Yakuza Rich
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I feel the hiring of the new defensive coordinator will be the most important personnel move for the Cowboys in the next 10 years.
Our inability to find a good defensive coordinator has hurt the Cowboys for quite some time. I like Mike Zimmer as a *person*, but don’t like him as a Defensive Coordinator. Don’t get me wrong, I liked him early on in his tenure as a Defensive Coordinator. I fell in love with him ‘telling it like it is’ and ‘not being afraid to tell Jerry the truth.’ And quite frankly, I fell in love with him cussing a lot in the first season of Hard Knocks the team was in. I grew up in the 80’s when football coaches were more hard nosed than intellectual, I think about the football coaches I had and how the worst coach never swore and the best one swore like a sailor. Same with my dad, an excellent baseball coach that swore like it was going out of style.
I’m not saying that one is better than the other, but it’s just a bit of nostalgia for me and why I liked Zimmer early on. In fact, I still like him as a person as I thought it was great months ago when a Cincinnati reporter asked him about his old boss, Bobby Petrino and Zimmer cursed up a storm about what a lowlife Petrino is.
Still, that doesn’t make for a good defensive coordinator.
By the end of 2002, I started to wonder about Zimmer. But then 2003 came, I thought Parcells would teach him how to be a great Coordinator and the defense had an excellent year. However, I started to discuss the Cowboys with a lifelong friend of mine…a Cowboys fan and defensive assistant for a D-1 college team, and he was in particular sour on Zimmer. He talked about how Zimmer’s philosophy really doesn’t work in the NFL (a stop the run first philosophy with a Cover 2) and how terrible his blitz designs were and how terrible his team was at executing them. I thought he was crazy, but the ’04 defense was horrible (and IMO, worse than this season’s defense) and the same things my friend talked about in ’03 crept up in ’05 and ’06.
As a coach, I don’t think I’ll ever forgive Zimmer for the 2006 Week 2 debacle against the Commanders where we had the game in hand, up 13-0, and then he makes a conservative playcall and Santana Moss makes a big TD catch. Then he makes the same playcall again and the Commanders burn us again. I remember reading from some fans here and writers that Parcells noticeably lit into Zimmer after the second TD and it was supposedly for calling the same play that burned us the first time around. Eventually the defense turned it around that season and just when I considered to forgive him…the Saints game happened. Apparently, Sean Payton knew that our linebackers couldn’t cover runnings and FULLBACKS coming out of the backfield and had a field day. In fact, their fullback at the time Mike Karney, has played in the league for 7 seasons and only has 2 receiving TD’s….both against the Cowboys and both in that one game.
After that, opposing offenses had a field day throwing to their tailbacks and FULLBACKS and Zimmer had no idea how to stop it. And if it weren’t for Romo having such a hot hand at the time, we probably never make the playoffs that season.
The other thing that bothered me about Zimmer was for years and years and years we never drafted an offensive player in the first round. Why? Because there was always some bigger issue on defense each season. And it wasn’t like we were not able to bring in talent. We brought in La’Roi Glover, Roy Williams (who was excellent his first 3 years), Newman, Anthony Henry (who was solid his first 3 years), Ware, Aaron Glenn and others. Yet despite that we wound up having holes to fill on defense each season. To me, that’s a sign of bad coaching.
When Wade came here, I was excited about the defense. He gave Brian Steward the Defensive Coordinator position and in ’07 the defensive started off slow and then got decent by the end of the season. The big thing was that they started to get to the QB more often, which made me happy. But in ’08 the defense struggled heavily early on and didn’t turn it around until the second half of the season when Wade took over playcalling duties. By ’09 Jerry fired Brian Stewart and forced Wade to call the plays on defense.
And we were rewarded as the defense finished 2nd in points allowed and got to the QB. However, we would later see that firing hurt us because when Wade was rightfully fired as the defense cost him his job, we didn’t have anybody in place to take over for him.
We don’t want Paul Pasqualoni. I can tell you that from watching his Syracuse teams for 15 painfully long season. Pasqualoni got the Syracuse job because he was a D-Coordinator for the team for 3 seasons before then. But for those longtime fans like myself, whose family had season tickets once the Carrier Dome opened in 1980, we could tell you that SU’s best defensive days were *before* Pasqualoni was there as D-Coordinator. Back in the days of Tim Green. The problem was that back then Syracuse had a terrible offense.
By the time Pasqualoni became the D-Coordinator at Syracuse, the talent level was already built up by old coach Dick MacPherson and the offensive was an explosive running game, which we know makes things easier for the defenses.
One of the things I believe in is that in general, you’re better off hiring younger head coaches. The NFL requires head coaches to have the mental and physical stamina to log in massive work hours and to be atop of the game from a schematic standpoint. I think the same applies to assistant coaches as well. Look at the Patriots, for the most part they hire very young assistants.
Now, that doesn’t mean there’s no good old assistant coaches. Dom Capers isn’t exactly a spring chicken and the late, great Jim Johnson recently passed away.
Thus, I think when it comes to assistant coaches you should typically look for younger guys UNLESS the older guy is considered a bonafide guru like a Jim Johnson or a Dom Capers.
