Or in jail because he punched a ref in the face.
Some Bears news today that only I am interested in.
The Bears resigned Special Teams genius Dave Toub to a 2-year extension. This comes after the Dolphins informed him that he was no longer in consideration for their head coaching position. Probably not a huge surprise that he didn’t get the job and he’s not going to find a better situation as a special teams coach than with the Bears. I’m sure he wants to advance his career somehow, but who knows how that will happen. I suspect that the Bears will have made him the highest paid ST coordinator in the business, and I bet he’s earning more than several OC and DCs on some teams. Money well spent, I wonder what that will mean for Graham, Mannelly and a few of the other special teams guys. Does spending a ton on your STC mean that you’re going to continue to invest in specialists or are you hoping he can replace them with cheap replacements?
They refused the Vikings permission to interview Secondary Coach Jon Hoke. This is a little bit bizarre since they allowed him to interview in Philly last season and it’s not like Hoke is some savant that elevated our secondary above crappy. Between him and Lovie, both secondary guys, our squad has continued to be average at best and we miss on draft picks like crazy and have had extreme turnover at the position. In short, hiring a new secondary coach is probably not the worst thing that could happen. I suspect the Bears simply see the Viking request as merely an attempt to steal some inside info on a division rival and the Bears are protecting themselves. I don’t see that Hoke would be a very compelling DC candidate for the Vikes afterall.
The Bears finally started interviewing GM candidates this week. Yesterday it was Patriots director of Pro Personnel Jason Licht. Today it’s Chargers director of player personnel Jimmy Raye. I think Raye is at the top of my list of candidates announced. He comes from the Chargers who have drafted pretty darn well and who run a system that probably won’t be very far removed from what Tice will be running. The Chargers have succeeded in finding offensive talent in the draft, perhaps better than anyone, and Raye was in charge of college scouting. He worked under AJ Smith who’s apparently a egomaniac and it’s unclear how much of that burden Raye shared in, but one would hope that some of Smith’s better traits rubbed off on him as did Norv Turner’s. Seems like a pretty nice fit to my mind. Phil Emery and Marc Ross are expected to come in over the following 2 days.
The Browns are most likely going to hire Mike Sherman or Brad Childress as OC. Any opinions? I don’t really know much about either.
Both are terrible head coaches. Both were average at best OCs for a very short period of time before they were terrible HCs. As terrible HCs they called plays terribly. Both tried their hand at the college game in various roles to middling degrees of success. Both guys are dyed in the wool West Coast system guys and to be perfectly honest I think their systems are growing outdated and haven’t been well tested in recent years.
Soo…the Browns are screwed.
The Raiders have scheduled an interview with Mike Tice. This could really create an issue if he bails for that job. Looking at the other candidates, I have to guess that the odds are pretty solid that he might.
Yeesh.
Interesting Tribune bio on Jimmy Raye. Sounds like a nice fit and has the scouting chops the Bears desperately need. He might fit into this role they have created in which a egomaniac GM would hate, where he’s got a lot of help dealing with contracts/finance and a coaching staff in place to lean on. Am I the only one who’s a little stumped that Jimmy Raye, the son of Jimmy Raye II isn’t ever referred to as Jimmy Raye III?
In more Omni news, the Raiders have requested permission to interview the Bears’ OC Mike Tice for their head coaching job. Not sure why they’d want him, but it will be fun to watch if the Bears deny him that interview.
So what sort of coach do the Colts need? Do you get an offensive-minded coach to compliment Manning and mentor Luck, or do you get a defensively-minded coach to improve the defense and let Manning run the offense from the field? I don’t know much about evaluating football coaches, and don’t know who’s good or bad, apart from knowing you never want your coach’s name to end in “ottenheimer”.
I’ve come to the conclusion that you always, always want an offensive-minded head coach. If a defensive guy is all you have for whatever reason, he should have as little to do with the offense as possible.
While you’re here garygnu, can I ask a question? The Vikings are considering promoting Mike Singletary to their defensive co-ordinator. My personal opinion of his coaching ability is quite low, but I thought I’d get your opinion.
Watching the success Harbaugh has had with roughly the same team that Singletary had has convinced me that Singletary is right up there with Hue Jackson, as the worst head coaches in the last decade. Am I wrong? Why did the 49ers go from so bad to so good if not for the coaching. What’s your opinion of Singletary?
Yeah I pretty much gathered.
I hate how the NFL fans and commentators refer to the “the west coast offense” as if it were some specific offense implemented by a bunch of teams. I often hear about how Philly and Green Bay run it and that we run the same “system” as them, which is a joke.
All NFL offenses take elements from the west coast but they can vary significantly from that point. Unfortunately, the Browns seem to actually be trying to run what’s essentially a pure form of the west coast offense - the sort of thing that took the league by storm in like 1989 - and it’s pretty outdated, needlessly complex, and limiting… and solves a problem that no longer exists to some degree.
Yeah, it’s all bad. They’re probably going to pass on RG3 because a smart guy with a great arm and great mobility will somehow be deemed not to fit their stupid fucking system.
See post 85. League rules mandate that the Bears can’t refuse this request.
