Shanahan has apparently committed career suicide.
He just signed a 5-year contract to coach the Redskins.
I give 10-1 odds he doesn’t make it the whole way through his contract. I doubt he’ll even have a winning record in Washington. Dan Snyder will undermine him just as he has all of his other head coaches. And more’s the pity, because Shanahan deserved better from Denver and he deserves better than Washington. I guess he just couldn’t turn down Snyder’s deep pockets.
I disagree, though not completely. I envision a similar situation with Parcells in Dallas. The owner really couldn’t help himself and ended up ruining the relationship before any playoff wins could materialize, but not before Parcells was able to build a solid foundation that would turn the Cowboys into a good team for years to come.
At some point you would think that either Snyder would realize his interference was hurting the team in terms of on the field play, or that an established coach like Shanahan would have stipulations written into his contract that would give him some freedom from ownership to operate as he saw fit.
Let’s not underestimate the power of all the bad press and how badly the Zorn situation turned out. Snyder may, just may, have learned a lesson and his hiring of Bruce Allen should help insulate Shanny from any fiascoes. I think Shanny with Blache coaching the defense and Allen being the GM is a recipe for success. Those two guys ought to prevent him from shooting himself in the foot.
I think the Skins might have finally gotten things right.
Incidentally, I was surprised to hear that Bruce Arians will be fired by the Steelers soon. Not confirmed yet but reported in several places. I know the Steelers had trouble running the ball but Big Ben’s passing efficiency has been pretty excellent.
Back to the Bears, both Charlie Weis and Mike Martz have again offered their own names up for the OC job. News sites keep reporting this as if it’s news and as if there’s some actual involvement from the Bears in those ideas, when in reality it’s nothing but publicity seeking. Let’s hope the Bears aren’t stupid enough to actually hire either guy, but I wouldn’t put anything past them. Neither guy could possibly co-exist with Cutler and I don’t think we have nearly the personnel to make Martz’s schemes work. Not that I’m really convinced you can win playing that style outside anyways. Weis might have the Xs and Os for the gig, but not the personality IMO.
I’ll continue to quietly weep for the likely loss of an opportunity at Heimerdinger.
I wasn’t overly impressed with Heimerdinger when he was with the Jets. Yeah, injuries killed that team but still his offense didn’t impress me and I was glad to see him leave. What have you seen from him that you covet him so?
Bruce Arians frequently decided that 3rd and 1 was a passing down. He was a drive killer.
I’ve said it before–the Steelers lost all 7 games this year by a total of 28 points. I wonder if that’s a record…but I digress. The point is that his play calling in the second half, and particularly the 4th quarter, was abysmal. The failure of the offense to get the job done on 3rd and short in the second half absolutely killed the defense, already hurting without Polamalu.
I won’t miss Bruce Arians. I will miss Dick LeBeau if he retires. Not too many coaches could have salvaged what he did with such a leaky secondary.
I agree. I think Snyder kept his head down during the Gibbs II era because… the coach was Joe Gibbs. Remember how Zorn became HC. Cerrato and Snyder decided to offer huge contracts to get hot coordinators and then hire the HC. I know it sounds stupid but that’s what they did. Of course any real HC told them them to fuck themselves. Who the hell wants to run a team where they’ve already selected your coordinators? And the new guys, like Spagnaulo, knew that deal sounded sketchy and went elsewhere. The only guy who came close to being hired was Jim Fassel. Last time I looked he was coaching in the XFL or something. Zorn was basically the only option and he said yes. Hell, I would!
Zorn, not having a HC resume, didn’t have the clout and it was all too easy for Snyder/Cerrato to revert to their old ways. But as Omni stated, the PR damage for Snyder took its toll at last. Then the impossible happened - Cerrato “resigned.” That’s your proof that Dan Snyder has changed.
Now Washington has a real GM and a real coach. They look like a real NFL franchise and not some creation of a 14 year old playing Madden 2009. I’m not saying that they’ll be contenders in the Beast, but I think they will be at least as good as they were during the Schottenheimer era. .500 or a little better with little to no drama, and rising from the Oakland/Cleveland/Detroit franchise would be good enough for me.
I confess it relies on a lot of speculation on my part and on some esoteric reasoning. The juiciest detail is that Heimerdinger and Cutler had a good relationship in Denver and much of his speedy development there was attributed to him. His role as assistant HC in Denver was essentially a glorified QB coach and passing game coordinator. Prior to that I loved his work in Tennessee with those juggernaut Titans teams with McNair, George, Mason and Wycheck. They were dynamic and conventional and are a perfect representation of what the Bears brass wants their offense to look like. This year he’s been largely credited with the turn around for Vince Young and you can’t overlook the fact that his offense located and unleashed Chris Johnson on the world.
