Why Monte Kiffin? Why now?

[koolaid]

I can't really get too excited about this move, and I'm a guy who was thinking "super bowl!" after we united drew bledsoe and terrell owens. I guess this move frustrates me for a few reasons.

1. I don't think we really knew what we had in Ryan. He had a short off season 2 years ago. This season our defense was devastated with injuries yet they still made a lot of key stops at big moments. We weren't great and more turnovers would have been ideal, but without Lee, Carter, Church, Rat and a broken Ware we were in rough shape. I thought Ryan's defense had a lot of potential going into next season. Consistency in coaching is underrated.

2. Kiffin wasn't impressive at USC and the NFL is changing fast. This guy isn't going to be the long term answer. How many more years can he even be expected to coach? I was honestly hoping for Horton once Ryan got fired, or at least someone up and coming.

3. A few years back we decided the 3-4 was the defense of the future and we drafted to fit that system. Ware is now in the last third of his career and he will be switching to dline.

[dallasfan4lizife]

monte kiffin.....wth??

[TwoDeep3]

Originally Posted by Soth

I have been reading a few articles at blogging the boys. They are a lot more upbeat about the Ryan/Kiffin situation than I am, but they make some valid points. I would have posted the articles but it seems I am not allowed to post links (some post count rule I guess).

This is what they are discussing over there:

1. If you look at all the offensive/defensive rankings this season, the defense is in the bottom 15 range in a lot of categories. On the other hand, the offense is actually highly ranked in many categories. Our main issues offensively are turnovers (Romo?) and running game. Just by looking at the stats it makes a lot of sense to fire Ryan and retain Garrett. Obviously, this overlooks the injury problem.

[View Full Quote]2. We did not have a lot of other options at DC. Horton/Zimmer are under contract. Lovie wanted an HC job, etc. Kiffin was available and the team decided to pull the trigger. They could have waited, but it seems like the saw that as a more risky approach.

3. Kiffin was not successful at USC, but this may have been due to their lack of talent. The sanctions really hurt USC's ability to recruit talented defenders and this hurt Kiffin. Some posters are saying that the system was sound, but players simply lacked the talent to make plays.

4. Our corners will be a good fit for Kiffin’s system, specially Mo. You need corners that can redirect defenders and make plays on the ball, and they think Carr and Mo can do this (even if they are known as more of press/man coverage defenders).

5. Kiffin told Jerry/Jason that he thinks we have the players to run the system. He may be old, but he is qualified to make such a statement. He might also be trying to “sell” himself, so take this with a grain of salt.

This makes me feel a little better about the changes. I would have still preferred to see what Ryan could do in his third year with a healthy defense. But it is what it is.

1. Rankings don't matter if they are based off yards. Yards don't matter. The only thing that matters is scoring.

Kiffin's defense is a bend don't break, risk reward defense that is predicated on stripping the running back of the ball and intercepting the pass. They risk the run after the catch or run after contact and give up yards to play a more aggressive ball hawk defense. So yards do not matter between the twenties if the defense is working.

If the defense is working. But they also require pressure on the quarterback from the defensive line to accomplish this. Something this Dallas team has had problems delivering.

However, mobile quarterbacks have success against this style of defense. And looking at the success of Russell Wilson, RG III, and Colin Kaepernick looks like the league is heading toward the mobile quarterback. Surely if this is a copy cat league that type of QB will become fashionable.

Doesn't mean this defense will not be successful, but the real question is how long will it take to become comfortable with the defense. One of the things people are not talking about is the transition from one style to another. This defense has looked lost at times in a defense they have played for two years.

Now Kiffin will come in and teach a new defense and these guys will become instinctive in this scheme?

We'll see.

2. There is a full compliment of college DC's and position coaches in the NFL that might have wanted to be the DC. Picking Kiffin was not a take it or leave it aspect.

But further, keeping Ryan wasn't out of the question either. So many look at the results from this year - including your post that mentions where they ranked - and seems to ignore injuries. The stiff upper lip comments about injuries don't matter might mean something if Dallas wasn't taking people off the street. It is one thing to bring in a back up and expect him to step up. It is something entirely different to bring in someone who is working out on his own because he is not in the league.

This is the complaint and falls at the feet of Jerry. He decided to make things uncomfortable, and firing Ryan was his big play.

But even the most jaded Dallas fan on this board saw a defense that had improved, even with playing walk ons.

Kiffin may be an improvement, but we'll never know what Ryan's defense was like with a completely healthy team, with a full couple of seasons to adjust, because Jerry just did to Rob Ryan what he did to Chan Gailey. Something he said he regretted, but then just did it again.

And the character assassination of Ryan now that he is fired appears to me to be justification for over reacting and not taking everything into consideration.

3. I would be more concerned that Kiffin wasn't successful because of one of two reasons.

A. He didn't have the players to execute the scheme, which causes concern here.

B. The game has passed him by, and it did Landry, so Kiffin is not immune.

4. But that redirection is to create a beat of a second to get the defensive line to the quarterback. Kiffin's teams at Tampa averaged around 39 sacks a season.

However this defense is taking a 3-4 built for that purpose and then transitioning to a 4-3. One size does not fit all. I suspect there will be some retooling that needs to happen for his defense to optimize his scheme.

