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Judging the Coaching Staff.

ChambersWI

ChambersWI

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With all the talk about Joe Philbin and his job as a coach, I thought it would be interesting to talk about the staff as a whole and judge how they've done. Here's the staff as a whole

Offensive Coordinator-Bill Lazor
Offensive Line-John Benton (Assistant Jack Bicknell Jr)
RB-Jeff Nixon
QB-Zac Taylor (Assistant Ben Johnson)
WR-Kevin O'Keefe (Assistant Phil McGeoghan)
TE-Dan Campbell
Offensive Assistant-Ben Martin

Defensive Coordinator-Kevin Coyle
Defensive Line-Kacy Rodgers (Assistant Charlie Bullen)
LB-Mark Duffner (Assistant David Corrao)
DB- Lou Anarumo (Assisstant Blue Adams)

Special Teams- Darren Rizzi (Assistant Marwan Maalouf)

Strength and Conditioning- Darren Krein (Assistant Dave Puloka)

Don't have to give your thoughts on everybody.

We've all discussed Lazor to death so I'll skip over him, but if he gets the offense working IMO he has the making of a future head coach

I felt the biggest get of the offseason was getting John Benton on the staff, and he and Bicknell have done a great job. Not only did we come into the year with 5 new starters, we came into the year with only 2 returning offensive linemen from last year (not including an injured Pouncey or Brenner being on the practice squad). For them to get the OL working as well as they have is a big point for them.

Duffner similarly has done a great job with what was a weakness for the defense last year. Duffner I remember was Philbin's first choice for DC when he was hired but the Jags refused to grant us an interview with him.

Speaking of which, I still like Kevin Coyle as a DC. The big problem I see with his defense is that he falls in love with Zone Blitzes from time to time, and when that happens is when we tend to struggle (mostly because OV and Wake are not good dropping into coverage). I do like his speed packages though when we do rush passer. Far from a perfect DC, but I do think he's done a solid job.

Kacy Rodgers may be the best coach on our roster, and I'm shocked nobody as ever tried to pry him away from us as a DC. Outside of Dion Jordan (and with him he's suspended so not much he can do) can you name one linemen he's coached that hasn't been productive for us?

I feel that Anarumo and Adams have done solid work with our secondary in their time here. Turning Nolan Carroll around was a big thing for them, and while Jimmy Wilson is not a safety, they made him into one of the best nickles in football (atleast according to the stat sites last year).

Darren Krein also won S&C Coach of the Year last year so good on him.

The rest are kind of up in the air...

How much of the WR depth is on the coaches and how much is talent?

While we've struggled to have TEs step up in the passing game I feel Dan Campbell has done a good job turning them into decent blockers.

Until this year I think it's fair to say Saxson's RBs have been umimpressive.

Rizzi has a good reputation and his coverage units (outside of Buffalo) are usually good, but our punt returners always seem to make really stupid decisions.

While I don't have the venom towards Zac Taylor a lot do, I don't think he was ready to be a QB coach in the NFL when he got the job.

Grade the staff however you want, letter grades, short, or insightful, whatever. I'm just interested in hearing what the board thinks of the different units.
 
A's - Benton (and his staff), Duffner (and his staff), and Rodgers

All three get the most out of their players, Benton had a monumental task of taking a group of guys who have never worked together and turn them into a respectable group...granted he has talent to work with, but the quick turn arounf and success is impressive. Duffner has had the most adversity as a coach, first has to deal with a unit that is very depleted of talent and second has had more injuries then any other unit. While the guys haven't been great, they have played respectable. Rodgers in the most consistent positions coaches in the NFL...develops guys and get the most out of them.

B's - Campbell...Sims is a hell of a blocker and Clay came on nicely last season. Again, he doesn't have a lot to work with, but the players are getting better each season.

The other Units are hard to judge...most have decent talent to work with (especially WR) and it is hard to say whether the success is due to the coach othe players in those positions.
 
One thing it took me until this year to clue into is our team being top 10 in points scored against the last 2 years, which is a big deal and around the league that typically results in 11 wins on average, is its all inclusive including special teams. Our defensive DVOA is actually quite a bit better this season (probably not for long though) but our ppg against ranking is down to 19th, which is mostly due to terrible special teams the first 3 games.

I think Coyle is severely underrated around here, how our defense performs without that one instinctive LB or safety that most elite defenses possess, and without an offense that allows them to feast once in a while, like they could against the Raiders, is nothing short of a miracle for me.

Rizzi has always annoyed me, he reminds me of a yapping Chihuahua on the sideline. I gained a bit more respect for him in preseason though after a punt was blocked but the result of the play was a first down for us due to a penalty. Rizzi, rightly, didn't give a fist pump at the result or even a thank god, he lost his lid and started screaming at the guy that ****ed up (Mathews I think). Landry has been disappointing on punt returns but I think he'll clean a lot of that stuff up, and he'll develop into a dependable guy if nothing else. It would be nice to have a specialist returner though.

I think both Coyle's and Rizzi's units have been hit hard by injuries but especially Rizzi's. Even something that seems unrelated like carrying Pouncey on the 53 probably cost us one good special teams specialist.

Coyle gets an A for me.
Rizzi a C+
 
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Well I'm not going to go down the list, but I would say that the three coaches I have been most impressed with in 2014 are all new hires: Duffner, Benton, and Lazor. I would give Duffner and Benton 'A' evaluations without hesitation based on what I've seen, and I'm pretty much ready to say the same for Lazor.