Pasqualoni is not young by any stretch. And I don’t think anybody considers Pasqualoni to be a guru. At best, Pasqualoni could be considered an old, average, hard working coach.
For me, I won’t watch the Cowboys if Pasqualoni is the D-Coordinator. I’ve been there, done that. Wrote a book about it, turned it into a screenplay, sold it on DVD and made a director’s cut of the DVD. It’s beyond old hat for me. The guy will fail this team and will drive fans nuts.
And it will really depress me to see.
Why? Because I can honestly say that Garrett has changed my mind about him as a head coaching prospect.
I always look at offensive minded head coaches as a big risk-reward. Typically they are very innovative and aggressive. And if they understand winning football and understand how to get the defense and special teams to play well, they typically are extremely successful. But the risk is that they often become very pass oriented and the team becomes soft and the defense and special teams can be neglected and the entire team can be sent into a tailspin.
Look at the Rams. Vermeil was an offensive minded head coach, but was very tough and strived to build a good defense and good special teams and didn’t forget to run the ball. He was open minded enough to hire Mike Martz and give him a lot of freedom in what he wanted to do with the offense. And the Rams reaped the rewards.
Then the Rams gave the HC job to Martz who turned them into such a pass oriented team that the special teams became a joke, the defense was almost non-existent and the Rams went thru droughts where they would forget to run the ball with Marshall Faulk (a horrible commentator, but an awesome tailback). That led to the Rams hiring Scott Linehan, another offensive minded coach, and the team just went into a depths of hell that they still haven’t recovered from.
So for every Sean Payton, there’s a Scott Linehan.
But I’d like to think that Garrett is far more like Payton than he is like Linehan.
However, even Payton made the mistake on defense early on. He hired mediocre Gary Gibbs to take over the defense. After surprising teams and getting some great breaks in ’06, the Saints defense struggled in ’07 and ’08. It wasn’t until he decided to dump Gibbs and get a ‘guru’ type in Gregg Williams that the Saints turned things around on defense and won a Super Bowl.
My fear is that at best, Pasqualoni is just another Gary Gibbs type. And we don’t really know how much Romo has left in the tank. So if we hire Pasqualoni as the D-Coordinator, that WILL hold the team back in the end and then when we replace Pasqualoni, it may be time to have to replace Romo as well.
The D-C position has stymied this organization for over the past 10 years. What has frustrated me about Pasqualoni as interim D-C frustrated me about him when was a head coach. In critical times, he plays ‘not to lose’ instead of ‘playing to win.’ If the Cowboys hire Pasqualoni they are basically ‘playing not to lose.’ I think us fans deserve better than that.
YR
Our inability to find a good defensive coordinator has hurt the Cowboys for quite some time. I like Mike Zimmer as a *person*, but don’t like him as a Defensive Coordinator. Don’t get me wrong, I liked him early on in his tenure as a Defensive Coordinator. I fell in love with him ‘telling it like it is’ and ‘not being afraid to tell Jerry the truth.’ And quite frankly, I fell in love with him cussing a lot in the first season of Hard Knocks the team was in. I grew up in the 80’s when football coaches were more hard nosed than intellectual, I think about the football coaches I had and how the worst coach never swore and the best one swore like a sailor. Same with my dad, an excellent baseball coach that swore like it was going out of style.
I’m not saying that one is better than the other, but it’s just a bit of nostalgia for me and why I liked Zimmer early on. In fact, I still like him as a person as I thought it was great months ago when a Cincinnati reporter asked him about his old boss, Bobby Petrino and Zimmer cursed up a storm about what a lowlife Petrino is.
Still, that doesn’t make for a good defensive coordinator.
By the end of 2002, I started to wonder about Zimmer. But then 2003 came, I thought Parcells would teach him how to be a great Coordinator and the defense had an excellent year. However, I started to discuss the Cowboys with a lifelong friend of mine…a Cowboys fan and defensive assistant for a D-1 college team, and he was in particular sour on Zimmer. He talked about how Zimmer’s philosophy really doesn’t work in the NFL (a stop the run first philosophy with a Cover 2) and how terrible his blitz designs were and how terrible his team was at executing them. I thought he was crazy, but the ’04 defense was horrible (and IMO, worse than this season’s defense) and the same things my friend talked about in ’03 crept up in ’05 and ’06.
As a coach, I don’t think I’ll ever forgive Zimmer for the 2006 Week 2 debacle against the Commanders where we had the game in hand, up 13-0, and then he makes a conservative playcall and Santana Moss makes a big TD catch. Then he makes the same playcall again and the Commanders burn us again. I remember reading from some fans here and writers that Parcells noticeably lit into Zimmer after the second TD and it was supposedly for calling the same play that burned us the first time around. Eventually the defense turned it around that season and just when I considered to forgive him…the Saints game happened. Apparently, Sean Payton knew that our linebackers couldn’t cover runnings and FULLBACKS coming out of the backfield and had a field day. In fact, their fullback at the time Mike Karney, has played in the league for 7 seasons and only has 2 receiving TD’s….both against the Cowboys and both in that one game.
