Gregg Williams story = Light shed on Fisher

The scoop on chris hope.

Hope made the pro bowl the year after his injury so he proved he could overcome that. The reason for his mediocre play this year? Hard to say but he and griffin both had down years.

Hope still has 2 years left on his contract and he will be paid very well. His salary this year will be $5.5M and $6.5M in 2011 so he should be motivated this year to play well enough to stay on in 2011 and get that nice salary and that $6.5M next year would be one of the best among all safeties.

Hope is not old especially for that position. He won't turn 30 until September and has not had any major injuries to his legs.

In short he should be motivated to play the next 2 seasons with a $6.5M salary to play for in 2011 and free agency in 2012.

 

Um...

If you can't judge a coordinator or any other coaching position on one season of work, you got major issues.

What Cecil did well...

He made it harder for teams to make obvious matchup problems within our scheme unless we were blitzing or playing single S high. He dialed up some good blitz calls in key spots in several games. He adjusted personel on the DL to get pressure...especially in our first Indy game. He adjusted CB depth when we were playing backups to force short throws to keep us from getting burned as much over the top. He showed he knows this system.

What Cecil did NOT do well...

We continued to allow teams to match there best WR on Harper. He allowed his defense to not disguise different coverages well (too easy to see Hope and Griffin cheating). He did not change up personel fast enough when several players clearly played poorly or have declined as KVB, Hope and Griff all should have gotten a seat on the bench during this season. He - like his predecessor does not hold his players to a high enough level of accountability. The D did not have a highly motivated team pursuit and had too many games with way too many blown tackles. It took him too long to figure what was going wrong with the defense and how to 'fix' it or limit the damage or change things up to make it more difficult for teams to exploit our weaknesses.

My biggest problems with our defense the last many years is that we allow other teams to have a tactical advantage since they can dictate matchups, we have way too many blown tackles and that is a recurring theme, and there is little to zero accountability for players or coaches.

There is no doubt Cecil will take a large share of the blame for our defensive woes. Fisher and MR get a chunk for not having better CB depth, not forcing Cecil to change starters who aren't getting the job done (mentioned above), and not forcing him to adapt the D based on what we had this year and what we could do. Our personell wasn't getting the job done so we needed to alter the scheme and bring in new personell or put some players into better positions to succeed. Robertson deserves some blame but it's hard for me to kill him because the DC calls the defenses and Robertson can't bench Hope or Griff even if he wanted too. It's also not his fault that the D is built on pressure from the front 4 which wasn't happening leaving his guys exposed. I would also blame Cecil more than Robertson for continuing to have the S's and CB's coached to be very aggressive as if we DID have a great pass rush. This point of coaching didn't change during the season and it SHOULD have...but that's the DC's call.

In short, they all should get some blame and deservedly so.

Gut

 

Um...

Kearse was basically non-existent in pass rush in '08. He actually was a little better this year, but not nearly at the level we needed!

And SLOWER.

He was terrible and one of the biggest problems on the D. With AH pushing the pocket and drawing double teams, KVB feasted on 1v1 blocking. This year, he was terrible and usually negated completely vs 1v1. His BEST pressure were when he ran stunts lined up at DT. Straight up he was terrible and to make matters worse, he frequently tried to go inside blowing his contain responsiblities and also did the same thing against the run (crashing down inside hard with abandon). Many teams hurt us with him losing his run and pass rush responsibilities so often with very little to show for it. KVB played HARDER but was mostly ineffective. Ford and Hayes easily were better pass rushers and while Ford is not as stout, at least he doesn't abandon his responsibility.

He's a bit of an enigma. One game he won't take on blocks and keeps trying to run around people. Another game he have 4-5 plays where he stuffs an OT, pulling OG, TE or FB and force the play wide. He'll play well in pass coverage one week and then on a 3rd and long, will bite on the playfake and then not get depth in his drop and have a ball get just over him for a first down. A little depth and that pass isn't a completion.

Gut

 

How could we bench hope or griffin when we had nobody to replace them? Are you serious?

Our best safety off the bench was Kaesviharn, we should have benched guys who made the pro bowl in 08 for Kaesviharn just on principle? And where does the secondary coach come in here doesn't he have some input into how those guys play?

As for CB matchups our best CB by far was not playing in 3 of our 4 worst games against the pass. What kind of adjustments was chuck cecil supposed to make against tom brady when the 2 starting CBs were carey williams and mccourty? And fuller was out that game as well.

 

Titans pass defense with and without cortland finnegan.

Opposing QBs without finnegan 127 average rating.

Opposing QBs with finnegan playing 78 average rating.

Having your pro bowl CB certainly makes a coach much smarter.




How about how a DC adjusts to playing a team a second time?

David Garrard game one-126.8 passing rating.

David Garrard game 2-35.9 passing rating.

P Manning game one-109.2 rating.

P manning game 2-95.6 rating.

Matt schaub game one-127.8 rating

Matt schaub game 2 rating 105.2


So in each case we played better against the opposing QB than in the first game which suggests maybe Cecil did learn something along the way.

The one glaring thing that needs improvement is how we play Houston. We lost to them 2 of the last 3 games and their passing game has posted average rating of 107 in those 3 games. We need another good CB and we need to find a way to keep Andre Johnson for putting up 150+ yards against us.

 

Better? He didn't see the field for 10 games!

Last year Kearse started and had 3.5 sacks and played the run decent. This year he was barely even a member of the team with 1 sack. What is there to argue about?

The only thing that could have saved us up front with Jones missing so many games and Haye and Ball not producing like expected would have been to have William Hayes emerge as a stud. Hayes did show some good things and had 5 sacks but that didn't make up for the 8.5 fewer sacks that Kearse-Ball-Ford had in 2009 from 2008.

The loss of AH was a major blow but the rest of our guys collectively didn't step up and get it done either.

 

Okay one accomplishment you got me there. I wouldn't consider a coach who can run drills well to be a good guy to put an entire D together. I believe those three guys of ours that went to Hawaii in 2008 all had interceptions that got them there. Not that I'm trying to say they didn't deserve it, but its so easy to send players from the #1 seeded team to the Pro Bowl. I'm big on 2nd chances, so I'm fine with bringing Cecil back. After an entire season and an entire offseason I'm sure he's coming back bigger and better.

 

How many of you think Leslie frazier is an elite DC? Why do you think that? Because of what he has done with the Vikings the last 3 years right?

 

The bottom line is results. Fisher hasn't won a playoff game in six years. It's not any more complicated than that.

 

Just what colour is the sky in your world?