It’s always hard to know just how much credit to give an OC for player development and scouting, but pretty much everyone agrees that Heimerdinger is an outstanding QB coach which is necessary for Cutler to prosper IMHO and he’s constantly had great running games and tight end play everywhere he’s gone. I’m not sure I’d blame the 2005 Jets on him, that was a Pennington injury year and the year CuMar’s wheels finally fell off, plus Herm Edwards was prominently involved.
That coupled with the fact that he’s from DeKalb, IL and a graduate of Eastern Illinois makes him a hometown guy that the fans would absolutely get behind. Thus far he’s always been a company man and has had zero controversy makes him likely to fit in at Halas Hall.
I watched the Steelers. The defense sucked because the defense sucked, not because the offense let them down. As a Bears fan I know what it’s like to make excuses for the defense and to pretend that it’s always the offenses fault, but you’re kidding yourself if you think the defense wouldn’t have given away 4th quarter leads if only they’d have called runs. It’s tough to call runs when your O line can’t move anyone, you’d be calling for Arians’ head if he’d have called runs and gotten stuffed too.
Arians has been pass happy. But then again, that passing game has been really freaking good. If I were the Bengals, Browns and Ravens I’d be thrilled to hear the news.
Fair enough. Now I’m rooting for the Bears to get him, because I like the logic.
Hear, hear! The end of every season in the Tomlin era is destined to bring speculation that the team is going to move to a 4-3. As long as Lebeau is there Tomlin has indicated his well-deserved trust in him. When Lebeau is gone and the D-line has moved on we just may see the switch though. Ziggy Hood is a 1-gap DT playing end, Lawrence Timmons is clearly suited for the 4-3. Who knows? As long as they win I don’t care what kind of defense we see.
You’re right that the defense sucked on it’s own terms. I have many complaints about Bruce Arians though. Especially that stupid fucking 5-wide set that was almost a guaranteed sack for the opponent. The offense did have success. The problem for Arians is that they had their greatest successes either when Ben was calling his own plays from the no-huddle or when they were running the bunch formation which Ken Whisenhunt put into place.
All his running plays and TE screens were plays we’ve seen on NFL Highlights films. He was quite good at designing draws for Willie Parker to run; that ain’t good enough for an NFL Offensive Co-ordinator.
A more disputable point is that the Steelers D is built upon the explosive abilities of certain players. Not just Polamalu but Lawrence Timmons and James Harrison. The whole back eight needs to be able to cover a lot of ground in various blitz schemes. You always leave a gap when you’re blitzing. You need to be able to get pressure before the gap is exploited. Explosiveness and short drives don’t go together. Last season wasn’t the first time we’ve seen the D struggle when the offense prospered. The same thing happened when Maddox had his dream season.
Having said all that, the offense isn’t broken and they aren’t to blame for the failure to make the playoffs. I think they do need to be more balanced though and they could have been even better than they were. Arians is probably a smart guy but he tried to make this offense into something it isn’t - the Colts. This team needs it’s own identity.
Ben’s numbers have been universally better under Arians than the Wizzer. While he might have been good in the hurry-up calling his own plays, I think it’s disingenuous to say that accounts for the success he had under Arians. Ben was certainly calling his fair share of plays and running hurry-ups under Whisenhunt and it’s not like he invented the bunch. Arians got the 5 wides from Tom Moore and so on down the line, you use what works.
I blame the O line. The Bears couldn’t run the fucking ball either, but I’m not blaming Turner for that one. It’s not like there’s a ton of variety to be discovered in the running game these days. Pretty much every team uses the same running plays, the only variation is if the use a zone blocking scheme or not. Part of the issue could be that Arians is trying to implement it in Pittsburgh and they don’t have the skill for it, but I’m not familiar enough to say for sure.
Did Arians try and make them the Colts or did the porous defense make them have to throw too much? I seem to remember seeing the Steelers start games running the ball, very poorly usually, and then give up on it when they fell behind. It never seemed like Arians disliked the run or avoided it, it seemed more like circumstances.
A lot of these coaches are keeping their jobs: Lovie Smith with the Bears, Gary Kubiak with the Texans, Raheem Morris in Tampa, Jack Del Rio in Jacksonville, John Fox in Carolina. Mangini might hang onto his job, Cable might keep his, Mora Jr. might keep his.
The lack of openings is surprising really, and I’m wondering how big a role the possibility of a lockout has had on this. I’m starting to think it’s got everything to do with it. Teams are probably unlikely to go into this upcoming uncapped season with any additional uncertainty. No one really knows how the change will effect free agency and with so many potential UFA becoming RFAs it seems like it’d make transforming a roster much tougher. Perhaps new management would be crippled by such a situation and owners don’t want to set inexperienced guys up like that.
