations for players with the new body type. Then they modify/switch schemes to be more power oriented and traditional. It takes time to acquire and develop the new correct body type talent. But it seems to have had the following effect:
Lang and Sitton are both clearly succeeding where earlier picks struggled (Colledge, Spitz, Giacomini). Are they simply now, in year four and five, doing a better job of identifying the correct body type for the lineman they want? And is it possible that without Jags, these players and scheme fit better with their coaches than the earlier talent?

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