Curious Case of Mike Mularkey

[TitanLegend]

Just now, TitanSS said:

58%/2900/18 TDs/12 INTs

He definitely improved with McDaniels. In 2010 he had 20 more pass attempts in 2 fewer starts than he had in 2008 with Chicago. They weren't really asking him to do much there.

Feel like that's getting pretty peculiar, but is what it is. Either way there's nothing on his resume that actually impresses me that doesn't involve Brady and or Belichick.

[TitanSS]

The thing that impresses me the most about him is that he's not Mike Mularkey.

[TitanLegend]

1 minute ago, TitanSS said:

The thing that impresses me the most about him is that he's not Mike Mularkey.

Important to remember that it can get far, far worse than Mike Mularkey too. We shouldn't settle, but hiring someone worse does us no good.

[TitanSS]

1 minute ago, TitanLegend said:

Important to remember that it can get far, far worse than Mike Mularkey too. We shouldn't settle, but hiring someone worse does us no good.

Never gonna know who's better until we're watching what they do as HC of the team.

[footlunder]

if the reports are true that JRob really wants Mcdaniels and Mcdaniels loves Mariota, then does your trust in Jrob diminish if you don't want Mcdaniels?  Do you not trust jrob?

[TitanLegend]

Just now, TitanSS said:

Never gonna know who's better until we're watching what they do as HC of the team.

You can look at track records and get a decent idea though. Almost nothing trends favorably for McDaniels. Pats assistants fail as head coach, McDaniels failed in his lone stint as HC, failed again as OC the year after that, then was saved by Brady/Belichick bringing him back.

Look at Dave Toub, John DeFilippo, Steve Wilks, or if you wanna look at some possible "retreads" outside of McDaniels, Pat Shurmur has done wonders with a third string QB, practically brand new offensive line and even lost his stud rookie RB, and the offense still kept humming(but he does have some failures in his past that make you pause), Jim Schwartz has done well as DC in Philly and had some success in Detroit, but his lack of discipline in Detroit is an issue, and so on and so forth.

My issue is from all reports is we're stupidly locked in on Josh McDaniels. If Robinson seriously interviews several people and still decides McDaniels to be the best, then so be it I suppose. But if we fire Mularkey and just head straight to McDaniels after we give our stupid rooney rule interview to someone I'm not gonna be pleased at all.

[TitanLegend]

5 minutes ago, footlunder said:

if the reports are true that JRob really wants Mcdaniels and Mcdaniels loves Mariota, then does your trust in Jrob diminish if you don't want Mcdaniels?  Do you not trust jrob?

I have no reason to trust(or distrust) Robinson's ability to pick a coach at this point. So no I don't really "trust him" if he's just going to hire McDaniels because he's familiar with him. That's Strunk hiring Mularkey all over again. If he interviews multiple candidates fairly and still picks McDaniels, fine. I'll still hate the hire, but fine.

[TitanSS]

Im not seeing that he is for sure the answer, but I'm only seeing one bad season as an offense, and that's with St. Louis in 2011. 

Would easily entertain other offers as well, and the fact that all of his real success comes from the Patriots is scary, but I have always wanted to see Mariota in the Patriots offense, and this is the only way I know to make that happen.

I'm not at all familiar with the other candidates. I never really expected us to fire Mularkey. 

[VY]

34 minutes ago, KingTitan said:

Funny the reason he got the job could end up being why he loses it. 

Protecting Marcus was the top reason he was hired. 

Improving Marcus or failure to improve him could be why he loses it. 

His methods are so outdated though. He can protect Marcus in other ways, namely by spreading the field to open up more space, getting hard-hitting LBs off the field for smaller DBs, etc. Mularkey either just doesn’t get it or is too stubborn.

I’m just tired of the same narrow splits with long developing routes. Get him on what Wentz was doing this year and we average 5-10 more ppg pretty quickly.

[TitanSS]

No real interest in Toub. I know Kansas City was high powered this year, but I feel like they can get too gimmicky at times. Too much reminding me of Mularkey. I could at least get behind this one I guess. Edit: just remembered he's the special teams coordinator. Nothing really to base his qualifications off of as a fan.

Defilippo has only been more than a positions coach for one year... With the Browns... Needless to say it didn't go well (30th PPG). He's more of an OC candidate than a HC to me.

Wilks only title other than a positions coach is two years as assistant head coach and one year as DC? I don't really know what to make of that as to why I would want him. Carolina's defense was good before he came along (I know it dipped last year, but for several years before that it was good).

Edited January 14, 2018 by TitanSS

[TitanLegend]

6 minutes ago, TitanSS said:

No real interest in Toub. I know Kansas City was high powered this year, but I feel like they can get too gimmicky at times. Too much reminding me of Mularkey. I could at least get behind this one I guess.

Defilippo has only been more than a positions coach for one year... With the Browns... Needless to say it didn't go well (30th PPG). He's more of an OC candidate than a HC to me.

Wilks only title other than a positions coach is two years as assistant head coach and one year as DC? I don't really know what to make of that as to why I would want him. Carolina's defense was good before he came along (I know it dipped last year, but for several years before that it was good).

