sure

 

People who want Pasqualoni fired are woefully misguided and looking at defensive rankings without considering the reality of the situation.

 

I would take a wait and see approach right now. I think we need to get some more talent in the LB area and give our secondary a chance to grow a little more. I am not saying that he is to blame, but that our lack of serious talent and starting 2 new safeties may have something to do with our defensive woes.

 

Pasqualoni is a better fit
he'll look much better
after the draft & free-agency
fill in some holes on defense

can't make a silk purse out of a sows' ear

 

And get healthy again. We had some terrible injuries, and unfortunately in places where we had little or very inexperienced depth.

 

FTFY.

Look, I'm not necessarily in favor of sacking Pasqualoni. He's a good coach. But rankings have very little to do with any disappointment in the way the defense performed at times this year. And with Romeo's track record as a DC, you have to at least consider it if he's available.

 

He will end up with the Chiefs. I know he said he is interested in the Giants, but if they have another bad year Coughlin is gone, so he won't go there.

 

Meh. I am on the fence with Paul P. I think a lot of the problems have to do with the fact that we simply did not have a ton of talent in the linebacking corps, and young, inexperienced talent in the secondary (cornerbacks).

I would be willing to give him another year, provided that we give him some more talent. If the secondary hasn't improved next year and the pass rush is still somewhat dormant (forget the sacks stat, it is very misleading), then maybe we need a change.

 

Hum reuniting Weis and Crennell there...like the new age Patriots of sorts.

As for me I would not mind seeing him here but don't see it as a needed upgrade...now OC I feel a little differently.

 

I'm in favor of Romeo coming here.

The defense this year was seriously frustrating to watch. All of our problems with the 4th quarter, and when we seemed to have fixed our 4th quarter woes, we were giving up 2-3 TD's in the 1st quarter :smackhead:

In all honesty, the defense only impressed me in 1 game, and that was our 1st game against Buffalo. The rest of the games were spent trying to catch up with teams that were scoring on our defense. The "big plays" from our opponets were a constant source of frustration for all of us fans, and the fact that the coaching staff couldn't fix our issues throughout the year leads me to believe they are the ones responsible. I'm well aware of our injuries, old age at OLB and rookie status at the corner positions, but those can't be labeled as the reason for our lack of production on the defense. Besides, good coaches should be able to overcome adversity and keep things moving in a positive direction. Our O-Line being a prime example of good coaching overcoming youth and injuries to be a productive unit.

Fire Paul, Hire Romeo.

 

Players can make the coordinator look better, however the coordinator can also make the players look better.

As far as scheme goes, I was really unimpressed this year. It isnt the results, but how they were achieved IMO.

 

No? Why not?

 

I have to agree with most. While Crennel woild certainly be someone of interest, the issues with our D have much more to do with lack of talent and youth than scheme or coaching. I have to think that Pasqueloni gets some slack given the aforementioned issues...

However, now it's time for Ireland to do his magic and come up with some more gems...he's been somewhat hit and miss to date, but he also gets some slack....for now...

 

if he can teach us how to stop a screen pass I say bring him aboard

 

I thought Ben Franklin was our D coord.?

 

Besides that, it looks like he's heading to KC...

 

I'd take Crennel in a second, I want PP, and especially Henning gone, problem is Henning is Parcells's boy. PP was avg. at best you can always improve, and Crennel is DC pimp. Plus he is in a funny commercial.

 

Perfectly put, the Dolphins are the worst at stopping the screen, and from an offensive standpoint running the screen....just awful...What other team is like that?

 

I should have said they can't be the sole reason why our defense sucked this year. There were instances that injuries and age contributed to our woeful season on defense (J. Ferguson being the main injury I found to be detrimental to the Phins), but the blame, IMO, belongs with the coaches. It's their job to put the players in the right position to defend the endzone, and if the starters are injured, the coaches need to get their backups ready. P.P. obviously couldn't put together a defensive gameplan that was able to stop anybody from scoring on us. Hell, even Tampa's offense looked fairly good aginst our defense.

