J-ALL-DAY Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 Off topic but speaking of positional coaches, can we take a moment to give Coach Turner some love? Dude makes whoever running back there look like a stud. We have a bunch of no name RBs running for 70+ a game LOL. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justone2 Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 11 minutes ago, J-ALL-DAY said: Off topic but speaking of positional coaches, can we take a moment to give Coach Turner some love? Dude makes whoever running back there look like a stud. We have a bunch of no name RBs running for 70+ a game LOL. The guy has been working magic since he came into the league. Worked with Mike Shanahan in Denver and Washington and followed Kyle to Atlanta and now to us. As much as the scheme it is about having a guy like him and makes the loss of Rathman much easier to swallow. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-ALL-DAY Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 1 minute ago, Justone2 said: The guy has been working magic since he came into the league. Worked with Mike Shanahan in Denver and Washington and followed Kyle to Atlanta and now to us. As much as the scheme it is about having a guy like him and makes the loss of Rathman much easier to swallow. No doubt, but also shows the power of having great positional coaches. When we had Harbaugh, we had some top level positional coaches in Donatell and Tomsula among others. That goes a long way in forming a dominant team. I think we are lacking there more so than the coordinators. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justone2 Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 17 minutes ago, J-ALL-DAY said: That's fine, but essentially why we don't have an OC either. If Shanny didn't want to call the plays anymore for whatever reason, he would hire an official OC. I guess another loophole is what if a coach is made to be the run game coordinator or pass game coordinator? Would that be considered an upgrade over a positional coach? Maybe to avoid all the loopholes, NFL decided it is HC and everything else. I think in the end it is about if you want to give someone a chance and allow them to better themselves. And with things like you said you can create a lot of loopholes. Same is with FO personnel who can be blocked to interview as GM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justone2 Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 14 minutes ago, J-ALL-DAY said: No doubt, but also shows the power of having great positional coaches. When we had Harbaugh, we had some top level positional coaches in Donatell and Tomsula among others. That goes a long way in forming a dominant team. I think we are lacking there more so than the coordinators. Absolutely but i think sometimes it is also hard to judge if a positional coach is good or if it is just the talent or the other way around. For example with us Rich Scangarello is he a good QB Coach for what he did with Nick Mullens or is he not because of CJ Beathard. I think on the offensive side we have some good experienced coaches. On defense we have a lot of young guys like Demeco Ryans and Jeff Zgonina who basically got their first shot with us along with a first time DC who doesn't have as many connections as a more experienced guy would have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-ALL-DAY Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 6 minutes ago, Justone2 said: Absolutely but i think sometimes it is also hard to judge if a positional coach is good or if it is just the talent or the other way around. For example with us Rich Scangarello is he a good QB Coach for what he did with Nick Mullens or is he not because of CJ Beathard. I think on the offensive side we have some good experienced coaches. On defense we have a lot of young guys like Demeco Ryans and Jeff Zgonina who basically got their first shot with us along with a first time DC who doesn't have as many connections as a more experienced guy would have. I'm not worried about the QB coach since you have to look at the talent. Coaching up Mullens and making him look playable is a good look for him. But what I am worried about is the lack of progression made by our youngsters. If you want to give Foster a pass for his shoulder I get that. But look at Witherspoon and Colbert. They dind't get better at all. Now, Spoon later in the season played really good ball but he didn't take the next step as most thought he would. How about Thomas? Did he really get any better? A lot of this has to do with coaching. Obviously the talent of the player is big as well, but would have liked to see more progression than we got. Now, I will say coaching as many young players as this team has is not easy. Last two years a lot of first or second year players have been thrown into the fire out of necessity. Turner on the other hand made anyone running the ball look good. Did anyone expect Mostert to give us what he did? Jeff Wilson off the practice squad ran really well in spurts but just had the fumbling issues that held him back. Breida was averaging 5+ YPC all season long. So Turner definitely did his job even when it was clear he wasn't coaching exactly the greatest of talents. Put it this way, if we had Tomsula, I'd be more confident of Thomas reaching his potential than with Zgonina. Now, part of that also has to do with Saleh and how he used Thomas, but positional coaches get overlooked WAY too much. People just point to head coaches and coordinators, but it is the positional coaches that are with their respective group for the entire day throughout the offseason and season. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justone2 Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 3 minutes ago, J-ALL-DAY said: I'm not worried about the QB coach since you have to look at the talent. Coaching up Mullens and making him look playable is a good look for him. But what I am worried about is the lack of progression made by our youngsters. If you want to give Foster a pass for his shoulder I get that. But look at Witherspoon and Colbert. They dind't get better at all. Now, Spoon later in the season played really good ball but he didn't take the next step as most thought he would. How about Thomas? Did he really get any better? A lot of this has to do with coaching. Obviously the talent of the player is big as well, but would have liked to see more progression than we got. Now, I will say coaching as many young players as this team has is not easy. Last two years a lot of first or second year players have been thrown into the fire out of necessity. Turner on the other hand made anyone running the ball look good. Did anyone expect Mostert to give us what he did? Jeff Wilson off the practice squad ran really well in spurts but just had the fumbling issues that held him back. Breida was averaging 5+ YPC all season long. So Turner definitely did his job even when it was clear he wasn't coaching exactly the greatest of talents. Put it this way, if we had Tomsula, I'd be more confident of Thomas reaching his potential than with Zgonina. Now, part of that also has to do with Saleh and how he used Thomas, but positional coaches get overlooked WAY too much. People just point to head coaches and coordinators, but it is the positional coaches that are with their respective group for the entire day throughout the offseason and season. Oh absolutely agree with your last part but i don't think its fair to compare Zgonina to Tomsula at this point in their career. Tomsula has been one the