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Fangio, Kingsbury, Taylor, LaFleur, Flores, & Kitchens. How would you grade these HCs in their rookie year?


ClutchDJ

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Fangio- C. He's been alright. I don't think anyone expected a quick turnaround. He could finish an almost expected 6-10 or could still pull off a 7-9, which I would consider a marginal success.

Kingsbury- B-. He pulled off a couple upsets, but I'm not sure I see much direction. The team still has a lot of work to do. Is he McVay or Trestmann in the making?

Taylor- D. While a rebuild process was expected, the roster is too good to be as bad as they were. Ironically, he could be one of the best hires from this year within a year or two, or, he might not last to next Black Monday.

LeFleur- A. Easiest spot to walk into given the tools at his disposal. Not only did he right the ship, he improved the two nagging deficiencies- run game and defense.

Flores- C+. They've showed some heart. We all knew they'd be bad, but at least the Dolphins tried to be competitive. Walked into a terrible roster but he at least seems to have an idea of what to do. 

Kitchens- F. He's losing the team. They underachieved spectacularly. Wins seemed to come in spite of him. Players regressed. It's hard to see him turning it around. 

Edited by ronjon1990
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Fangio - C. Rough start but I think they're ending up about where was expected given he overall talent, especially on offense

Kingsbury - B.  He and his system have adapted to the NFL far better than I expected 

Taylor - D.  They are the worst team in the league but I'm not sure what was to be expected

LaFleur - B+.  Done well to get the team to the record he has, but can't give him a higher grade because he hasn't improved the offense as much as I would have thought.

Flores - C.  They've done well to win as many games as they have, but that seems to have covered up the fact that this defense is historically bad.

Kitchens - F.  I can't think of a legitimate argument for a better grade

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Kitchens had to be the dumbest head coach hire ever.   Not necessarily the worst...but the Browns had so much momentum after 2018,  there was no reason to make such drastic changes, especially to a completely unproven guy.

Kitchens is clearly an F, but I honestly kinda feel bad for the guy.  He gets tons of heat wven though its clear Haslam is the real idiot in that organization.

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Kitchers: F - Awful. The Browns massively underachieved. I'd fire him now. It's clear he's in over his head.
Kingsbury: B - I think the Cards overachieved slightly. But I don't know that Kingsbury will ever take them to where they need to go.
LaFleur: B+ - Eh, the team is super talented, and I think Mike Pettine deserves a ton of credit. The record looks good, but I wouldn't be surprised if LaFleur is another Matt Nagy.
Flores: B+ - Flores might just prove to have the brightest future of them all, or I might be a fool. But I think he vastly overachieved with a team that could have conceivably gone 0-16.
Fangio: C - Broncos did about as I expected. 
Gase: F - It's not that the Jets have vastly underachieved. They've maybe slightly underachieved. But I think Gase's ego gets in the way of his coaching. I'd fire him now.
Taylor: D - My biggest concern with Taylor after the Bengals hired him was that I felt he hired a bad coaching staff. That's still my biggest concern. He needs to upgrade if he wants to succeed.

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11 minutes ago, jrry32 said:

Kitchers: F - Awful. The Browns massively underachieved. I'd fire him now. It's clear he's in over his head.
Kingsbury: B - I think the Cards overachieved slightly. But I don't know that Kingsbury will ever take them to where they need to go.
LaFleur: B+ - Eh, the team is super talented, and I think Mike Pettine deserves a ton of credit. The record looks good, but I wouldn't be surprised if LaFleur is another Matt Nagy.
Flores: B+ - Flores might just prove to have the brightest future of them all, or I might be a fool. But I think he vastly overachieved with a team that could have conceivably gone 0-16.
Fangio: C - Broncos did about as I expected. 
Gase: F - It's not that the Jets have vastly underachieved. They've maybe slightly underachieved. But I think Gase's ego gets in the way of his coaching. I'd fire him now.
Taylor: D - My biggest concern with Taylor after the Bengals hired him was that I felt he hired a bad coaching staff. That's still my biggest concern. He needs to upgrade if he wants to succeed.

I don't know if Taylor has the balls to revamp his coaching staff, but I think the smartest thing he could do this off-season is throw everything he has into getting Bill Callahan (his son is already on the Cincy staff, so it should give them a leg up) and Jim Tomsula from Washington and finding an upgrade over Lou Anarumo at DC.

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Kitchens: F. He's in way over his head. Now, not everything that has gone wrong this year is his fault, but a lot of it is. There's no excuse for us to lose to teams like Arizona, Denver, and Pittsburgh when they were starting their third-string QB. I'm still not 100% sure that he'll be fired, though.

Kingsbury: B. Arizona is looking better than I thought (not that I thought they'd be terrible). I'm still a bit skeptical of him being successful long-term, but Arizona has got some nice pieces in place.

Taylor: D. He's coaching a bad team, but 1-14 is still really, really bad. I wasn't a fan of the hire at the time, but he'll get at least another year or two.

LaFleur: B. He seems competent at least. I think a major reason for Green Bay's success has been Pettine and their defense. LaFleur seems like he's done a good job at utilizing Jones, but their offense still doesn't seem like it's living up to its potential.

