Are fans being more or less critical of how our defense played than Coyle's role?

[juniorseau55]

Reason why I bring this up is constantly we hear the defensive coordinator as the one who is to blame for many of our losses. There were many times where our defensive players made many independent mistakes as well but we still see all the blame moved to Coyle because he is our defensive coordinator. I am not really opposed to change at the position, but I am more concerned with some of the current players that play defense in Miami.

 

[Danny]

I agree. Coyle is not to blame for every single thing.

 

[ATL_PHIN_FAN]

I like Coyle but I feel like he let me down. I expected better from him. Yeah, lots of injuries; and we played some very tough opponents. Nevertheless, he should have had the intellect to keep things within reason, as in NOT twilight zone rushing yards against us. For the first time I feel I could have done better with that. Sheez, Coyle!!

 

[J. David Wannyheimer]

There are a lot of reasons why I think we should replace Coyle:

First, the overall performance of the defense was terrible down the stretch. TERRIBLE. All teams suffer injuries on defense. We are not unique snowflakes. And keep in mind that our TERRIBLE defensive performance down the stretch was despite the fact that our offense ran at a slow tempo and still managed to pick up a lot of first downs. We had a franchise record 36 first downs in the Vikings game and we still gave up 35 points to a rookie quarterback. I know that some dopes here will somehow blame our offense for that near-loss, but that stuff is just embarrassing. 32 points per game down the stretch, with the Jets twice and a rookie QB in that stretch? Awful.

Second, he showed a complete inability to stop teams from hitting us with the same plays over and over again in multiple games. For instance, he had NO COUNTER to the Jets running the ball right at us for an entire half, or for attacking Cortland Finnegan in the second game against them.

Third, some of the gameplans and situational calls he used were simply strange. Cam Wake in coverage on Kniles Davis? Wheeler in coverage Quarless on a crucial game-deciding play after a timeout?

Fourth, accountability. Our defense was absolutely terrible down the stretch, and part of that falls on Coyle. We are going to be making personnel changes on defense -- as we should -- yet we aren't going to hold a coordinator responsible for his unit's complete and utter collapse for nearly an entire half of the season?

I have nothing against Kevin Coyle. He has done some good in with the bad, but you can't ignore how incredibly bad our defense was down the stretch, or some of the head-scratching decisions he's made when you evaluate our coaching staff. Joe Philbin needs to replace Kevin Coyle.

 

[Hayden Fox]

If Joe is still here, I guess all I can do is call for Coyle to be fired and change out at least four starters and major back ups contributors.

 

[dlockz]

If Joe hired both coordinators and had to fire them both then he is the one who shouldn't have a job. Do yourself a favor tune it out till 2016. Maybe ross will grow a pair by then

 

[JFoxx]

Coyle is just the scapegoat. It goes back to the HC and ultimately the owner for lack of direction and making effective decisions.

 

[J. David Wannyheimer]

Coyle is just the scapegoat. It goes back to the HC and ultimately the owner for lack of direction and making effective decisions.

I agree that dumping coordinators can be a scapegoat move, but I will also add this: Changing coordinators worked for the Dallas Cowboys, and Jason Garrett is hands off with the defense. Joe Philbin is also hands off with the defense.

If we're stuck with Philbin... we don't have to be stuck with Coyle.

 

[Hayden Fox]

If Joe hired both coordinators and had to fire them both then he is the one who shouldn't have a job. Do yourself a favor tune it out till 2016. Maybe ross will grow a pair by then

Exactly

 

[J. David Wannyheimer]

If Joe hired both coordinators and had to fire them both then he is the one who shouldn't have a job. Do yourself a favor tune it out till 2016. Maybe ross will grow a pair by then

Oh, this is true. The staff Joe initially hired was not good. Zac Taylor, Ken O'Keefe, Jim Turner, none of these guys were really qualified to be coaching in the NFL.

Joe's initial hires all sucked. The only credit I'll give him is that his replacement hires have been good. He wanted McAdoo (who has turned out to be pretty good), and his second choice was Lazor (who is good in a different way). To replace our outgoing LBs coach he got Duffner (good hire) and to replace Jim Turner he got Benton (good hire). If anything, this is absolutely an argument in favor of canning Coyle. Joe has shown he can do a better job of hiring coaches than he did when he threw the staff together, so why not take this opportunity to see if he can do likewise for the DC?

