The Carolina Panthers have been playing around with a 3-4 look on defense and used it briefly in the Falcon game. Coach Ron Rivera has a 3-4 background and the defense needs some sort of shot in the arm.

To the layman a 3-4 may be the perfect solution for a team with a surplus of linebackers even with injuries to Thomas Davis and Jon Beason. However for a permanent switch to the 3-4 the Carolina Panthers will have to retool their roster next season.

Charles “Big Money” Johnson is a 4-3 defensive end not a 3-4 linebacker or nose tackle. James Anderson is versatile and can play in any defense. But I am not sure Beason is an inside linebacker or an outside backer in the 3-4.

To run the 3-4 you need a big blocker eating nose tackle and your defensive ends are more like 4-3 defensive tackles. Those ends must play off blocks and stop the run. The 3-4 outside linebackers provide the pass rush.  

I asked Carolina Panthers linebacker James Anderson about the team using the 3-4 and who the nose tackle would be via School Of The Legends. James Anderson’s reply was as follows.

“We def will show more of it... I just talked a little about it in my new video... it will be more of a change up look for us and I can see it coming into play if we start creating havoc in it... Fua... big Ron Fields.... Kearse... those are all guys.”

Check out that School Of The Legends site if you want to talk to James Anderson or other NFL players as well as see videos and mingle with fans.