How old is Romo again? Ware? Witten?

We can talk about windows and what is and what isn't, but it seems awfully late in the day to decide to just start over on defense.

Again, a take charge guy made a decision that might have been ill-advised.

5. Did he tell the college team he coached for the same thing? Probably so since his son was the head coach.

I would suspect since he was vacating the USC program, there is some selling his product to the Cowboys, and telling them they have players that can execute this scheme would be the first step.

___

I don't know how this will turn out, but there are some legitimate questions that arise with changing a scheme built for the three down linemen front to a four down linemen front, and two of those have been not playing with their hand on the ground.

This defense could thrive. But I suspect there will be growing pains, and with the situation of our offense, the shape it is in, and the fact we are also going to have a new OC, this seems like a great deal of things to change to expect better results for 2013.

Just one question - coming from the hand on the ground stance, and rising to standing during the first step, how does this affect Ware's timing? He is a great athlete, yet has he ever worked from that position through an entire game?

Not since he came to Dallas.

I think once again Jerry knee-jerked when finding the right players could have represented three additional wins and a play-off run.

Throw the baby out with the bath water comes to mind here.

[fairviewfarmer]

Will Kiffin be bringing in his own assistants and who might they be?

[SultanOfSix]

Garrett wanted someone symmetrically the same to him on the opposite side of the ball.

Kiffin is known to allow the team to move the ball between the twenties, but not allow them to score within the red-zone.

In that way, he's eerily similar to Garrett.

[Risen Star]

Originally Posted by fairviewfarmer

Will Kiffin be bringing in his own assistants and who might they be?

He's conducting interviews right now. He might retain a coach or two from the previous staff. Jerome Henderson is supposedly the most likely candidate to stay. Maybe Brian Baker.

[Soth]

Originally Posted by TwoDeep3

I think once again Jerry knee-jerked when finding the right players could have represented three additional wins and a play-off run.

Throw the baby out with the bath water comes to mind here.

I agree. But I was trying to find something positive with the move. It will be a LONG offseason. Usually I am pretty optimistic about our chances, but it is hard to remain optimistic this year.

I thought we would spend the offseason trying to find OL and possibly Spencer's replacement. Now we have to get new DL, new Safeties, OL and Spencer's replacement... How are we going to do that? We have no cap space?

If it were up to me, I would have give Rob another chance and focused on OL, but I am not the expert.

[Beast_from_East]

Originally Posted by Wezsh0T

The really stupid thing about this is that posters here have been saying for YEARS that we need a space eating NT. Why didn't we ever get one of those? I have no idea.

I know, its like football 101 that you better have a dump truck at NT if you want to run a successful 34 defense.

Why we tried to do it with Ratliff, who is a good player, just way too small for the postion.


My .02

[Beast_from_East]

Originally Posted by SultanOfSix

Garrett wanted someone symmetrically the same to him on the opposite side of the ball.

Kiffin is known to allow the team to move the ball between the twenties, but not allow them to score within the red-zone.

In that way, he's eerily similar to Garrett.

[FLcowboy]

Originally Posted by goshan

We didn't score more than 10 points one time in the 1st half this year. We played from behind something like 73% of the time, which I believe was third worst in the NFL.

Yards don't mean much, and were piled up in the 2nd half when we went to a hurry up because we were behind all the time.

We were 15th in scoring (which is average), largely because we accumulated points in the 4th quarter in a hurry up offense that had nothing to do with the game plan.

The offense was not very good, and we were consistently out game planned by opposing coaches. The offense was at least as big of a problem as the defense, and Jerry has pretty much said as much in interviews.

If you don't think they are discussing short comings of the offense and changes they need to make there, you have not been paying attention.

Interesting points. Probably the reason for so many of the turnovers as well. Players are under more pressure to make plays when the team is behind on the scoreboard.

One thing that stood out was the lack of imagination in the playbook. Teams have figured out the Dallas playbook, and there was very little scheming from week to week. The Seattle loss the second week after beating the Giants was shocking, given Dallas was playing against a rookie QB.

[panchucko]

Originally Posted by Risen Star

He's conducting interviews right now. He might retain a coach or two from the previous staff. Jerome Henderson is supposedly the most likely candidate to stay. Maybe Brian Baker.

I find it funny, that the coordinators can interview and bring in the coaches they want. From what is said on this board the HC gets the coordinators forced on to him.

[bark]

A lot of people are focused on how the 4-3 and zone will counter the skins and rg 3..... Our whole off season last year was about countering the giants... Our draft and FA signings were about matching the gnats receiving corps....
Eli has to be licking his chops at the thought of us playing zone coverage....

[JackWagon]

Great .. headed to a 4-3 ... now comes the un reachable quest to find pass rushing Defensive ends ... oh joy.

examples:
Ebenezer Ekuban
Greg Ellis
Kavika Pittman
Shante Carver

oh what fun this is going to be.

[Doomsday101]

Kiffin would not have been my 1st choice but in my view it is not a bad choice. I look forward to see him work with the defense and hopefully can get this unit playing to a high standard.

[BrAinPaiNt]

Why Now?

Because if it was not now, and they waited a few more years...he would be REALLY REALLY old by the time they hired him. As is he is just REALLY old.