I am a big fan. He’s very young but he’s considered one of the most innovative defensive minds in the league.
Also, we scheduled a second interview with Arthur Smith knowing Holmes was getting the gig. I post this to say that I am not sure hiring an experienced HC is a lock despite what people have said. Of course, it wouldn’t shock me.
He's supposed to be the big young defensive genius in the league. I have no idea if that means he'd make for a good head coach already or not. I think probably not.
Staley would be hiring a "hot" name but read a theory on Profootballtalk that teams should only hire head coaches with an offensive background. Basic point was that any OC that shows success is going to get hired away quickly and potentially takes the offense with him (i.e. Frank Reich). Other side is that if your OC isn't in demand, then you probably will end up firing him at some point. Said that something like Minnesota has had 4 OCs in the past 6 years. Thought is that it's an offensive league and continuity on that side of the ball is so much more important now so you go with a head coach that can maintain the philosophy through staff turnover Edit: Here's the tweet thread. Forgot about Atlanta with Quinn/Shanahan as well
Based on the stuff I've read about Holmes' personality, he seems to fit pretty much everything Spielman/Wood talked about in terms of leaders and culture. I like giving new voices opportunities and hopefully he's ready for the job. I'm against the hire if they feel the need to pigeon hole the coaching search to only consider guys with "experience" now, though. Smith still interviewing in person tomorrow hopefully means that's just media incorrectly reading tea leaves.
The concern I have with Staley is his inexperience as a DC, which leads to questions like "would his innovative defenses with fewer guys in the box work if he didn't have arguably the best defensive player of his era playing DT?" Seems like he's got the personality to overcome some of that as a HC, but that is a concern for me. Also, I can't imagine Holmes would be that tied to Staley considering he lives in Atlanta and Staley's been in LA one year. I wonder how many times the two have ever been in the same room together.
He also has Aaron fucking Donald. Which if there was any need of a reminder was taken 3 picks AFTER Ebron.
So our new GM was a college scout or something? I havent followed the last four or five pages when you guys have talked about all these names I've never heard of.
This is a good article on what went into the Rams evaluation of Fuller with some quotes from Holmes.... https://theathletic.com/2118368/202...ackpot-on-jordan-fuller/?access_token=5344331
No offense and I'm only saying this about Florio and not you (if you in fact agree with him), but the take in this tweet is really fucking stupid for a whole lot of reasons. His originally opinion about it was dumb enough. Using those two specific examples as evidence is hilariously stupid.
Not a Florio fan but in the thread he brings up Pederson/Reich and Quinn/Shanahan situations which are probably better examples of the point he is trying to make. Both those coaches went from super bowls to fired shortly after their OCs left. 6/8 of the remaining playoff coaches are from the offensive side of the ball, Harbaugh is neutral and McDermott is about to find out what life is like after losing a hot shot OC. I agree with his point that the league has changed and outside of rare exceptions teams should always favor the hot offensive coach over a defensive one.
He brings up Vrabel and Zimmer as examples. Zimmer is one of seven coaches (out of 32) who has held a HC job at his current team longer than 4 years. Vrabel is 29-19 in three years and went to an AFCCG in his second season. It's absurd to suggest/insinuate in any way either of those two franchises would regret anything about those hires just because those two coaches happened to have hired good assistants who got HC jobs of their own. For the other examples, Pederson is an offensive coach so I don't know that helps him. Quinn lost Shanahan, who is 29-35 as a HC (with one great season that almost won them a Super Bowl). Quinn went 24-29 in the same stretch, with 5 of those losses coming this year when they started 0-5 and fired him. How do we know Shanahan does any better as a HC if he had the ATL job instead? You can cook numbers however you want. 7 coaches have been in their jobs for more than 4 years. 4 of them (Belichick, Tomlin, Carroll and Zimmer) are defensive coaches, another one is Harbaugh (mainly ST). All of them but Zimmer have won as may or more Super Bowls as Payton and Reid, the two offensive minded guys. I just find it stupid to think you shouldn't hire a defensive coach because, if he proves smart enough to hire a good OC, he'll probably have to hire another one. Considering the life span of the average NFL coach right now is something like 3 years, I'll take my chances in anyone who is smart enough to hire a good coordinator that brings me success in that span.
