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A tale of two coaches...
It was the best of units. It was the worst of units.
The situations are quite parallel.
Vermeil took over a team that was percieved to be stronger on defense upon his arrival and devoted most of his attention to developing the offense. Several key additions (Green, Holmes, and Wiegmann) were made immediately to improve the offensive unit. In truth the defensive unit was already in strong decline and had several large holes that only got larger with time. Failure to address the issue resulted in the tragic wasting of one of the most prolific offenses in NFL history.
Herm took over a team that was percieved to be stronger on offense upon his arrival and devoted most of his attention to developing defense. Several key additions (Law, Hali, Edwards, Reed, Pollard, Page) were made immediately to improve the defensive unit. In truth the offensive unit was already in strong decline and had several large holes that will only get larger with time. Failure to address the issue wiil result in an ineffective team.
Herm can be more sucessful than Vermeil only by being more successful in revamping the "other" side of the ball. Edwards has the advantage that the warning bell is ringing earlier and louder, but he probably won't get as long to fix the problem.
I have no preference for building one side of the ball over the other. Both a good offense and good defense are needed to consistently win. I prefer Vermeil's aggressive attitude toward taking advantage of scoring opportunities and beating a team while you are beating them, compared to Herm's conservative approach to minimizing mistakes. I prefer to tolerate a little more risk in order to gain access to much better benefits. I prefer Herm's understanding that playing well against good teams on the road is a true measure of a team's toughness and his ability to have them ready for such situations. I don't see these two traits as mutually exclusive.
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