best D-Line coaches there have been where Zgonina is a first time D-Line coach after two seasons as a assistant D-line coach. I think a large part is also recognizing talent in players and how they fit in your style as a coach and as a coordinator. I think with Turner and Shanahan they know exactly what they want at RB and they are good at finding it. Still you will have guys like Joe Williams who don't have the desire and drive to succeed. But yeah we can upgrade at most position coaches esepecially on the defensive side and if upgrades where available we should sign them but there aren't many Tomsula's or Donatell's on the market and most of the guys in that category either follow certain DC's or have been with a certain team for a long time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-ALL-DAY Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 3 minutes ago, Justone2 said: Oh absolutely agree with your last part but i don't think its fair to compare Zgonina to Tomsula at this point in their career. Tomsula has been one the best D-Line coaches there have been where Zgonina is a first time D-Line coach after two seasons as a assistant D-line coach. I think a large part is also recognizing talent in players and how they fit in your style as a coach and as a coordinator. I think with Turner and Shanahan they know exactly what they want at RB and they are good at finding it. Still you will have guys like Joe Williams who don't have the desire and drive to succeed. But yeah we can upgrade at most position coaches esepecially on the defensive side and if upgrades where available we should sign them but there aren't many Tomsula's or Donatell's on the market and most of the guys in that category either follow certain DC's or have been with a certain team for a long time. Sure, but another thing to consider is we have a young HC/young DC, and is it good to have young inexperienced positional coaches as well? Usually when a young HC is hired, they will pair themselves with experienced coordinators who have some HC experience to help them out. Do we have that on our staff? I mean Turner qualifies, and no surprise he is the best at what he does. I'm not sure we can be young and inexperienced all around and expect the players to fully develop, ya know? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justone2 Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 2 minutes ago, J-ALL-DAY said: Sure, but another thing to consider is we have a young HC/young DC, and is it good to have young inexperienced positional coaches as well? Usually when a young HC is hired, they will pair themselves with experienced coordinators who have some HC experience to help them out. Do we have that on our staff? I mean Turner qualifies, and no surprise he is the best at what he does. I'm not sure we can be young and inexperienced all around and expect the players to fully develop, ya know? Yeah thats what we did on the offensive side with guys like Turner, Embree and Benton. On Defense we where pretty late hiring and when you hire a guy like Saleh you don't have a following of good qualified coaches behind him. Add to that we didn't have many coaches under contract already that where anything above average and you end up with either older guys that haven't shown much or giving a young guy a shot to show what he can do. Last year we tried upgrading with a guy like Norton but just a week after we hired him we let him go to the Seahawks. And now a guy like Manuel makes sense but he also doesn't have the proven track record of a guy like Donatell with just two seasons as a DB Coach and two as a DC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-ALL-DAY Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 10 minutes ago, Justone2 said: Yeah thats what we did on the offensive side with guys like Turner, Embree and Benton. On Defense we where pretty late hiring and when you hire a guy like Saleh you don't have a following of good qualified coaches behind him. Add to that we didn't have many coaches under contract already that where anything above average and you end up with either older guys that haven't shown much or giving a young guy a shot to show what he can do. Last year we tried upgrading with a guy like Norton but just a week after we hired him we let him go to the Seahawks. And now a guy like Manuel makes sense but he also doesn't have the proven track record of a guy like Donatell with just two seasons as a DB Coach and two as a DC. Maybe not as much experience as Donatell, but still some solid experience with the Falcons. Would still be an up grade over Hafley. I honestly thought Shanahan would have been able to hire more experienced defensive coaches with his dad's help, but that just didn't happen for whatever reason. He doesn't want to make drastic changes but I'm guessing he won't be afraid to upgrade on a coach or two if he sees fit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justone2 Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 6 minutes ago, J-ALL-DAY said: Maybe not as much experience as Donatell, but still some solid experience with the Falcons. Would still be an up grade over Hafley. I honestly thought Shanahan would have been able to hire more experienced defensive coaches with his dad's help, but that just didn't happen for whatever reason. He doesn't want to make drastic changes but I'm guessing he won't be afraid to upgrade on a coach or two if he sees fit. I think it mostly had to do with Shanahan's desire to go with the Carroll tree in terms of scheme. And i really can't say for certain Manuel is a upgrade over Hafley. For this certain scheme i think it can be since Manuel has way more experience in this scheme. I think Hafley gets more critique then he deserves and this scheme isn't something that fits with his coaching style/expertise. And that probably also is why his dad's help wouldn't really help him in hiring defensive coaches where on the offensive side there is more in common. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
49erurtaza Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 There it is Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justone2 Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 2 minutes ago, 49erurtaza said: There it is Interesting choice to say the least. Will be interesting to see what kind of staff he will be able to assemble. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
49erurtaza Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 (edited) 1 minute ago, Justone2 said: Interesting choice to say the least. Will be interesting to see what kind of staff he will be able to assemble. Yeah something to keep in eye on. Not going to bash it but you can see the Cardinals wanted to copy McVay and Shanahan with youth creative offensives. Edited January 8, 2019 by 49erurtaza 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justone2 Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 1 minute ago, 49erurtaza said: Yeah something to keep in eye on. Not going to bash it but you can see the Cardinals wanted to copy McVay and Shanahan with youth creative offensives. Yeah same with the Packers and LaFleur. I don't think it is the best way of going but things like this always go with waves and i think a lot of the time a big part is what kind of staff somebody gets if they have succes. I expected them to go with a safer hire after the Wilks debacle but i guess they wanted to pair Rosen with a young creative offensive mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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