Nolan Deserves Plenty Of Credit

Nolan has quite a track record going as a DC these days. Everywhere hes gone, the defense has improved immensly. Also this is two straight years his defense has produced the nfl leading pass rusher with two different players.

 

Thing is, Nolan is not doing anything special with Wake, Cam typically plays the Will and lines up on the RT on the nickel rush, few stunts or twists or what have you.

The change in philosophy on the Dline is as much the reason for the success as anything really exotic happening, Soliai and McD have blown up into Starters, Soliai to me is the key to the improvement.

 

At this point he deserves almost all the credit.

He's locked up unless he gets promoted to head coach right? I would like at least one more year. Hopefully much more. Now if we can get the OC fired ...

 

it would be nice.

 

Padre it's interesting to see Soliai develop as a solid player who has played poorly for 4 years and suddenly the light goes on when a good coach shows up, the FO certainly didn't expect this significant improvement and asked Randy Starks to take on that role.
I wonder what a good offensive coordinator might do with Henne.
Just a thought, I firmly believe that we have a serious coaching problem and their lack of ability to judge talent certainly showed with Soliai

 

Some of us were saying all pre-draft (including myself) that this young defense only needed some time to grow up and gel together under Nolan, especially after adding Dansby...... and as such there wasn't as dyer need of an upgrade through the draft as some people though. I know some members felt it was necessary to use the ENTIRE draft on Defense, namely LBs..... which was completely overkill.

Not to be a party pooper, but we passed on so much offensive talent b/c we decided to jump the gun on defense rather than being patient.

Round 1: Our Dline has to be one of the best in the league, and it has good depth with McDaniel. Odrick was a luxury and a waste of a 1st round pick. What we didn't have was an elite COP back like Jahvid Best.

Round 2: Our OLBs have the best pass rusher in the NFL (I thought that was inevitable). Moses is playing very well. (some of us saw that coming and weren't worried about the position). What we didn't have was a premiere TE like Rob Gronkowski. Gronk would've cost us half as much as re-upping Fasano's contract while most likely developing into the best every down TE in the game. **I still like Misi and didn't mind the pick, but it's hard to swallow passing up on a stud like Gronkowski, especially when you're trying to develop a young QB.**

Round 4: Our MLBs aren't seriously lacking this year as a whole, especially with the addition of Dansby. What we ARE lacking is speed on offense and a playmaking, vertical threat to keep defenses honest who can also return kicks/punts. We're missing a Jacoby Ford.

Round 7: Austin Spitzler.... more overkill at LB. Prioritizing a guy b/c you hope he can contribute on special teams rather than grabbing a power running back like LeGarrette Blount when we know Ricky & Ronnie's time is coming to an end?

I'll add round 3 for good measure b/c it peeves me, too. We had guards on the team and can pick them up MUCH easier than we can a seam-threatening, playmaking, complimentary #2 TE whom we can create mismatches with by lining up all over the field <like Jimmy Graham or Aaron Hernandez>.


Our defense would still be looking great, but our offense with Marshall----Bess----Hartline----Ford-----Gronkowski-----Graham-----Best-----Blount-----R&R would only be a few lineman away from being finished rather than having so many needs in the 2011 draft.

Sorry..... gotta vent on this one. We wasted a 2nd round pick on White..... and now use a 1st rounder on a player we don't even need. Stuff like this can make or break a team when competing in a division with NE and NY. Gotta make these picks count.