 

[JFoxx]

I agree that dumping coordinators can be a scapegoat move, but I will also add this: Changing coordinators worked for the Dallas Cowboys, and Jason Garrett is hands off with the defense. Joe Philbin is also hands off with the defense.

If we're stuck with Philbin... we don't have to be stuck with Coyle.

Agreed, but we have a lot more problems than just he Def Coordinator. Coyle being gone is the right move, but that alone won't fix our problems, just fix one of a dozen. If I had any faith they'd try and fix the other 11, I'd be excited at our prospects for next year. My fear is that they only replace the DC, draft a couple players, sign a few backup vets from FA and hope our other guys get healthy and that will fix everything.

 

[Phinatic8u]

Look at our defensive numbers with Delmas Than without Delmas.

Surprised me tbh.

 

[Irishfinfan1]

Starting was it Stanford at CB is a recipe for disaster, starting Wheeler is a recipe for disaster but there weren't great alternatives. Vernon has been really poor this year, Wake has been ok and the DTs have been ok, good at times, poor at other times.
If you were attacking our D the question you would ask is do I want to exploit Wheeler or do I want to exploit Finnegan and/or the 3rd and 4th corners? In essence we had too many weaknesses on D stemming from a lack of depth which I guess you could blame Ireland for.
Given all that I'm not happy with Coyle. Our run D down the stretch has been horrible and part of that is due to stunting the dlinemen, still hate how much our CBs stand off receivers, like the desire to blitz quite a bit. So overall our players on D haven't played the best but on top of that Coyle hasn't called the plays to bring the best out of them, so no I don't think Coyle is a scapegoat, he hasn't performed well.

 

[Atila]

There are a lot of reasons why I think we should replace Coyle:

First, the overall performance of the defense was terrible down the stretch. TERRIBLE. All teams suffer injuries on defense. We are not unique snowflakes. And keep in mind that our TERRIBLE defensive performance down the stretch was despite the fact that our offense ran at a slow tempo and still managed to pick up a lot of first downs. We had a franchise record 36 first downs in the Vikings game and we still gave up 35 points to a rookie quarterback. I know that some dopes here will somehow blame our offense for that near-loss, but that stuff is just embarrassing. 32 points per game down the stretch, with the Jets twice and a rookie QB in that stretch? Awful.

Second, he showed a complete inability to stop teams from hitting us with the same plays over and over again in multiple games. For instance, he had NO COUNTER to the Jets running the ball right at us for an entire half, or for attacking Cortland Finnegan in the second game against them.

Third, some of the gameplans and situational calls he used were simply strange. Cam Wake in coverage on Kniles Davis? Wheeler in coverage Quarless on a crucial game-deciding play after a timeout?

Fourth, accountability. Our defense was absolutely terrible down the stretch, and part of that falls on Coyle. We are going to be making personnel changes on defense -- as we should -- yet we aren't going to hold a coordinator responsible for his unit's complete and utter collapse for nearly an entire half of the season?

I have nothing against Kevin Coyle. He has done some good in with the bad, but you can't ignore how incredibly bad our defense was down the stretch, or some of the head-scratching decisions he's made when you evaluate our coaching staff. Joe Philbin needs to replace Kevin Coyle.

Not buying this. If you take a look at your examples, most of them are from the last 5-6 games, where our defense had a melt down.


So, all the Coyle detractors, have any of you sat down and asked yourself what changed over the past 6 games that was different from his overall body of work over 42 games? Isn't it odd that our defenses were consistently strong under Coyle despite having bottom 10 offenses almost the entire time?

So what happened?

Does anyone want to consider we fielded a bottom 3 LB unit the entire season? I mean, when an ENTIRE UNIT is at the bottom of the league, that's going to affect your team, right? What about having guys like Lowell Rose as a starting CB even for 1 play? Who the hell is this guy? What about our entire DL giving an underwhelming pass rush all the sudden or Randy Starks mailing it in all season?

Anyone considering these things? To be fair, our defense was horrendous down the stretch, and Coyle is far from perfect... but to blame the melt down on him is very short sighted and lacking of football understanding, in my opinion.

 

[Canadi-Phin]

I can tell you what happen the last 6 games. Delmas got hurt. CK posted this on twitter, with Delmas we avg 19.6pts per 60 min, after injuried 38.7per 60 min. Pretty shocking difference. I think injuries did hurt us a lot but also his scheme really sucks against current offenses and once Denver showed how to beat us we never recovered. Certain running plays and the off coverage with WR schemes really hurt us for lots of yards.