Flores: B+. Winning as many games as he has with that talent is really impressive, despite those wins coming against some pretty bad teams. Miami has a good one in Flores if they keep him after they're done tanking. Flores could end up being the most successful BB disciple, although that's a relatively low bar.

Fangio: C. Denver's not terrible, but they're not good either. I don't think Fangio has held Denver back this year, but I don't think he's made them better either. Basically, he coached to the level of the talent he has.

Gase: D-. I never bought into the Jets being that improved this year, but Gase has still done a bad job. He was dealt a bad hand with Darnold missing a handful of weeks with mono, but their offense was straight up atrocious without Darnold. For an offensive-minded HC, that's unacceptable. I hope they get rid of him soon for the sake of Darnold's future success.

 

 

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Kitchens is a fail, because he's too immature.  Can't get a grip on his football team, and it shows.  

Gase is a fail because he doesn't know even know how to utilize LeVeon Bell.  

Flores is a fail because half of the team left before the season even started. 

Fangio is more of a remediation because he's misplaced.  They got him there because he worked with Joe Flacco, but he's more experienced in defense, so it's a mismatch.  

LaFleur is overrated.  Only reason why he's still there is because Aaron Rodgers likes him.  

Taylor is an obvious fail, because he managed to have more losses in one season than Marvin Lewis did in 20 years.  

Kingsbury is kind of unproven at this point.  He'll need more time.  

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3 hours ago, RamblinMan99 said:

Kitchens is a fail, because he's too immature.  Can't get a grip on his football team, and it shows.  

Gase is a fail because he doesn't know even know how to utilize LeVeon Bell.  

Flores is a fail because half of the team left before the season even started. 

Fangio is more of a remediation because he's misplaced.  They got him there because he worked with Joe Flacco, but he's more experienced in defense, so it's a mismatch.  

LaFleur is overrated.  Only reason why he's still there is because Aaron Rodgers likes him.  

Taylor is an obvious fail, because he managed to have more losses in one season than Marvin Lewis did in 20 years.  

Kingsbury is kind of unproven at this point.  He'll need more time.  

That's not at all why they got him. 

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9 hours ago, jrry32 said:

I don't know if Taylor has the balls to revamp his coaching staff, but I think the smartest thing he could do this off-season is throw everything he has into getting Bill Callahan (his son is already on the Cincy staff, so it should give them a leg up) and Jim Tomsula from Washington and finding an upgrade over Lou Anarumo at DC.

As much as it should happen, I just don't know if it will. Some of that may be on Taylor, but I feel as though our incompetent head office is still quietly influencing those decisions behind the scenes. I don't think Bengals HCs are given full autonomy, and we are just far too conservative a franchise to scratch the coaching staff and start over.

What sucks is for as much as we'd like to see Turner let go, our offensive line got better as the season progressed (as we implemented more zone and less power), so that could be enough to give him another shot before he's deservedly canned. Not to mention the hand he was dealt with Boling retiring, Jonah on IR, and Glenn being out for the majority of the year. Regardless, anyone who rallies behind a Bobby Hart extension should not be coaching at this level. 

On defense Anarumo was just okay, definitely upgradeable. Like Turner's line, our defense got a lot better as the season went on, so he could be given another shot as well. Among other things, he has the awful tendency to drop edge players (Lawson, Dunlap) into coverage in some packages which is just so stupid in theory and ineffective in practice. The lack of finding ways to get Clayton Fejedelem on the field too was annoying as well. 

Because the majority of Taylor's staff was hired late and he had to no doubt settle for some hires, it would be nice if he would sniff around at some upgrades or past preferences. But to be honest, based on what I've become accustomed to in the past, it wouldn't surprise me if they were all back in 2020. We're patient to a fault. Whether that's on Taylor, the Bengals management, or both, remains to be seen.

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5 hours ago, SmittyBacall said:

As much as it should happen, I just don't know if it will. Some of that may be on Taylor, but I feel as though our incompetent head office is still quietly influencing those decisions behind the scenes. I don't think Bengals HCs are given full autonomy, and we are just far too conservative a franchise to scratch the coaching staff and start over.

What sucks is for as much as we'd like to see Turner let go, our offensive line got better as the season progressed (as we implemented more zone and less power), so that could be enough to give him another shot before he's deservedly canned. Not to mention the hand he was dealt with Boling retiring, Jonah on IR, and Glenn being out for the majority of the year. Regardless, anyone who rallies behind a Bobby Hart extension should not be coaching at this level. 

On defense Anarumo was just okay, definitely upgradeable. Like Turner's line, our defense got a lot better as the season went on, so he could be given another shot as well. Among other things, he has the awful tendency to drop edge players (Lawson, Dunlap) into coverage in some packages which is just so stupid in theory and ineffective in practice. The lack of finding ways to get Clayton Fejedelem on the field too was annoying as well. 

Because the majority of Taylor's staff was hired late and he had to no doubt settle for some hires, it would be nice if he would sniff around at some upgrades or past preferences. But to be honest, based on what I've become accustomed to in the past, it wouldn't surprise me if they were all back in 2020. We're patient to a fault. Whether that's on Taylor, the Bengals management, or both, remains to be seen.

I gotta think he hired Brian Callahan thinking that when Bill becomes a FA, he'll join Cincy. No way he doesn't go after one of the NFL's best OL Coaches.

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