Great read explaining the different philosophies between Rob Ryan and Monte Kiffin

[Reverend Conehead]

What I wonder is maybe in today's injury-prone league, simpler is better for defense. When you have a complex system and injuries force you to put 2nd and 3rd stringers in, you end up with confusion. I could see that happening in our D last year. Maybe that's the reason behind the move toward simplicity. Maybe our depth will perform better when it needs to.

What do you think?

 

[Idgit]

What I wonder is maybe in today's injury-prone league, simpler is better for defense. When you have a complex system and injuries force you to put 2nd and 3rd stringers in, you end up with confusion. I could see that happening in our D last year. Maybe that's the reason behind the move toward simplicity. Maybe our depth will perform better when it needs to.

What do you think?

Garrett said exactly this when the let Rob go and brought in Kiffin and Co. That the new CBA had made this even more of a priority and that they wanted to simplify things on defense to make it easier for backups to play and for them to find guys off the street.

I actually believe Garrett that the defensive switch was mostly philosophical. I think there were probably some issues, too, with Ryan's organizational skills, overall, but I think most of the change was to simplify and to make sure we get the takeaways that are causing us to lose close games to good teams.

 

[Idgit]

That mouth was a attractive trait to many just a few months ago and last year.

Plus if we're allowed to give injuries as an excuse for the overall team's performance and ultimately Jason Garrett's performance then why didn't Ryan deserve the same? Unless there is something we don't know behind the scenes, then I think the guy got a raw deal and people are just throwing him under the bus now to make themselves feel better about the future.

Also Idgit, I realize you are one of the few who has remained consistent on Ryan.

The people who liked the mouth the most probably aren't the ones who are bashing him the hardest now. But there's a walk-the-walk/talk-the-talk component going on here, and injuries aren't an excuse as far as that's concerned.

And, I didn't like Ryan because I thought he was sloppy and disorganized and mostly because I hated his father and the stupid Eagles so much, but I didn't particularly mind the braggadocio. That's just an aside.

As I said the the post just above here, I don't really think Ryan took a fall this season. I think Jerry disliked him (just my own suspicion, based mostly on that clip of Jerry ignoring him after the PIT? victory in the locker room), and I think Garrett really wanted to change things defensively philosophically. What Ryan was doing was intellectually interesting but impractical, and it wasn't yielding the turnovers we badly need. I think this was Garrett realizing he made a mistake with the hire two seasons ago, but that he liked Rob, still, all the same.

You can bet that NO doesn't hire the guy without calling Jerry and Jason, first. If there were real problems there, Rob probably never leaves the St Louis gig in favor of the Saints.

 

[Deep_Freeze]

We switched defenses and hired Kiffin and Marinelli primarily because this team has sucked at creating TOs for awhile. Also they felt they could generate more pressure with the 4-3 getting both Spencer and Ware rushing more plays. They may feel their secondary is better suited to Kiffin's schemes.

We'll see but they didn't go to all this trouble to blow smoke or create a diversion. Good Grief!

Come on Doc, I actually think its just that, a diversion. There was so much drama around Romo when the season ended that we had to have something else for the average fan to talk about....hence a scheme change to something ol' school guys wanted anyway. Doing just what Jerry is best at, a sell job.

Deep Freeze, I like where your heads at. The only issue I have is the crystal ball comment. I believe that the math adds up to identifying the problems that plaque this team. One issue is the injures that we can all see but have no solution to, the other is the trench warfare that we won back in the 90s but the GM fails to understand now. Sometimes 2+2 does add up to 4.

Sorry about the trench warfare comment.

The thing I hated most about Rob (and I liked Rob) was he would get conservative at the end of games. Before he got here, Cleveland fans complained about the same exact thing. All those 3 man rushes at the end of games was playing not to lose instead of to win.

I liked the system Rob ran though, you do need healthy players to run it instead of a bunch of guys off the street though cause of its complexity. What I hated about him is his conservative nature (something thats not apparent by his demeanor) at the end of games.

 

[Everlastingxxx]

Weak.

They haven't won Superbowls, but right now I'm looking for wins in January first, something those two teams are good at.

Ravens won the Super Bowl with a complex 3-4 last year. So obviously scheme isn’t the problem.

 

[Risen Star]

Well I can actually agree with most of this post, although its obvious your pointing the finger at Jerry....again.

I really believe the switch was just a smoke screen to get our attention away from the problems of the team. Had to have a change after we have seen year after year of heartbreaking failures....and since we couldn't really change anything big, why not try to sell a scheme change on D.

The only difference between what I'm saying and what you are RS, is that I'm not taking this season as a far gone conclusion that it will go bad and be JG's fault....or that it will go bad at all. With some health, this is a good football team, and anything can happen unless you have a crystal ball and it always says something bad.

When your biggest weaknesses reside along both lines, you pretty much only have a puncher's chance to compete at best. The Cowboys have that because of Romo.

