At a glance Rob Ryan defenses vs Rod Marinelli defenses

[MichaelWinicki]

Yes and that was thanks to Mike Zimmer. Who is one heck of a football coach.

Certainly the pass defense was better during the Zimmer era.

 

[CF74]

Neither neither of these two ever drafted a 1-Tech...

 

[gimmesix]

Most of them were injured though. When we got Brandon Carr, we had to play him at safety which he hadn't played since high school because we had so many injuries. We were bringing guys out of retirement and trying to get whomever we could just to fill a roster.

I am more indifferent about Rob. He had some brilliant schematics, but he also had the tendency to put the cart before the horse in some of his coverages for his blitzes. I had more of an issue with him struggling to get the right people on the field which would cause 12-men on the field penalties and even worse, blown assignments.

But it wasn't like he had no competency as a D-Coordinator.

I was for the switch because offenses were changing and I felt (and still feel) that the 4-3 is likely the better way to defend the shotgun 00, 10, and 11 personnel with quick passes as well as defending RPO's/read option looks. I'd basically rather have my best 4 pass rushers going after the QB almost every snap than have 1 of my 2 best pass rushers in coverage 30-40% of the time. I also feel that the college game is more geared towards producing 4-3 talent

As far as Marinelli goes...he and Kiffin were brought in because Garrett wanted a simple scheme. He stated that with the new practice rules from the CBA that they believed there would be more injuries and players wouldn't be able to catch on to complex schemes as quickly and thus a simple scheme would be best to remedy that problem.

Well, the league hasn't seen more injuries and so much of the rest of the league has been able to use modern schemes and have better defenses than what Marinelli has fielded.

To me, this defense will never get better until we get a better D-Coordinator, a better combination of a MIKE-SS-FS and we get a better strength and conditioning coach and program to cut down on the countless hamstring and lower back injuries. Until then...we're just spinning our wheels.





YR

Yes, we had a lot of injuries during Ryan's two years, which definitely made it tougher on him as a coordinator. Marinelli's had better health but less talent.

 

[CyberB0b]

Very similar stats......however Ryan had way more toys to play with as well.

What? He had Brady Poppinga starting at one point. His teams were riddled with injuries. I'm not a fan of Ryan's, but he didn't have a lot to work with, either.

 

[JohnsKey19]

Gotta also consider the Cowboys offensive time of possession when looking at these defensive stats.

 

[cowboyblue22]

the defense for the cowboys hasn't changed In twenty plus years it has been really bad and is still really bad whoever the dc is

 

[JohnsKey19]

Haven't had a top 5 defense since Parcells first season with us.

Defense has been a weakness since the team quit on Wade in 2010.

 

[Aven8]

What? He had Brady Poppinga starting at one point. His teams were riddled with injuries. I'm not a fan of Ryan's, but he didn't have a lot to work with, either.

He had Ware and Spencer which is was more then we have now.

We don't value defensive players it's obvious, between both schemes.

 

[kevm3]

Here we go to play another round of musical chairs with defensive coordinators again. Watch marinelli leave and go onto a team that takes defense seriously and run a top 5 defense. I remember it was all Rob Ryan's fault. then it was kiffen's fault. Now it's marinelli's fault and there is some defensive genius that is going to turn one of the worst d lines in the league, a linebacker core one Sean Lee injury away from being mediocre, a young secondary and a mediocre safety tandem into a shut down defense.

 

[ryanbabs]

Just like a thought. They both suck. The TV doesn't lie.

What's weird is that (as I recall) Rod's first year, we caused a lot of turnovers and our guys were going after the ball. Not sure what happened.

 

[Hawkeye19]

Here we go to play another round of musical chairs with defensive coordinators again. Watch marinelli leave and go onto a team that takes defense seriously and run a top 5 defense. I remember it was all Rob Ryan's fault. then it was kiffen's fault. Now it's marinelli's fault and there is some defensive genius that is going to turn one of the worst d lines in the league, a linebacker core one Sean Lee injury away from being mediocre, a young secondary and a mediocre safety tandem into a shut down defense.

Pretty much.

Bill Parcells restocked the cupboard for Wade and reset the team's mindset from perennial loser to quasi-contender-- Phillips in turn had some early success, but was unable to be an effective HC down the line. Jason Garrett is an offensively focused HC-- so there just has not been much of an identity to the defense. Draft picks have gone in that direction-- but we seem to draft serial under-performers. I have not seen many players develop and progress on defense under this regime.

Frustrating does not begin to describe what our experience has been watching the defense for the past 20 years.

