Differences between a secondary coach and a DC | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

Differences between a secondary coach and a DC

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oasis

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There are many people saying they don't want Bowles as DC because he coached a lackluster secondary this season.

Initially, that was my knee-jerk reaction too, and I certainly don't think someone who isn't performing well at their current position deserves to be promoted.

BUT aren't the jobs of coaching the secondary and being DC completely different? Or is this my lack of understanding of the jobs? I was under the impression that a position coach teaches players how to pay the position, and how to play the position based on the scheme that the DC has put together. They teach the players the nuances of playing the position, like how to swivel your hips, track a ball, hand placement, etc.

What does that have to do with developing an overall defensive scheme, putting player packages together, knowing when to be aggressive vs. conservative on defensive, developing a gameplan, adapting to new offensive looks, and having that play-calling "feel"? If I'm being naive about what each of these jobs require, please enlighten!
 
oasis said:
There are many people saying they don't want Bowles as DC because he coached a lackluster secondary this season.

Initially, that was my knee-jerk reaction too, and I certainly don't think someone who isn't performing well at their current position deserves to be promoted.

BUT aren't the jobs of coaching the secondary and being DC completely different? Or is this my lack of understanding of the jobs? I was under the impression that a position coach teaches players how to pay the position, and how to play the position based on the scheme that the DC has put together. They teach the players the nuances of playing the position, like how to swivel your hips, track a ball, hand placement, etc.

What does that have to do with developing an overall defensive scheme, putting player packages together, knowing when to be aggressive vs. conservative on defensive, developing a gameplan, adapting to new offensive looks, and having that play-calling "feel"? If I'm being naive about what each of these jobs require, please enlighten!
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I don't think you're being naive about this at all. The truth is, NOBODY here, including myself and every single self-annointed armchair quarterback/coach, knows for certain what kind of defense Bowles would run if he became Miami's defensive coordinator. There is this misconception running rampant among some of the posters here that believe just because Paul Pasqualoni ran a very vanilla defense we should assume Bowles, who as a position coach worked under PP, would run the same kind of lame-a** scheme.

I forgot which poster pointed this out, but they had a good point when they mentioned the string of people who were successful coordinators following in a successor's footsteps who ran a different scheme from the man they replaced (example, Mike Nolan ran a different scheme from Marvin Lewis who ran a different scheme from Rex "Jabba" Ryan ... unless I'm wrong, all three were Baltimore's DC at one time or another and all of them ran different schemes, with someone like Lewis being a 4-3 purist while the other two were bigger into 3-4 schemes). My point in all this is Bowles system (if appointed DC) very much could differ from Pasqualoni's vanilla-D.

To address another misconception... BELIEF: Bowles would be a terrible DC because our secondary (which he was responsible for coaching up) was God-awful last season. FACT: Bowles chance for success as a defensive coordinator should not be judged soley because of one poor season's showing by the secondary.

Bowles may be in charge of coaching the secondary (and he's done a fantastic job prior to this, see --> Miami's 08-09 campaign, as well as his run in Cleveland and Dallas). I don't think it's fair to judge Bowles so harshly when one considers that Miami had to start two rookies at CB (something rarely done voluntarily and even more rarely done successfully). On top of this, Miami featured two safeties with identicle skill sets AND both not necessarily good in coverage. Given those two factors (including the loss of Goodman and Hill to FA, and then Will Allen to injury), it's easy to see that Bowles would have to be a miracle worker to make things work great out of that situation (and this is all without considering the adjustment-free, plain-jane Pasqualoni defensive playcalling).

I'm not saying Bowles is the answer at DC, but using last season to gauge him for DC potential would be unwise. You brought up a good point Oasis:up:
 
According to his wiki page, Todd Bowles is Assistant Head Coach as well. So we can guarantee that he'll be on the same page as Sparano and the rest of the staff.

Will he have an aggressive defense or be more of the same?

I think the fact that we fired Paul P. after 2 seasons for having a bland defense answers that question. Whoever we get will be a step up and will be forced to get aggressive if they want to keep their job.
 
Who knows, the man maybe a chalkboard genius!!
 
The big thing to me is that A lot of the sacks we got on the season were coverage sacks. Yes our D gave up a lot of big plays, but our D rarely got pressure and for some reason Paul never blitzed (and when he did, the D looked very good, see first half of the NO game). I think that it is very telling that Paul (who was brought over from Dallas after being an LB coach), and our 2 LB coaches leave without us trying to retain them, that we hire Bill Sheridan as an LB coach and the 3 guys we've interviewed (Al Groh, Keith Butler, and Dean Pees) all have backgrounds as LB guys. Plus Peas and Butler come from D's that are blitz happy (Pittsburgh) or very creative (New England). Also reading Sparano's quotes tells you he wants more attacking in the D.

BTW, I was the one that pointed out philosophy differences.
 
ChambersWI said:
The big thing to me is that A lot of the sacks we got on the season were coverage sacks. Yes our D gave up a lot of big plays, but our D rarely got pressure and for some reason Paul never blitzed (and when he did, the D looked very good, see first half of the NO game). I think that it is very telling that Paul (who was brought over from Dallas after being an LB coach), and our 2 LB coaches leave without us trying to retain them, that we hire Bill Sheridan as an LB coach and the 3 guys we've interviewed (Al Groh, Keith Butler, and Dean Pees) all have backgrounds as LB guys. Plus Peas and Butler come from D's that are blitz happy (Pittsburgh) or very creative (New England). Also reading Sparano's quotes tells you he wants more attacking in the D.

BTW, I was the one that pointed out philosophy differences.
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Thanks for clarifying on the philosophy differences:up: I was trying to remember who it was, but for the life of me sometimes one post blurs into another if you spend a lot of time reading the threads lol. Regardless, good call on that. You made an excellent point on the defensive coordinators and their successors, ChambersWI! As you said, the moves (and in the case of no retaining, lack of moves) made by the FO seem to indicate LB performance is going to be emphasized more and that the coaches recognize our deficiences in that area. Finding improvements at LB (and better coaching on schemes from that group) will improve our defense greatly IMO. As I've always believed, a good front 7 can cover up a weak/inexperienced/average secondary, but even the best secondary cannot cover the weakness of a poor front 7 on defense. Our defense needs to create better pressure (and do so in more creative, less-easy-to-anticipate ways).

Sheridan was the fallguy IMO for a rash of injuries on the Giant's defense. I don't think the issue was with his scheme so much as the inexperience forced to run it (after all the injuries to guys like Phillips and Pierce). I like his selection as our LB coach. Hopefully he provides an improvement to the defense similar to what the hiring of Deguglielmo did for our offensive line after Masser was fired. Hopefully Bowles, Pees, Butler, or another surprise hire ramp up the intensity on our defense and bring more agression and creativity to the defensive side of the ball.
 
Wow, guys. I'm impressed. This thread actually has many well thought out comments and no knee-jerk reactions or complete whining. Is this still Finheaven I'm reading?

We all wish we knew what goes on behind the scenes with our team, but no one can tell what kind of schemes may be swimming in this man's head until you see it on thew field. I, for one, hope the next DC's schemes involve more blitzing and more confusing presnap looks. It seems like whenever we did blitz last year, we gave it away 1-2 seconds before the snap 1/2 the time. A blitzing LB/DB that misreads the snap count and stutter steps too early can be more damaging than an offsides penalty by the DL because a good QB will read those blitzes and pass successfully.
 
Its pretty simple: The defensive coordinator is the creator, and the secondary coach is the implementer.
 
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