Perhaps more importantly many of these coaches probably have contracts that expire in 2011. Contracts that may or may not be void if 2011 is a lockout, I’m not sure how that works but it could be a factor. Certainly on the off chance that there’s an extended work stoppage teams would probably prefer to have a coach under contract for 2011 only as opposed to under contract for 2 and 3 years beyond that which would be the case for people hired in the coming weeks.
We’ll probably never know for sure, but I bet at least half these guys can thank the CBA for their jobs.
Oh I think that’s a given, but I think it’s even simpler than that. Fire a coach and you have to pay out his contract. I can’t imagine any owner in this economy is excited to pay out a fat new contract to a new staff plus the dead money on the fired staff’s contracts a year before a not-inconceivable lockout with no revenue.
There’s a lot of truth there. As much as I’ve whipped Willie Colon the last few seasons he was very solid in this one. The problem was the interior guys struggled. Chris Kemoeatu has been mentioned as a potential Pro Bowler by some writers. He dominated some weaker teams, played poorly against the rest. He struggles mightily in pass protection. The Center and RG were merely OK, they don’t get any push on running plays. Arians was definitely limited by the o-line.
I didn’t expect Bruce Arians to go out and run the RB into a wall, I wanted him to establish it enough to set up play action orr at least draw a safety up. My biggest complaints about him were that I could predict the offensive calls quite easily from home and that his calls didn’t suit the personnel. Steelers fans like to think Heath Miller is the best TE in the league. I love what he can do but we’re fooling ourselves if we think Heath Miller can get separation from a defense without some help. Hines Ward is great against zones, not so great at route running, neither is Santonio Holmes. They shine when Ben scrambles and they use their instincts in reading the D.
One thing people don’t seem to understand is the Steelers have been pass-first for a long time. Under Cowher we always came out firing in the first quarter, always. It wasn’t the team’s reputation but that’s what was happening. It was the last three quarters where the air gradually got sucked out of the ball and that is when you can soften teams up for some downfield strikes. Arians didn’t have the personnel to keep that sustained attack going but he also didn’t have the personnel for 5-wide sets and 3-TE sets. Asking the Steelers wide receivers to read the zone is smart, asking Ben Roethlisberger to read the zone all day is an invitation for a pick. That’s not what he’s good at. Why didn’t he roll Ben out of the pocket once in a while? Why didn’t he call slants when the other team was sitting everyone back in coverage baiting a bad throw? He never tried anything like that, no in-game adjustments. No one complains about the play-calling when the team executes. The Steelers just don’t have the personnel to execute those calls. 5-wide sets require the QB to make a quick read if the defense blitzes. It was my cue to go for another beer because I knew it was just going to be Ben scrambling around maniacally.
It says a lot that there are even rumours from the team about letting the guy go given the offensive numbers. Everyone around the league knows how the Rooneys value continuity. They can get the same or better numbers from someone else. I think Ken Anderson deserves more credit for Ben’s numbers than Air Arians and Anderson announced his retirement.
The 49ers declined to renew the contract of Special Teams coach Al Everest. Not too surprising. Our coverage units were OK, but our return game was total shit. Everest also called for a punt return reverse against Seattle that led directly to a loss, and he did it without getting an OK from Singletary.
If Wade doesn’t win a playoff game, he may not be fired, but he might be lynched.
They’re reporting that Shanahan has been given a big five-year contract in Washington.
Yes, Shanahan got 7 million a year for 5 years. Likely, his son Kyle will leave Houston and come in as the OC.
Blanche will probably retire as DC. Rumor mill indicates that Mike Zimmer may be brought in to replace him from the Bengals. Dunno know much about him
There may be a change in special teams coaching as well. Danny Smith hasn’t been horrible, but he’s not great either. He’s one of Snyder’s favorites on the team though. I’d expect him to be replaced just in an effort to make a point that this is Shanahan’s team. Same goes for secondary coach Jerry Gray, for basically the same reason.
Hey, stats!
Since 1978, among teams that lost exactly 7 games in a season, the 2009 Steelers’ 28 is the smallest total margin of defeat. Next closest are the 93 Broncos (30) and 02 Saints (35).
Since 1978, the smallest average margins of defeat are (skipping the 16-0 Pats) the 83 Redskins (14-2, losses by 2 total points), and the 2000 Titans (13-3, losses by 7 total points).
The worst average margin of defeat? The 1989 Steelers, who also went 9-7, but whose total margin of defeat was 173 points (24.7 per). Interestingly, those Steelers made the playoffs, won a wild card game and then lost to the Broncos… by 1 :D.