I'm sorry that there is an NFL writer I was aware of that you were not, and that it has caused this rift between us. I hope some day we can get past it.
It's not rocket science that offensive coaches move up faster than defensive coaches at all levels of football
Quinn started with roster coming off a super bowl, Shanahan took over a 2 win team. Comparing their records during that stretch is ridiculous, it's like saying Bob Quinn is greater than Mayhew because he won more games in the first few years. There's not a GM or Falcons fan alive that wouldn't trade Quinn for Shanahan during these past few seasons. All four of your tenured defensive coaches just had their seasons blown up because of offensive issues. League has changed. There are exceptions, like Vrabel, but those are becoming less. To say that a team should favor the offensive side of the ball in coaching searches is a very valid point.
When I first saw that tweet being RT by the Detroit beat writers (and didn't read the bottom part), I thought for sure it was some video of some MAGA weirdo who got arrested for some DC antics.
That's fair on the Shanahan/Quinn thing. I shouldn't have just thrown out the records and it was disingenuous and stupid to do that. But, in fairness, I'll note that Atlanta replaced Shanahan with Sark the following year and went 10-6 with a playoff win. It's not like the only reason Atlanta fell back was because Shanahan left. The Titans had one of the best offenses in the league this year. The Pats have been one of the best offenses in football for almost two decades with various OCs. The Vikings' offense was much better than their defense this year, if I'm not mistaken. And Tomlin's teams have been driven by the offense for most of the last 5-7 years. What happened to them this year happens every year to offensive gurus who get these same jobs. Yes, offensive coaches tend to rise faster and be hired quicker for HC jobs than defensive coaches. But that also means that many of these OCs are recylcled around the league over and over again, and you can just hire the next guy. I think it's kind of disrespectful to everything that is required to be an NFL head coach to just break it down to "offense/defense". For any of this conversation to matter, the coach first has to be competent enough to a) hire good coordinators; and b) have enough success that the rest of the league wants one of those coaches. There aren't a ton of people who are that level of competent, which is why HC turnover is what it is.
Bummed it didn’t happen here, but that ship seemed to sail days ago. I just want to see us interview Staley.
I have no idea what to make of Smith, which is why I would be fine not going that route. He seems like a good offensive coach, and he’s stuck around through like four coaches. I just get a vibe he isn’t the guy. I also don’t see a reason to jump on him when we have time to let this play out. Ideally we would bring in a few candidates for in person interviews and see what happens from there.
I'm skeptical about him. He almost seems like an offensive Patricia. Coordinator on a successful team but may not be the reason his unit performs so well (Belichek being a defensive genius in NE with Patricia, Reid calling the plays for the offense in KC). Bieniemy also has a history of questionable off the field stuff just like Patricia. But the thought of an innovative offense run by him would be fun to think about, but he worries me as a candidate
Bowles has his first interview today. Ideally we circle back after the weekend and set up an interview with Staley, along with second interviews with Bowles, Lewis and Campbell. I just assume Bevell gets one as well.
So we are down to Bowles, Lewis, or Bevell. Just fucking awful. I guess team Bowles at this point, and hope he isn’t a disaster like he was in New York.
I don’t think we even tried. Seems like Daboll hasn’t taken interviews anywhere but with LA. He grew up with their GM I guess.
I have no clue how often these kinds of things play out in terms of favorites getting hired, but these odds seem really weird. Campbell kind of seems like the guy listed most by the media, and he's fifth behind three people who haven't even interviewed yet (two of them we haven't even asked to interview).