At a glance Rob Ryan defenses vs Rod Marinelli defenses

[RS12]

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.

In hindsight we all griped about Spencer, but he was one of the better defenders of the millennium.

 

[xwalker]

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

They were 2nd in points allowed and 1st in yards allowed in 2003.

They were transitioning to 3-4 personnel in 2004.

Despite adding more talented players, Parcells 3-4 never got close to the 2003 ranking again. The scheme switch was stupid.

 

[bigdnlaca]

Im with Ryan on this one. The reason why and people forget about is that Garrett was doing the play calling. Cowboys werent into running the football which led to a lot of turnovers, bad offensive games, and his defense being on the field for a long time.

Marinelli came in with Garrett not calling the plays anymore. Yes, Callahan was bad but at least he was trying to run the ball and make Romo protect the ball by not go vertical too much.

Ryan may had the better defensive players but he had to take a lot of chances due to the offense. Marinelli has a better offense to work with, which should have resulted to a predictable offense on the opposing side. However, his defense can't even stop that.

 

[jobberone]

Was that the cause. Somewhere I read someone told Jones Ryan schemes didn't make sense. I don't know

It is correct Ryan didn't fit in and this is primarily personality not scheme. Ryan did use exotic defenses a lot and took chances.

EDITED for clarity.

 

[Bleedblue1111]

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

If Marvin Lewis ever gets fired, Jerry needs to bring him in immediately, to be our defensive coordinator.

 

[Aven8]

In hindsight we all griped about Spencer, but he was one of the better defenders of the millennium.

We always gripe when we feel they are being paid too much. He got the franchise tag twice I believe. Would take him in NY second today though!

 

[jobberone]

Most of the time teams come into the game with the idea of stopping the run. But stopping the run takes away a decent amount of an offense's game plan and playbook. An offense needs to run the ball in order to sell play action etc. You win most games by winning the pass diff not being able to run the ball at will. And there is a huge difference in running all over another team and running the ball effectively. Most teams work hard to manage the latter and very few teams have ever been able to run the ball at will.

 

[xwalker]

Im with Ryan on this one. The reason why and people forget about is that Garrett was doing the play calling. Cowboys werent into running the football which led to a lot of turnovers, bad offensive games, and his defense being on the field for a long time.

Marinelli came in with Garrett not calling the plays anymore. Yes, Callahan was bad but at least he was trying to run the ball and make Romo protect the ball by not go vertical too much.

Ryan may had the better defensive players but he had to take a lot of chances due to the offense. Marinelli has a better offense to work with, which should have resulted to a predictable offense on the opposing side. However, his defense can't even stop that.

Ryan was here with Romo in his prime.

Those were 2 of Romo's top 3 years statistically.

 

[bigdnlaca]

Ryan was here with Romo in his prime.

Those were 2 of Romo's top 3 years statistically.

Because they passed the ball a lot. I believe in 2012, he passed around or more than 600 times.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

They were 2nd in points allowed and 1st in yards allowed in 2003.

They were transitioning to 3-4 personnel in 2004.

Despite adding more talented players, Parcells 3-4 never got close to the 2003 ranking again. The scheme switch was stupid.

We didn't transition to 3-4 personnel in 2004,

Simply didn't happen,

We only transitioned *after* 2004 as our defense was so terrible and it was what Parcells wanted anyway.





YR

 

[Yakuza Rich]

If Marvin Lewis ever gets fired, Jerry needs to bring him in immediately, to be our defensive coordinator.

Amen to that




YR

 

[BigStar]

We always gripe when we feel they are being paid too much. He got the franchise tag twice I believe. Would take him in NY second today though!

It was frustrating in that his tagged years could've been used elsewhere (aka just winging it seeing we had not replacements in mind), not Spencer himself. There were some fans acting as if JJ's money affects them, but it was mostly aimed @ the team not gauging his value accurately and signing a contract over doing the tag twice.

It kinda worked out, but think we should've stuck with another 3-4 DC after Rob over revamping the whole system w/Kiffin/Marinelli, etc. We would've kept Ware, signed a real NT, and drafted a replacement for Spencer over consec. tags, etc. Given, hindsight is always 20/20.

 

[Nova]

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.

Thank You!

Surprised it took 2 pages for someone to recall that.

We were at one point playing our 5th and 6th linebackers at ILB.

For 2 years we were absolutely gashed by injuries up the middle of our defense, and the good pieces were old.


Rob's defense still sucked from a schematic stand point, but he did not have "better toys".

I would argue the defense is more talented now than it was then.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

We didn't transition to 3-4 personnel in 2004,

Simply didn't happen,

We only transitioned *after* 2004 as our defense was so terrible and it was what Parcells wanted anyway.





YR

In fact we not only played 4-3 for all of 2004, but our starting front 7 was

LDE- Ellis
DT - Glover
DT - Leo Carson
RDE - Wiley
WILL- Coakley
MLB - Nguyen
SAM - Singleton




YR

 

[xwalker]

It was frustrating in that his tagged years could've been used elsewhere (aka just winging it seeing we had not replacements in mind), not Spencer himself. There were some fans acting as if JJ's money affects them, but it was mostly aimed @ the team not gauging his value accurately and signing a contract over doing the tag twice.

It kinda worked out, but think we should've stuck with another 3-4 DC after Rob over revamping the whole system w/Kiffin/Marinelli, etc. We would've kept Ware, signed a real NT, and drafted a replacement for Spencer over consec. tags, etc. Given, hindsight is always 20/20.

It didn't matter if they switched at that point. They eventually moved on from Spenver and Ware because they didn't think they could stay healthy.

Ratliff flipped out mentally.

Hatcher had his best year with Marinelli.

Sean Lee is great in either defense, but WLB in the 4-3 keeps him away from OL blocks more than 3-4 ILB or 4-3 MLB.

Bruce Carter fit either defense about the same.

Josh Brent departed because of the car wreck.

Sean Lissemore is about the only player that was a better fit in the 3-4.

 

[Beast_from_East]

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

Interesting......so coach Clapper wanted a simple vanilla scheme because he thought with the new practice rules there would be more injuries and the players couldn’t learn hard schemes?

As usual, he was wrong and there were not more injuries so we are left running this ridiculously simple scheme.

And we wonder why QBs like Aaron Rodgers goes through this defense like a knife through warm butter.

 

[waving monkey]

If his schemes didn’t make sense, what about Rod’s schemes producing almost identical numbers? Do they make sense?

Beast correct me if I'm mistaken but Ryan had more talent and experience on his squad.In my mind their not equavilant .however Ryan lost his gig because of personality.

 

[Beast_from_East]

Beast correct me if I'm mistaken but Ryan had more talent and experience on his squad.In my mind their not equavilant .however Ryan lost his gig because of personality.

I would say their talent was similar, but personality and scheme switch to an easier one due to the new practice rules were the main reasons.

 

[gmoney112]

I love numbers with 0 context.

If anyone wants to show me a great defense with 0-1 Pro Bowlers feel free to share.

 

[Rack]

The problem isn't the DCoord, it's the level of talent on defense (or lack thereof). We have too many "potential" elites (Irving, JSmith, Jones) and not enough actual players that are elite (DLAW and Lee).