I hate to do it, but look at what coaching did for the Jets defense. They have the same exact players that they had last year, but due to coaching, their defense is ranked 1st in the league this year. Last year they were 16th, with almost the exact same roster. It's all about coaching.

 

So you're assuming that the only reason people want PP fired is because we looked at defensive rankings?

I watched the games. I saw how unprepared defensively we came out in must wins vs. Houston and especially Tennessee. I watched the Defense give up 27 points 18 minutes into the 1st half against HOU and 24 points in the 1st half against TEN.

That has a lot to do with preparation, and if you're gonna put that all on the players, then I think you are misguided.

Not only that, but what about the 4th quarter meltdowns of our defense in the 1st half of the year.

I'm sorry, but this year's atrocious defense falls a lot on the the Defensive coaches and mainly PP. Lack of preparation was clear. Getting outcoached by the opposing team in almost every 4th quarter in the first 10 games of the season was evident.

Don't get me wrong, there is some lack of talent and some players were out of position too, but that in no way excuses PP and the product he put on the field. I watched this team shut down the Saints and Drew Brees in the 1st half, only to be extremely outcoached in the 2nd half (that's not players, that's coaching).

 

What we need is for somebody to teach our defense how to tackle. Our tackling was verrrrrryyyyyyyy poor.

 

Get real man didn't you see how many tackles Pasqualoni missed this season!?!?!

 

no one ever gets a 'free' pass ... but given our current slate of LBs --- not sure if it was even possible to develop a scheme for them to succeed ....

bring a real OLB, and a stud ILB - and i would predict our DEF would get a whole lot better.

in his defense, the JT/JP experience worked better this go around than the last .... even though it shouldn't have been recommended to try it again (albeit, Roth was the major reason it was forced to).

 

i agree injuries and talent big reason, but predictable, telegraphed, vanilla blitz schemes did as well.. talent can dictatee that 2 a degree, but 0 creativity there.

support another yr of pasq, he wasnt Olivadunce, given talent, he can be success, but excuses have to end and results start

 

I get what you're trying to say, but you've exaggerated this a little bit. They don't have the exact same players. They added at least two starters in Bart Scott and Jim Leonhard, who both contributed greatly to that defense. That said, Ryan has done a much better job with that defense than Mangini did, but Mangini probably would look better had he had those players on the roster too. I agree though that coaching does play a very large role.

 

But we can't all forget that Channing Crowder is the guy that this front office obviously must've seen something in to give him a big contract.

Why would they ever give someone a big contract if they thought he lacked talent?

I don't like Crowder at all, but he obviously has some talent to demand that kind of contract from Ireland and Parcells. And as a result, can't we question on whether or not he's being used or positioned properly by the DC?

 

You're still not explaining why it's the coaches fault, you're saying it has to be because the defense wasn't very good.

 

This is just repeating that a bad result essentially has to be pinned on a coach, which is bull****.

Saying they were unprepared vs. the Texans and pointing that they gave up alot of points early vs. the Texans in no way demonstrates they were unprepared.

You've got to give me SOMETHING tangible.

 

The coaches don't actually play the game, so you will never get something tangible from coaches, unless it's something like going for a 2 point conversion when they shouldn't have or some sort of clock management

What you are essentially saying is that the 1-15 season can in no way be blamed on Cam Cameron at all because there is no tangible evidence that it was not 100% the players' fault.

 

To add further:

Dominating Drew Brees and the Saints in the 1st half, then giving up over 300 yards against the same offense in the 2nd half is getting outcoached.

The players obviously showed that they can execute. The schemes in the 1st half were executed well and we held that offense to 10 points. Somewhere in the 2nd half, there was no successful scheme put forth and therefore we got dominated and the players weren't given a chance to execute a successful scheme against the Saint's Offense.

This goes hand in hand with how bad we have been in the 1st half of the last 3 games. When the proper schemes were put in place in the 2nd half of those 3 games, the Defense showed that it could execute admirably. When the proper schemes were not in place in the 1st half because of lack of preparation, we failed. If the proper scheme is not put in place, the players will appear inept.

