Nolan and points allowed

Ranched · Jan 13, 2020

jazzcat22 said:
Look at our offense, they were 1st in yards, but still failed to produce points when really needed.

Reason being, Ewok took himself out numerous of times. That $90 Million was just too heavy of a load. :lmao:

_sturt_ · Jan 13, 2020

So much of it all is simply reputation, of course, and we've had that discussion in other threads.

Imo, it makes sense for the head coach to hire, yes, someone he feels he can work with...

And/but also someone who his offenses have faced before, and each time he came away pizzed b/c the former DC's defenses frustrated the heck out of him.

And on that note, has anyone looked to see how McC's GB or SF offenses did versus Nolan's defenses?

nightrain · Jan 13, 2020

I am most interested in the offense, defense and special teams playing a cohesive brand of complimentary football. If the three units can be productive and not let their play become a disadvantage the other, this could be something special.

Stats are nice, but it doesn't always equate to wins. Efficiency at capitalizing on opportunities wins games.

kumizi · Jan 13, 2020

So he went from 5th to 27th in one year at his previous job. Yippee

EJK24 · Jan 13, 2020

Points against is obviously a big thing to look at, but for me, turnovers will be something I will keep a close eye on. If you can force turnovers to allow your offense shorter fields and also swing the momentum of the game, that is huge. Our special teams playing terribly was obviously a big part of the reason we started with bad field position, but having a few forced turnovers could help those numbers out a bunch as well.

ondaedg · Jan 13, 2020

charron said:
We have 2 major weaknesses. Our defense and daks arm vs average or better defenses. Running helps with both issues.

With all new coaches I'm doing a hard-reset on our team and not declaring anything a weakness until we've had some time to see what these coaches can do with this group. If they can get us to an average or above average group in takeaways alone we win at least 2 more games.

Now if we regress on defense...

gimmesix · Jan 13, 2020

Hennessy_King said:
Go look at the teams and qbs of those teams he was on. His defense was prolly on the field for 40 minutes a game lol. Not much talent on the defense either

I understand that this is just base information without much context. I don't have the time to do a full breakdown of the those teams, but would love to see an in-depth analysis.

charron · Jan 13, 2020

ondaedg said:
With all new coaches I'm doing a hard-reset on our team and not declaring anything a weakness until we've had some time to see what these coaches can do with this group. If they can get us to an average or above average group in takeaways alone we win at least 2 more games.

Now if we regress on defense...

I'm basing the defense as being a weakness because of all of the free agents were going to lose in the lack of money we're going to have once we pay Dak and amore recoup their talent on that side of the ball we're going to have to draft a lot of guys and then use some cheap free agents to fill in the rest of the roster on the defense. and while I don't think that we're going to have another historically bad defense we're not going to be better than where we were last year.

Hennessy_King · Jan 13, 2020

gimmesix said:
I understand that this is just base information without much context. I don't have the time to do a full breakdown of the those teams, but would love to see an in-depth analysis.

If you break it down to points per drive they were top 15 5 times. top 10 3 times.

gimmesix · Jan 13, 2020

kskboys said:
Using points against to gauge a D is mostly inaccurate. You're not considering ST's, starting field position, type of O being run, etc... when you use points as a rating system. That's why the NFL uses yards, it's a more accurate evaluation tool because every yard given up was given up by the D.

I agree that there are issues with it and didn't intend for it to be seen as an end-all.

I'm not a fan of the yardage system. Just like with points, taken hand in hand it can give you a better overall picture, but yards can be inflated as well. For example, if your team has built a huge lead, then generally your defense is working more to prevent the offense from scoring quickly to catch up. Often that results in inflated yardage stats.

I don't think there's one evaluation tool that can give you a true picture, but I think generally if your defense/team is not giving up a lot of points either you're winning or your offense sucks.

ABQCOWBOY · Jan 13, 2020

To me, the problem with Nolan is that he blitz's a lot and that's not necessarily a bad thing but it will get you burned. So, the more times you see it, the easier it is to burn it. This, to me, is why you see his teams start strong and then kind of decline. Teams see his scheme, they figure out his blitz packages and his personnel and then they adjust.

JMO

CATCH17 · Jan 13, 2020

ABQCOWBOY said:
To me, the problem with Nolan is that he blitz's a lot and that's not necessarily a bad thing but it will get you burned. So, the more times you see it, the easier it is to burn it. This, to me, is why you see his teams start strong and then kind of decline. Teams see his scheme, they figure out his blitz packages and his personnel and then they adjust.

JMO

I actually like it.

Dallas has some freakish players on the defensive side of the ball that are smart guys as well and just being so passive seems like a big waste of talent.

Let's get down hill and go attack the QB more and stop playing a defense that is really them just playing in a way that tries not to screw it up for the offense.