 

[diefree666]

Pretty much.

Bill Parcells restocked the cupboard for Wade and reset the team's mindset from perennial loser to quasi-contender-- Phillips in turn had some early success, but was unable to be an effective HC down the line. Jason Garrett is an offensively focused HC-- so there just has not been much of an identity to the defense. Draft picks have gone in that direction-- but we seem to draft serial under-performers. I have not seen many players develop and progress on defense under this regime.

Frustrating does not begin to describe what our experience has been watching the defense for the past 20 years.

When your head coach and GM are both offensively oriented then the result is a given.

 

[ConceptCoop]

He had Ware and Spencer which is was more then we have now.

We don't value defensive players it's obvious, between both schemes.

Tank is on a Ware like pace and we still suck.

 

[Toruk_Makto]

That doomed Rob. He got his corners. They didn't matter. He was immediately fired.

Then everybody celebrated the scheme switch and the arrival of Marinelli.

Do at least some of you ever feel silly when you look back on stuff like this?

Risen asking if others feel silly about an opinion gone awry.

High class comedy.

 

[Toruk_Makto]

Very similar stats......however Ryan had way more toys to play with as well.

Two things.

A) Defensive talent isn't remotely similar between the two regimes.

B) Offense are scoring more points today than they were 8 years ago and the rules are even more skewed towards them.

 

[SlammedZero]

It's as if this defense is just doomed to ever stay healthy or come together. Feels like a super looooooooooong project.

For some reason I always remembered Ryan's defenses having decent Dlines that brought the heat alot but his secondaries always sucked.

 

[cml750]

Look at Zimmer's defense in 2004 - 2006. It wasn't good. '04 was one of the worst defensive teams in Cowboys history. '06 we couldn't figure out how to stop a fullback from catching passes wide open out of the backfield. The same when he went to Atlanta in '07...lousy defense.

It wasn't until Zimmer started working for Marvin Lewis, one of the best D-Coordinators in the league in the past 30 years that Zimmer's defenses took off. When Zimmer was with Atlanta for that 1 season he did an interview and was a big proponent of stopping the run and thought stopping the pass was just an ancillary thing to worry about. The same when he was with Dallas.

I think he clearly learned a lot from Lewis (who has the 2nd best defense in the league right now) and changed his defensive philosophy for the better. Good for him, but he wasn't nearly this good of a defensive coach when he was with us and he needed to go because he was never going to develop into the coach he is now.





YR

I don't usually disagree with you very much but this post is just wrong. Zimmer had a heck of a defense with the Cowboys. It was tops in the league Tuna's first year here because Tuna let Zimmer run his own defense which was a 4 - 3 defense. In Year two of Tuna, he made Zimmer switch defenses. He made him switch to 3 - 4 defense which Zimmer had never coached. That is when Zimmer started "sucking" and the GROZ crew started around here. When Zimmer went to the Bengals with Lewis, he went back to his natural defense and "miraculously" became good again.

 

[Jake]

Haven't had a top 5 defense since Parcells first season with us.

Yeah, and he switched us to a 3-4. That worked out well.

 

[WillieBeamen]

Dont want to hear any excuses for Marinelli.

1. Passes on TJ Watt for Taco

2. Doesnt want a 300+lb NT because he wants the 1 tech to get up-field, thus making it harder to stop the run.

3. Barely blitzes which makes it easy for bad qbs to get comfortable

4. Overrates the lesser talented players on the roster (Heath, Hayden, Scandrick)

5. Insists on playing a soft zone when we have no pass rush



We desperately need to move on from him this off-season

 

[Yakuza Rich]

I don't usually disagree with you very much but this post is just wrong. Zimmer had a heck of a defense with the Cowboys. It was tops in the league Tuna's first year here because Tuna let Zimmer run his own defense which was a 4 - 3 defense. In Year two of Tuna, he made Zimmer switch defenses. He made him switch to 3 - 4 defense which Zimmer had never coached. That is when Zimmer started "sucking" and the GROZ crew started around here. When Zimmer went to the Bengals with Lewis, he went back to his natural defense and "miraculously" became good again.

We didn't switch in year two with Parcells. We still used a 4-3 and it was arguably the worst defense in Cowboys history at that point.

We didn't go to the 3-4 until 2005 when we drafted Ware and Spears.

We also went on an incredible streak of not drafting offensive players in the first round during the Summer era and outside of 2003 we had average at best defenses.

Zimmer was a mediocre D-Coordinator here any way you slice it.




YR