 

The Saints game is probably the worst example you could have given. If anything, the game displays the opposite. Paul Pasqualoni's defensive scheming is what had the overmatched Dolphins defense in the game in the first place.

http://profootballfocus.com/pstats.php?gameid=1495

The Saints came out largely in 3-WR sets attempting to throw the ball, as is normal with them, and the Dolphins countered with something that the Saints were not expecting.

Look at Dolphins defense starting about the 4th play(Four over, under 1:3-11) Randy Starks lined up at NT as the only down linemen, with Jason Taylor, Joey Porter, Channing Crowder, Reggie Torbor, and Yeremiah Bell all lined up as linebackers in a sort of cloud defense. That's what ****ed the Saints up. They were totally not expecting that, and couldn't block ****.

What the Saints did to start winning was force the Dolphins into their base defense, you can see it if you scroll further to the right in the later portions. They primarily started running 2-TE sets, forcing the Dolphins base 3-4 defense on the field, and started picking on the reduced pass rush and coverage abilities inherent of the unit.

There wasn't really anything for Pasqualoni to counter with there. The Dolphins couldn't counter with the 6-1/Jumbo 4-3 that they've used all season long to stop running teams, because then they'd absolutely be killed in the passing game. Pasqualoni didn't have a whole hell of alot to go at that point besides going with the base 3-4 and trying to hold them as best as they can, which didn't work... And has been a problem all season. The Dolphins got killed because their linebackers and safeties couldn't cover very well at the end of that game, and there isn't a whole hell of alot he could do to fix that.

 

What specifically do you think Pasqualoni could have done to make up for our lack of speed? I'm not aware of any options that we didn't already try and fail with.

 

I think the main difference between us and teams like the Rams, Lions, Browns, Redskins, and all the other bottom feeders is our coaching.

I'm really baffled at what some are expecting these guys to do.

 

What I'm expecting is them not bringing a totally flat team out on the field, for the final 3 (very crucial) games of the season. We didn't lose those games because we came up a little short at the end, we lost because we got our asses handed to us at the gate.

Not saying I want anyone replaced, I would just like to see some improvement next year from the entire staff, Sparano included.

 

Fair enough, even though you say there was nothing more he could do once his linebackers and safeties couldn't cover the saints. Sure, to me and you there was nothing more he could've done. But maybe another professional NFL DC would have had an answer. At least some type of answer as to how not to let up 25 yards per play

I also cited the Houston game and giving up 27 points 18 minutes in as an example.

The defense got thrashed like that early and then they didn't let up a point in the 2nd half. I just don't know how you cannot put an ounce of that on the DC. To come out so flat, so unprepared against the Texans (who did nothing unusual it seemed) is unnacceptable. The players couldn't have just decided to have started playing in the middle of the 2nd quarter. In fact, players usually give up after being pummeled like that. Some type of scheme had to have changed.

I don't know how you can lay 0 blame on the coach. It's impossible.

 

i am all for him coming and coaching miami

 

You can't just wave your arms around and claim that surely there must be an answer from an X's and O's standpoint to a specific problem. That's not how it works.

I'm not.

But realistically, coaching is several points below talent and the playing a who's who of elite offenses this season in terms of the root of the problem for the defense not doing well.

I don't care how cathartic it is, but yelling "Fire the mother****er" is anti-intellectual and wrong.

 

Disagree Disgustipate, in 08 I could see that argument being made, DC P had to work with what he had to work with, in 09 the players on the squad were there because DC P wanted them there.

I'm lukewarm on DC P, imho he is not an innovative type of coach, as the NFL evolves we may need either a DC who can design better blitz packages or who is the next Bill Arnsparger and is simply a genius at desiging Zone Coverages.

 

Did you watch the defense this year? How about last year? In the last 2 years the defense has gone from so-so to abysmal. They've dropped in rankings over that time span. I'd say the defensive cordinator has something to do with it. He's not getting better, he's gotten worse and the stats prove that.