My honest feeling at this point is that Joe Philbin hamstrung himself with bad assistant coaches when he first assembled his staff.

I'm going to go ahead and give Zac Taylor that 'F,' and here's why: What the heck has he been doing for 2 years if our offensive coordinator has to come in and fix the QB's mechanical issues?
 
As soon as Kubiak got canned in Houston I was saying we need to sign Benton. Awesome get by Philbin. Benton is to the O-line what Kacy Rodgers has been to the D-line. Both of those guys are A+ positional coaches.

Duffner has been doing a nice job with what he has. It's still early but I like what I've seen so far. It's a small sample size but he's even been able to make Wheeler look competent on the field.

Jeff Nixon...not too impressed. Yeah we're running the ball well (more a function of improved O-line play) but he's been here since 2011 and our RBs still have issues picking up blitzers and general pass blocking when needed. That's a function of coaching and it's really surprising in today's NFL with the passing game being what it is.

Zac Taylor should have been gone with Sherman...guy is useless. When Lazor comes in and the first thing he's talking about it Tannehill's foot work and how it needs to be fixed you have to wonder what the heck Taylor was doing with Tannehill from college to his first two years in the NFL.

Darren Rizzi...I've heard for years that this guy is one of the top special teams coaches for a long time. He's been the SP coach since 2011 and I think he was the assistant SP coach for two years before that so he's been here a while. I'm beginning to think he's not as good as advertised. While our return teams have been OK (more a function of who we have returning the football) our coverage teams have not been good.
2011
#10 in kickoff return coverage (average yards per return)/Tied for #16 in punt coverage (average yards per return)
2012
#23 in kickoff return coverage (average and also gave up 1 TD)/#25 in punt coverage (also gave up a TD)
2013
#15 in kickoff return coverage/#22 in punt coverage
2014 (so far)
#29 in kickoff return coverage (also gave up a TD)/#32 in punt coverage (we are tied for last with San Francisco)

Plus there's also the matter of Carpenter making better than 90% of his FG attempts in Buffalo when he never accomplished that feat in 5 years in Miami. In his 5 years in Miami he went 1/1 his rookie year from 50+ and then never made better than 50% from that distance and in his 1+ season in Buffalo he's 6/9 from 50+ including hitting a 58-yard FG last week to win the game for Buffalo.

So Basically Rizzi's punt coverage teams have been awful and Carpenter has looked like a pro bowl kicker since he left...I'm not buying Rizzi anymore.
 
Not judging anybody that good or bad based on 4 games.
 
What I really liked about the Lazor hire was he could determine, or help determine, what Taylor was good or bad at as a QB coach and he could take over everything if he had to. I suspect Lazor is doing most of the "teaching" right now while Taylor is doing a lot of the grunt work like breaking down film and still shots.
 
J. David Wannyheimer said:
Well I'm not going to go down the list, but I would say that the three coaches I have been most impressed with in 2014 are all new hires: Duffner, Benton, and Lazor. I would give Duffner and Benton 'A' evaluations without hesitation based on what I've seen, and I'm pretty much ready to say the same for Lazor.

My honest feeling at this point is that Joe Philbin hamstrung himself with bad assistant coaches when he first assembled his staff.

I'm going to go ahead and give Zac Taylor that 'F,' and here's why: What the heck has he been doing for 2 years if our offensive coordinator has to come in and fix the QB's mechanical issues?
Click to expand...

Philbin did not have a lot of options on his staff when he was hired. The Sparano mess had many coaches having no interest in coming to Miami.
 
Southbeach 2 said:
Philbin did not have a lot of options on his staff when he was hired. The Sparano mess had many coaches having no interest in coming to Miami.
Click to expand...

That was part of the issue, another part is that Green Bay has an unwritten rule that if an assistant gets a head coaching job they can't take others from the staff with them. So he relied on connections to Mike Sherman and Iowa for some of the staff.

And as I mentioned when he got hired he initially wanted Duffner as the DC, I remember posting the news but the Jags refused the right to an interview.
 
I don't like Coyle, never have and Im not sure what value Zac Taylor brings. I'm also not sure what value Philbin brings either.

The rest i'm good with.
 
dlockz said:
Just saying your need a full season to judge the job the coaching staff has done. 4 games is too small a sample to judge them on.
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Since we've only played 4 games, I think it's pretty obvious that we fully understand that we're just making an early judgment based on the first four weeks. However, as for some of the coaches who have been here for 36 games, I think we have a decent enough sample.
 
J. David Wannyheimer said:
Since we've only played 4 games, I think it's pretty obvious that we fully understand that we're just making an early judgment based on the first four weeks. However, as for some of the coaches who have been here for 36 games, I think we have a decent enough sample.
Click to expand...

For those coaches I quite agree but the ones that are brand new like Lazor and Benton its way too early.
 
J. David Wannyheimer said:
I'm going to go ahead and give Zac Taylor that 'F,' and here's why: What the heck has he been doing for 2 years if our offensive coordinator has to come in and fix the QB's mechanical issues?
Click to expand...

datruth55 said:
Zac Taylor should have been gone with Sherman...guy is useless. When Lazor comes in and the first thing he's talking about it Tannehill's foot work and how it needs to be fixed you have to wonder what the heck Taylor was doing with Tannehill from college to his first two years in the NFL.
Click to expand...

Seriously. Why is this guy still here? Tannehill's improvement was marginal at best over the first 2 years, it's like he was stuck in stasis. Only thing he got a little better at was not getting his passes swatted time and again.
 
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