As to why they’d want him, well, have you seen the names being bandied around for head coaches this off-season? It’s a frigging unmitigated disaster. I was initially really unhappy with the decision to keep Lovie and then I took a step back and looked at the alternatives and felt a lot better about it. Marty Mornhinweg, Mike Mularkey, Mike Sherman and Marty Fucking Schottenheimer are getting serious interest. Mike Tice would probably be one of the best candidates out there based on the lists teams are supposedly interviewing. Who are the Colts and Phins even going to look at? Hell, Dave Toub and Joe DeCamillis have gotten interviews. Tice won quite a few games and his reputation keeps getting better and better as he actually coaches players. He might be a sucky play caller and a questionable manager but he can coach, not that head coaches do a ton of that these days.
I wouldn’t be shocked if they ended up with Clyde Christensen. It definitely should be a offensive coach and they shouldn’t even consider a situation where Peyton is the defacto OC, since that makes them doubly vulnerable should his neck not heal and/or they need to trade him or release him.
Hearing the insiders talk about him there apparently is a consensus around the league that he’s bordering on incompetent. All motivation and bluster with next to nothing when it comes to talent evaluation, teaching and Xs and Os. It’s a shame really since the guy had such a great reputation. There was a time when the Bears could have offered him the LB coach job and then against after Riveria left that he could have gotten a look as a DC. Both times the Bears passed and got killed by the media for it, I guess they knew better. Give them credit there.
The stereotype is to favor extremely accurate passers with a quick release and an ability to read defenses pre-snap. Griffin is accurate, his release is a bit long and I’m not sure how much he had to decipher in that system, but he’s hella smart. Seems like he’s as good a fit as anyone.
I always thought he was overrated his entire career, including as a linebacker. Hell, he was usually the second, sometimes the third best LB on his own damn team, yet the media loved him and his “intensity”. I was very surprised when the 49ers gave him that job, and completely un-surprised when he utterly failed at it.
Singletary is a motivational speaker, not a football coach. I think his best fit on a coaching staff would be linebackers coach, nothing more. As a head coach he was really, really bad at everything but motivation. He’s not a strategist/Xs-and-Os guy, and has a dislike for any kind of deception. JaMarcus Russell could read a Singletary defense pre-snap. I can’t imagine what his blitz schemes might look like.
It’s possible he could grow into being a playcalling coach with more years in smaller roles, but I think he’s just not smart enough to realize his own deficiencies. He’s not even a good judge of linebacking talent, either, let alone QB or any other position.
Much has been made of Jim Harbaugh doing better with the same talent, but there were significant upgrades made this offseason. The defensive secondary is the biggest difference, along with a an actual pass-rusher, a new center and right guard, and a fullback that can block and catch.
What exactly are the rules regarding what requests can and can’t be denied?
I can’t find a decent and up-to-date cite, but teams can’t deny an interview for a position that would be considered by the NFL as a promotion. The Bears were able to deny the Vikings’ request because the NFL apparently doesn’t distinguish among levels of assistant coaches. There are only two classes of NFL coaches according to the league: head coaches and assistant coaches. Thus, OC/DC aren’t considered to be promotions over position coaches.
I don’t think Brad Childress is a bad offensive coordinator. He’s at least competent, and probably above average. In his time there with Philly, the Eagles had one decent offensive year (2003 - middle of the road in points and yards), one fantastic year (2004 - top ten in both), and an atrocious year in 2005 where they regressed significantly but that was mostly due to the Terrell Owens fallout and it isn’t fair to dump that on Chilly. Donovan McNabb had his best ever season with Childress heading the offense in 2004.
And any concerns about Childress as a west coast guy are probably unfounded. The Eagles were a west coast team in name only, and even then it’s a stretch. In 2004 they were a predominantly down field passing team. And I actually credit Childress with recognizing that Donovan McNabb was one of the worst west coast QBs ever and transitioning him into a downfield threat. Prior to Childress, McNabb never topped 7.0 yards/attempt in four seasons, and with Childress he had 6.7, 8.3, and 7.0.
Well, the Vikings don’t take Singletary as their new DC. They instead take Alan Williams, the Colts’ def. back coach. I don’t know enough about Williams to make a statement on the hire, but it isn’t great PR to hire a coach from the worst team in the league this past season. I do note that the Colts were considerably better in pass D than the Vikings were however.
Childress didn’t call plays in Philly, though. In Minnesota, he called the plays himself early in his tenure, and all but called them late. Darrell Bevell, his Vikings OC, stated that Childress wrote the game plans and required final approval on all in-game play calls. He famously clashed with Favre about audibles in 2009, even after Favre made good reads. All-in-all, Childress proved to be too stubborn to trust with playcalling.
The Bears interviewed interim GM Tim Ruskell today and their target for QB Coach/Passing Coordinator Greg Olson accepted the QB Coach/Assistant HC position in Jacksonville. A little bizarre since Mularkey is considered to be a QB specialist himself.
Steve Spagnuolo went to the Saints to be their Defensive Coordinator. Just going to quote myself here…
I wonder why 99% of Eagles fans didn’t recognize that too.