It's not that I don't think the Cowboys have a shot this year. I just don't think they have a much better shot than they did last year. It's pretty much the same team, IMO.

But you see the scheme switch for what it was. Scenery to distract. As if Rob Ryan was holding this team back. Or the 3-4 defense was preventing our talent from performing. Give me a break.

 

[Idgit]

Ravens won the Super Bowl with a complex 3-4 last year. So obviously scheme isn’t the problem.

The Ravens won the Superbowl last season because their QB scored points and didn't turn over the ball. If we could do that, the defensive scheme would matter a lot less, too.

 

[Risen Star]

Ravens won the Super Bowl with a complex 3-4 last year. So obviously scheme isn’t the problem.

And beat another 3-4 defense in the Super Bowl in the process.

Those teams must have missed the memo that the 3-4 holds back young players from producing.

 

[Idgit]

And beat another 3-4 defense in the Super Bowl in the process.

Those teams must have missed the memo that the 3-4 holds back young players from producing.

Obviously, not all 3-4s are created equal, and not all coordinators. And definitely not all personnel. The Niner's defensive personnel is outstanding.

The defensive switch was made to improve the takeaway situation and to simplify communication to limit. It wasn't a smokescreen, it was done with an obvious purpose.

It's also no secret that Ryan's defense had a lot of moving parts and that that movement led to some confusion when we were rotating so many players into the various personnel packages. Ryan was fat and sloppy and had a big mouth and a complicated defense that wasn't able to produce turnovers when we needed them. There's a reason why the guy isn't a head coach, and there's a reason why he's bounced around so much even as a coordinator. It was a mistake to bring him in in the first place.

 

[T-RO]

...But the lack of pass rush by the Dallas front is the kernel that is at the heart of why this defense fails.

And that is why the scheme change is lipstick on a pig unless they can generate a pass rush in my opinion.

And while scheme may accomplish that, the likelihood of success with older stars seems sketchy.

TwoDeep...I found your post far more insightful than the so-called article. Bloggingtheboys is more about hype than anything else. I will congratulate Tom Ryle for this: he at least admitted he didn't' know very much about football. That, and I commend him for a little bit of history.

Even Ryle's torpedoes about why Yamamoto's complexities failed...came up short. Yamamoto failed because the U.S. broke the Japanese code. No football team is going to succeed if the other team knows its opposition's exact plans. The parallels utterly fall apart upon scrutiny.

In my opinion the exchange of Kiffin for Ryan will turn out to be a colossal mistake.

 

[CyberB0b]

Obviously, not all 3-4s are created equal, and not all coordinators. And definitely not all personnel. The Niner's defensive personnel is outstanding.

The defensive switch was made to improve the takeaway situation and to simplify communication to limit. It wasn't a smokescreen, it was done with an obvious purpose.

It's also no secret that Ryan's defense had a lot of moving parts and that that movement led to some confusion when we were rotating so many players into the various personnel packages. Ryan was fat and sloppy and had a big mouth and a complicated defense that wasn't able to produce turnovers when we needed them. There's a reason why the guy isn't a head coach, and there's a reason why he's bounced around so much even as a coordinator. It was a mistake to bring him in in the first place.

Well, we ran nearly every variation of 3-4, sans the zone blitz scheme of Dick LeBeau. None of them ever lived up to the hype.

 

[Risen Star]

Well, we ran nearly every variation of 3-4, sans the zone blitz scheme of Dick LeBeau. None of them ever lived up to the hype.

And our 4-3 defenses prior to the switch were so stellar.

Maybe you need players.

Dallas needs to send Pittsburgh that memo on how you get less turnovers running a 3-4. They've been doing it wrong all these years.

 

[Idgit]

Well, we ran nearly every variation of 3-4, sans the zone blitz scheme of Dick LeBeau. None of them ever lived up to the hype.

We've had some good variants of the 3-4. 2007. Zimmer's first year under Parcels. Even year we were playing really well until the guts were ripped out of the starting lineup. Unfortunately, our offense wasn't cooperating yet at that point.

The 3-4 is obviously philosophically very sound. So is the 4-3. It's a matter of your personnel, and of what you're trying to match up with offensively. And, in the case of our most recent switch, it's about getting more turnovers.

 

[IrishAnto]

The defensive switch was made to improve the takeaway situation and to simplify communication to limit. It wasn't a smokescreen, it was done with an obvious purpose.

To me you’ve hit the nail on the head.

3-4, 4-3 you can win with either, but you have to generate sufficient turnovers to give your team a chance.

Outside of Pasqualoni’s brief tenure in charge of the defense, we haven’t done enough in that department for far too long and Ryan’s defense wasn’t getting it done either even before the rash of injuries.

Pasqualoni played a version of the cover two (abet in the 3-4) that generated 20 turnovers in eight games.

My hope is that Kiffin’s defense can at least approach that sort of rate.

 

[boscokt]

Didn't make it last the WW2 stuff but I'm sure it was good