Losing Byron Jones is got going to be good for a coach that wants to blitz though. Byron is going to be a bigger loss then people think but I do think the league will out price him for us.

Established1971 · Jan 18, 2020

charron said:
We have 2 major weaknesses. Our defense and daks arm vs average or better defenses. Running helps with both issues.

the special teams problem is serious too

CyberB0b · Jan 18, 2020

Nolan's a bum. There's a reason he's been with a million teams and was coaching linebackers for the last 4 years.

DallasDW00ds0n · Jan 18, 2020

Defense needs more talent. Too many wussies that don’t like downhill running RBs.

dwmyers · Jan 18, 2020

kumizi said:
So he went from 5th to 27th in one year at his previous job. Yippee

Yes, losing an elite pass rusher can do that to a defense. No John Abraham. Osi Umenyora couldn't replace his production. That's not on the DC.

Go to this link: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/atl/2012.htm

sort the defense data on sacks and just look at how much damage Abraham did that year. 10 sacks, 6 ffs.

More so, losses at LB left the team with Paul Worrilow as the best LB on the team. Tons of tackles, often 5 yards or more past the LOS.

dwmyers · Jan 18, 2020

Further, to note, the 2012 Falcons were a running team built on a patchwork OL and the running of Michael Turner. I'd suggest that the run heavy offense of the Falcons at the time made the defenses look better than they were.

In 2013, the Falcons collapsed because their OL collapsed, Michael Turner wasn't a train anymore, and key DL and LB losses. GM Thomas Dimitroff is really overrated because of the Julio Jones trade, and he SUCKS at drafting linemen.

I'd suggest it seems as if Mike Nolan coaches to the level of his talent, and not much more. No, not terribly encouraging, but certainly not the kind of guy whose schemes get figured out on a new team. To note, if his schemes were figured out, that would follow him all over the league, and not just suddenly disappear on a new hire.

D-

DuncanIso · Jan 18, 2020

gimmesix said:
Seeing that there is a lot of concern or hesitation about McCarthy making Mike Nolan his defensive coordinator, I went back and looked at all of Nolan's stops as a DC paying attention to what I consider the most important stat for the position: points against.

Nolan has been defensive coordinator for seven teams before now. At all but his two one-year stops (New York Jets and Denver Broncos, he had at least one top-10 defense in points against). NOTE: I did not check if any of these teams had a defensive-minded head coach who might have been propping Nolan up.

At his first stop with the New York Giants, he had the No. 1 defense in points against his first year, following by the eight, 16th and 10th. He then went to the Commanders and had the eighth before a bad drop-off to 28th and 29th. (Not sure what happened there.)

In his one year with the Jets, his defense was 13th in points against. Then, he went to the Ravens and had the 19th-ranked defense in that category before being sixth the next two years.

One year with Denver, produced the 12th-ranked defense in that category before he moved on to the Dolphins. There, he started with the 14th-ranked defense in points against before improving it to sixth the next year.

In his last stop as a DC, he had the Falcons fifth in the category his first year before a drop-off similar to the one he had in Washngton (27th the next two years).

So, the good news is that he's had eight top-10 defenses in points against, including the No. 1 defense his first year. The bad news is he's had nine defenses ranked outside the top 10, including four near the bottom of the league.

Again, there can be a lot of reasons for the disparity in his success, but it seems like he's mainly hit and miss. About half the time, we can expect his defenses to clamp down on scoring. And about a fourth of the time, we can expect his defenses to be really porous. (They were middle of the pack five times.)

I can save you a lot of work.

He stinks.

We'd been better with Marinelli. And he was terrible.

DuncanIso · Jan 18, 2020

dwmyers said:
Yes, losing an elite pass rusher can do that to a defense. No John Abraham. Osi Umenyora couldn't replace his production. That's not on the DC.

Go to this link: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/atl/2012.htm

sort the defense data on sacks and just look at how much damage Abraham did that year. 10 sacks, 6 ffs.

More so, losses at LB left the team with Paul Worrilow as the best LB on the team. Tons of tackles, often 5 yards or more past the LOS.

Excuses.

We hired a retread DC that cant coach at an elite level in the NFL.

Who let this happen?????

DuncanIso · Jan 18, 2020

Creeper said:
I am not convinced that Nolan is the best guy for the DC role. I would rather have seen some fresh blood and fresh perspective. But I do think this team needed a change and will benefit greatly from that change. There are some good pieces in place and all I am asking is that Nolan get more out of what he has. Just simple thing like being more aggressive on defense would make me happy.

McCarthy's greatest success will come from getting all the pieces of this team to compliment each other.

Nolan's DC record is terrible.

No way to ignore it.

Nolan and points allowed

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