I know some will be determined to keep saying Marinelli ran the defense but he was not the actual DC, but by title only.
- The defense is primarily on Richard, not Marinelli (who handles the front four - while Richard handled the back seven) Cowboys knew the defense needed to be in another coach’s hand.
and there's a reason why the Cowboys got Richard with the idea to mimic the Legion of Boom style Seahawks defense, and they knew the players were already griping
about the way Marinelli was running the defense when he overseeing the defense.
- Hell Marinelli still had all kinds of troubles and issues with just the front four itself, how will he have coordinated the defense. LOL
- But with all the issues with DL, run gap lapses, lack of a consistent pass rush, rifts with both coaches (Bloom) and players (Jaylon, chido, etc.) injuries, (LVE) non support of management (not hirng Kris’ own LB coach) Richard’s suspect blitzes, ..lapses in coverages and continued flat lack of turnovers, and the losing got so much the best of the players, that they even gave up on him. (see Bears game)
Once that happens to you as a coach, You’re done for as a coach.
and I really believe that was the beginning of the end for Richard here.
- Too bad he was forced into working with Marinelli and his issues,
as well as forced into working with a LB coach over his own preferred LB coach en routed to rifts and internal clashes
and these poor ball hawk DBs were already here before he arrived and you just cannot teach ball hawk skills -even with Byron who he did successfully converted from safety to CB.
- But Richard’s own ill- designed blitzing tendency were the leading reason he was fired by Carroll in Seattle and he didn’t’ seem to be any better here in that area.
- I still wonder about the previous report that the Cowboys were interested in retaining Richard but since we never heard what occurred behind the scenes, I had assumed that an
agreement could not be reached and thus the Cowboys bid him farewell and moved on to other candidates.