Flexibility in the NFL Defensive Scheme

I've been reading Jene Bramel's excellent essay on the development and purpose of today's most popular NFL defensive schemes. He has this to say about the 3-4:

The 3-4 gave coordinators the flexibility to blitz or drop into coverage without changing personnel. Versatile linebackers like Lawrence Taylor or Robert Brazile or Rickey Jackson or Ted Hendricks could rush the passer or drop into coverage effectively. Teams could disguise their blitzes and coverages easily and disrupt the timing and rhythm of the passing attacks that were gaining favor in the league. The outside linebackers could walk up to the line of scrimmage and create a five man front of sorts to help contain the big, quick running backs of the day. Stud running backs like O.J. Simpson or Franco Harris would find it a little more difficult to get outside against the 3-4.

Not surprisingly, the flexibility of the 3-4 front is driving its resurgence today. While there's no question that the "scarcity" of the scheme is part of the reason for its current success, the versatility of the 3-4 makes is attractive when defending the pass-heavy attacks of today's offenses.

Isn't that about what we'd expect from a game approximating the economic and social world in which it is played, an economic and social world that increasingly privileges "modular" forces of production and flexible means of accumulation of capital?

UPDATE: Further down in the article there's a great comparison regarding scheme complexity between Dungy's Tampa-2 and Belichick's "hybrid" 3-4:

The key to the success of Belichick's style of play is flexibility of personnel. To be able to effectively switch from a 4-3 to a 3-4 to a dime defense and all points in-between requires versatility at nearly every position. Players have to be able to run and cover and hit. Linemen have to be strong enough to hold the point in the 3-4, but get upfield in a 4-3. Defensive backs have to be very good in zone coverage but competent in man coverage when needed. It requires a special skill set, but also an above-average football IQ. Compared to the base Dungy-Kiffin scheme, which likely started with as little as three or four fronts and a couple of zone coverages, Belichick's hybrid is a maze meant to confuse and confound.

Now here the 2 most successful coaches in the NFL over the last decade are contrasted in a revealing light. The simplicity/complexity spectrum cannot be taken as an indicator of a defense's success. One more quote, on the extreme flexibility of Belichick's defenses, is worth printing:

Another important difference in Belichick's defense is philosophical rather than playbook. Most coordinators identify the weaknesses of an upcoming opponent and gameplan to take advantage. Belichick specifically seeks to take away the strength of an offense, forcing them to operate out of their comfort zone. In a league where you may face a power offense one week and a spread offense the next, the versatility of the multiple front playbook is the only way to pull off such a philosophy.

Can we make conclusions about the value of human capital in these schemes? Belichick appears here as the strategic genius of a Navy SEAL squadron, while Dungy is rather the entrepreneur of a much larger operation, in which the responsibility for individual weeks of mediocrity or excellence devolves rather on the players themselves more than on the commanding officer. Is that a tortured metaphor, or what?