After that, opposing offenses had a field day throwing to their tailbacks and FULLBACKS and Zimmer had no idea how to stop it. And if it weren’t for Romo having such a hot hand at the time, we probably never make the playoffs that season.
The other thing that bothered me about Zimmer was for years and years and years we never drafted an offensive player in the first round. Why? Because there was always some bigger issue on defense each season. And it wasn’t like we were not able to bring in talent. We brought in La’Roi Glover, Roy Williams (who was excellent his first 3 years), Newman, Anthony Henry (who was solid his first 3 years), Ware, Aaron Glenn and others. Yet despite that we wound up having holes to fill on defense each season. To me, that’s a sign of bad coaching.
When Wade came here, I was excited about the defense. He gave Brian Steward the Defensive Coordinator position and in ’07 the defensive started off slow and then got decent by the end of the season. The big thing was that they started to get to the QB more often, which made me happy. But in ’08 the defense struggled heavily early on and didn’t turn it around until the second half of the season when Wade took over playcalling duties. By ’09 Jerry fired Brian Stewart and forced Wade to call the plays on defense.
And we were rewarded as the defense finished 2nd in points allowed and got to the QB. However, we would later see that firing hurt us because when Wade was rightfully fired as the defense cost him his job, we didn’t have anybody in place to take over for him.
We don’t want Paul Pasqualoni. I can tell you that from watching his Syracuse teams for 15 painfully long season. Pasqualoni got the Syracuse job because he was a D-Coordinator for the team for 3 seasons before then. But for those longtime fans like myself, whose family had season tickets once the Carrier Dome opened in 1980, we could tell you that SU’s best defensive days were *before* Pasqualoni was there as D-Coordinator. Back in the days of Tim Green. The problem was that back then Syracuse had a terrible offense.
By the time Pasqualoni became the D-Coordinator at Syracuse, the talent level was already built up by old coach Dick MacPherson and the offensive was an explosive running game, which we know makes things easier for the defenses.
One of the things I believe in is that in general, you’re better off hiring younger head coaches. The NFL requires head coaches to have the mental and physical stamina to log in massive work hours and to be atop of the game from a schematic standpoint. I think the same applies to assistant coaches as well. Look at the Patriots, for the most part they hire very young assistants.
Now, that doesn’t mean there’s no good old assistant coaches. Dom Capers isn’t exactly a spring chicken and the late, great Jim Johnson recently passed away.
Thus, I think when it comes to assistant coaches you should typically look for younger guys UNLESS the older guy is considered a bonafide guru like a Jim Johnson or a Dom Capers.
Pasqualoni is not young by any stretch. And I don’t think anybody considers Pasqualoni to be a guru. At best, Pasqualoni could be considered an old, average, hard working coach.
For me, I won’t watch the Cowboys if Pasqualoni is the D-Coordinator. I’ve been there, done that. Wrote a book about it, turned it into a screenplay, sold it on DVD and made a director’s cut of the DVD. It’s beyond old hat for me. The guy will fail this team and will drive fans nuts.
And it will really depress me to see.
Why? Because I can honestly say that Garrett has changed my mind about him as a head coaching prospect.
I always look at offensive minded head coaches as a big risk-reward. Typically they are very innovative and aggressive. And if they understand winning football and understand how to get the defense and special teams to play well, they typically are extremely successful. But the risk is that they often become very pass oriented and the team becomes soft and the defense and special teams can be neglected and the entire team can be sent into a tailspin.
Look at the Rams. Vermeil was an offensive minded head coach, but was very tough and strived to build a good defense and good special teams and didn’t forget to run the ball. He was open minded enough to hire Mike Martz and give him a lot of freedom in what he wanted to do with the offense. And the Rams reaped the rewards.
Then the Rams gave the HC job to Martz who turned them into such a pass oriented team that the special teams became a joke, the defense was almost non-existent and the Rams went thru droughts where they would forget to run the ball with Marshall Faulk (a horrible commentator, but an awesome tailback). That led to the Rams hiring Scott Linehan, another offensive minded coach, and the team just went into a depths of hell that they still haven’t recovered from.
So for every Sean Payton, there’s a Scott Linehan.
But I’d like to think that Garrett is far more like Payton than he is like Linehan.
However, even Payton made the mistake on defense early on. He hired mediocre Gary Gibbs to take over the defense. After surprising teams and getting some great breaks in ’06, the Saints defense struggled in ’07 and ’08. It wasn’t until he decided to dump Gibbs and get a ‘guru’ type in Gregg Williams that the Saints turned things around on defense and won a Super Bowl.
My fear is that at best, Pasqualoni is just another Gary Gibbs type. And we don’t really know how much Romo has left in the tank. So if we hire Pasqualoni as the D-Coordinator, that WILL hold the team back in the end and then when we replace Pasqualoni, it may be time to have to replace Romo as well.
The D-C position has stymied this organization for over the past 10 years. What has frustrated me about Pasqualoni as interim D-C frustrated me about him when was a head coach. In critical times, he plays ‘not to lose’ instead of ‘playing to win.’ If the Cowboys hire Pasqualoni they are basically ‘playing not to lose.’ I think us fans deserve better than that.
YR
