All 15 NFL 3-4 defenses ranked by weight (plus Falcons takeaways)

The Atlanta Falcons are going to use a 3-4 base defense more often. Like every other 3-4 team, they'll also use four-man fronts, spend a lot of time in nickel packages, and use both one-gap and two-gap assignments. But it's still an identity change that demands specialized players at nose tackle and outside linebacker and slightly different player types than before throughout the rest of the front seven.

So now that the Falcons are in a new neighborhood, let's take a look around.

The starting weight breakdown for every team listed as running the 3-4 on depth charts at team sites and NFL.com (which don't all necessarily include the latest additions for each team), plus the Falcons (notes below the chart on the players I used for the Falcons' lineup):

The Falcons will likely be small at linebacker for year one of the 3-4, but with size to spare where it's needed most: nose tackle.

As for which players are counted here, the starting defensive line is easy. Paul Soliai (340) is the starting man in the middle, with Tyson Jackson (300) and Jonathan Babineaux (296) the best-equipped at end. Corey Peters (305) should also get plenty of snaps.

Linebacker's more complicated. Let's plug in Khalil Mack (251) at rush backer (this position has a million different names, depending on the scheme; I'm not sure what defensive coordinator Mike Nolan calls it). That's actually the only one of the four spots that we can fill without much argument, and we're filling it with a guy who's not even on the team. You can do that on the internet.

Drafting Anthony Barr (255) instead of Mack wouldn't change things much (though the Pac-12's pass-rusher record would make some of us nervous), while somehow winding up with Jadeveon Clowney (266) would add about 15 pounds.

I'd think the default choices would then be Kroy Biermann (260) at sam and Sean Weatherspoon (244) and Paul Worrilow (232) on the inside, with Worrilow filling the mike role. But Osi Umenyiora (255), Akeem Dent (239), Joplo Bartu (230), and all those young guys who never play would have cases to make for one spot or another.

Next: is this the kind of size Nolan wants? Here's the recent history of his 3-4 defenses' sizes -- as far as I can tell, he began preferring the 3-4 in 2000:

Two trends suggest the Falcons' 3-4 defense will get bigger over the next few years.

First, Nolan's 3-4 defenses as a whole have grown over the last decade, despite football players in general remaining about the same size. His Dolphins fronts, which featured Soliai, averaged about seven pounds more per player than his current Falcons front.

But also note that his 49ers and Ravens defenses each increased in size every year for seven combined years. In Nolan's first years, the 49ers and Ravens would've ranked as the NFL's smallest 2013-2014 3-4 defenses. In two years, his Ravens front added 51 pounds, in large (large!) part by moving 270-pound Adalius Thomas from defensive end to linebacker. The 49ers gained 46 pounds, most of it by moving 330-pound backup nose tackle Isaac Sopoaga to defensive end.

The Falcons' 2014 front could get bigger by going with Dent over Worrilow, who'll likely need to gain significant weight without losing performance in order to remain a starter -- at his rookie size, he'd be one of the NFL's smallest 3-4 linebackers. Starting Biermann and Umenyiora at outside linebacker, in the event of not drafting a first-rounder for that spot, would add five to 10 pounds.

And finally, Nolan's average 3-4 defense (which shouldn't be considered Nolan's ideal 3-4 defense), compared to the current NFL 3-4 average:

This is skewed a bit by how relatively small many of his early defensive ends were, but it's definitely useful at linebacker.

Nolan's defenses have tended to favor speed over power at outside linebacker, but with bigger inside linebackers than most. This ends up meaning players of about the same size throughout the linebacker corps. The difference in size between his inside and outside linebackers (seven pounds on average, and none at all in some cases) isn't as pronounced as in other 3-4 systems (the current NFL average among 3-4 starters: a 22-pound difference, with the Packers and Jets more like 30).

This makes sense, considering how versatile he asks all his defenders to be. It also suggests the 255-poundish Mack and Barr might be much better fits for the Falcons than they would be for other 3-4 teams. And that the Falcons might draft a big inside linebacker in the middle rounds as well -- maybe Stanford's 6'2, 245-pound Shayne Skov, a spirited 3-4 vet and a redshirt senior captain.

There's more to a defense than size, but a look at the raw numbers shows both where the Falcons are and where they might be headed.

"In my opinion, you try to get the biggest people on the field," Nolan said in 1993 ... about the topic of flipping the Giants from a 3-4 to a 4-3.