The square peg round hole applies to the entire operation in that until you get front office, coaching staff and players in sync, there isn't much chance of improvement.
I agree...
1.
Defense, I've covered above
2.
Offense, I don't get it. Sherman 'is' a good OC. There was inuendo a few weeks back between he and Philbin about the run game, and I'm wondering if he's under pressure from Philbin to deliver on X, when Sherman believes in Y. Even with that, there's been some strange moments, and I'm not just talking individual calls, but series, as in drives where I'm sitting here shaking my head. Then out pops a genius series where they simply march down the field and put it in the endzone very easily. I don't think it's consistency in the true sense - it just has baffled me a little.
3.
Personnel to Scheme. As with any change, once you have a new coach and an in situ GM, it does take a matter of time to migrate over to the preferred personnel. And in numerous occasions, you have to go with a 'warm body' that's not a scheme fit because, well... that's all that you can get to keep from the hole becoming too big. In addition to that, it's a risky business when you go with schemes that are either 'off the reservation' or a 'significant change' from previous regime.
3a 'off the reservation' I may get blasted for this, but I really don't see what our Defensive Identity is. I'm an Offensive Guy at heart, but have looked at many a D over the years and seen all kinda ****e [technical term] as a viewer and a coach. And I know I was at a much MUCH lower level coaching wise, but still... structure, scheme and coaching are important at any level and I just can't for the life of me figure out what our DC Coyle is trying to do, and in particular... with whom?
3b 'significant change' So we moved to a zone scheme from the previous regime of Power. Personally, I just love Zone, especially from a fundamental run standpoint.. forget about all this college spread, zone read BS, but from a pure zone running system, it let's you do a lot of stuff and attack horizontally and vertically - force the D to cover as much space as possible... spread them buggers out and attack the gaps, be it run or pass.
Where I think we've failed here and, and I've commented on this before in other threads... we have a serious imbalance within the OL, we have an athletic freak at Centre and a mish match at the other 4 spots and it's nowhere near consistent enough to generate success on a regular basis. Perhaps they are aware of this and it's the warm body approach.. i.e., let's just get through this season and target which ever FA's and draftees to make the change complete.
Anyway, I've probably digressed a tad, so I shall leave it with this.
For me the big thing right now across the board is IDENTITY... it's lacking. And when you have this in an organisation, players aren't dumb, they will see it, and this is potentially where the alleged angst is coming from