Lionsfan65 wrote:As Washington enters his 4th season as defensive coordinator, I must say he has had mixed success so far. The Lions have been pretty good in most defensive categories during his tenure. He does deserve credit for that. I think our defensive line will be ok this year. I think Brooks played injured for most of 2016. If he can get back to his 2015 numbers with 40+ tackles I think that would be a huge success. The big question mark once again is a solid pass rusher who can get 10+ sacks. The lions have signed some young prospects, such as David Perkins, while this years draft appears to be fairly deep for d line as well.
Another major area that needs improvement is the defensive backfield. Having a healthy Yell, Lee, and Clarke I think will make a huge difference, as all three have great skills, and imo are some of the underrated defensive backs in the league.
On another note I know it is a little late in the offseason to make a major coaching change, however I would assume Rich Stubler is available considering the Argos are going with Chamblin as the DC this year. I wonder if he would be willing to take on a positional coach role, or a consulting role.
Wally would never hire Stubler as a consultant. Wally wanted Stubler out of here so he could promote Mask Washington and have a coordinator who would do it the "Wally Way" It was never comfortable for Wally to have experienced defensive coaches who have their own minds, like Ritchie and Stubler on our Leos staff, even though our defence had its best seasons under those two wise owls.
This is the time of the year when we focus on free agents, signings, the draft, etc. Its the time of year when we focus on team improvement through player personell. There usually isn't much focus on coaching at this time of the season.
Wally certainly seems to be much more motivated and effective as a GM when he is also the HC. Whether it was bringing in Arland Bruce partway throught the 2011 season or his free agent signings over the past two seasons, Wally has opened the wallet and made some key signings which didb't seem to happen to the same extend when he was not down on the sidlelines.
However, no matter how good our personell is for 2017, we will be handicapped if we don't deal with the following:
1. Our Leos team is badly outscouted and out game planned by good teams with good coaches. We don't fool anyone and are easy to scout. Good opposing teams game plan well against our weaknesses. In the meantime, we usually do not attempt to exploit opposing temas weaknesses. Instead we just come out and do the same thing game after game and hope to out -execute.
2. We gave up too many leads last year and that is a coaching issue. Jonathan Jennings is not some kind of rebel. Tell him to make conservative decisions in the last minutes of a football game and he will do that. Give him high percentage plays and he will run them. Trouble is that we didn't give him that direction and structure.
3. Other examples of offensive predictability are 1) running the same inside zone read play on second and short when the defense has more players in the box than we have blockers and we wonder why we get stuffed so often on second and short and 2 throwing deep and deep intermediate time and again against press man coverage with two deep safeties. No matter how good Jennnings can throw and no matter how wlll Manny and Burnham can catch, its tempting fate and not smart football. 3) Dumping quickly to Rainey in the flat time and again against press man coverage and wondering why it doesnt' work (duh).
4. Defensively, we don't focus on taking away the opposition's bread and butter plays in the first half of games and then get behind. A great example of this was when we played Winnipeg. We all knew that the Bombers love to throw to Harris in the flat and yet we left him alone to do just that, while dropping Sol E. and Biggie into hook coverage and leaving the flat wide open. This was not astute professional football coaching.
5. This Leos team has tons of speed and talent. But until we do what Billichick does so well in New England and start adapting our scheme to our talent, rather than using the same old scheme for the past 20 plus years, no matter who is at quarterback, tailback, receiver, etc. is not the way to build a dnynasty. Billichick is always ahead of the curve. Our Leos are always behind it and therefore our players not only have to beat the opposition but also overcome the handicaps of our offensive and defensive schemes. Billichick has run power offences, spread offences, two tight end offences, etc, etc during his time in New England. Wally has run the same offence since he got here (and before).
The only time our defense has veered from its passive zone scheme was when Ritchie and Stubler were here. We turned the football over a lot and gave our offence lots more opportunities. But Wally likes to play it safe. That had its advantages in the good ol' days but quarterbacks are too good these days, have passed a lot in spread offences, and can pick a simple defence apart.
We coulda and probably shoulda won four more Grey Cups, at least, since Buono arrived. The talent was here to to that. Old school thinking has helped us to be competitive but it has also handicapped us way too often as well.