Toub is ST coach, and has probably been the best ST coach over the past 15 years or so(or at least is up there), so gimmicky or whatever isn't really on him. The appeal with him is apparently his player management is top notch, obviously the ST coaching is a plus, has great leadership skills too apparently. Key with him would be solid coordinator hires. A nice read on him: https://247sports.com/nfl/chicago-bears/Bolt/Making-the-case-for-the-Chicago-Bears-to-hire-Dave-Toub-in-2018-111970603

DeFilippo would be a stretch as HC, and yeah did fail as Browns OC. I don't think there are a ton of OC/DC candidates(that aren't retreads at least) that are very attractive so you have to kind of look outside the box. He's apparently one of the biggest reasons for Wentz's huge leap from year one to year two, but beyond that he really doesn't have a resume of success.

Wilks has a very successful history as a secondary coach and has proven to be extremely aggressive as a defensive coordinator this year. While Rivera is there and obviously has a hand in them having a successful defense, he has let his DCs run the show in terms of play calling, Wilks being no exception. With his success coaching secondaries and now showing he can utilize front 7 talent equally as well as a DC in terms of blitzing, he's an interesting option.

None of these guys have fool-proof resumes obviously, they're just some options.

If we do go after a new head coach, I really don't want to go down a retread route period, whether it's McDaniels or Shurmur or Schwartz or whoever else. It feels like for every one time that works out, it fails 4 or 5 others. I want some new blood. Wilks' aggressive nature intrigues me, as does Toub's near flawless record as a ST coordinator, but I know there's other options out there too.

I'd kill for David Shaw from Stanford, but doesn't seem as if he's leaving the college game.

[TitanRedd]

6 hours ago, TitanLegend said:

You can look at track records and get a decent idea though. Almost nothing trends favorably for McDaniels. Pats assistants fail as head coach, McDaniels failed in his lone stint as HC, failed again as OC the year after that, then was saved by Brady/Belichick bringing him back.

Look at Dave Toub, John DeFilippo, Steve Wilks, or if you wanna look at some possible "retreads" outside of McDaniels, Pat Shurmur has done wonders with a third string QB, practically brand new offensive line and even lost his stud rookie RB, and the offense still kept humming(but he does have some failures in his past that make you pause), Jim Schwartz has done well as DC in Philly and had some success in Detroit, but his lack of discipline in Detroit is an issue, and so on and so forth.

My issue is from all reports is we're stupidly locked in on Josh McDaniels. If Robinson seriously interviews several people and still decides McDaniels to be the best, then so be it I suppose. But if we fire Mularkey and just head straight to McDaniels after we give our stupid rooney rule interview to someone I'm not gonna be pleased at all.

What you guys fail to realize is not only is McDaniels 1 of the better OC’s in football but he’s a QB guru. This is about taking Marcus to the next level getting our QB the tools he need to be great. McDaniels track record wit developing QB’s & getting the most out of them speak volumes.

[Andrei01]

6 hours ago, VY said:

His methods are so outdated though. He can protect Marcus in other ways, namely by spreading the field to open up more space, getting hard-hitting LBs off the field for smaller DBs, etc. Mularkey either just doesn’t get it or is too stubborn.

I’m just tired of the same narrow splits with long developing routes. Get him on what Wentz was doing this year and we average 5-10 more ppg pretty quickly.

Oh, gosh, this again.

They have done a pretty great job protecting him, if you ignore last night. Last year it worked well. They protected him, ran and threw the ball effectively. This year was more of a mess, but that can really be blamed on multiple things. Marcus' play didn't hurt, the fact that although talent was supposed to be better than last year, injuries cost them in timing and connection and that showed for at least a big part of the season. Running game took a turn for the worse, with the interior line getting much more exposed than last year, Murray having a bad season and Henry being up and down. But the big thing is he showed the will to embrace the need for the offense to evolve. If the rumors about Mularkey being disappointed in the way Robiskie handled things were true, that shows even more self-awareness on his part. And we'll probably see what goes on with that in the following days. But the offense evolved, and he let it change. And it led us to a playoff win, a great one at that that we will remember for a while, that we've been asking for in years. It showed us Marcus can still very much be a quarterback in this league and a more effective one than we've seen at times this season.

Sure, he has his faults, like everyone in this league has. Like it was the case for most of the players, it showed last night that he was a bit green to go against that particular organization in a playoff game. But he's a much better coach than people still give him credit for. I do truly believe if paired up with a better OC he can let the offense evolve even more. And I believe the players like him, and that's important to have in a HC, at least in my honest opinion. The mood around here before the Jaguars game would've let you to believe that about 95% of the fanbase would very much prefer a playoff miss if it meant seeing Mularkey gone, over a one-game playoff stunt. Which obviously wasn't the case. I'll say what I said then, if we really want this team to grow, we needed this experience, regardless of how it ended. We have veterans on the team who didn't play in a playoff game before, and deserved to, we have others who could've used getting back to it. We have a young quarterback who could get a taste of what it's like to really go up against the elite of the league and learn from it what he needs to continue to mature. To sum it up, we have needs that we'll have to address, sure, and we could do with some changes in the coaching staff. But I don't, for a second, believe this team is doomed if it stays in the hands of Mularkey, and I definitely think next year could be an even better one than the last two have been.

[Andrei01]

13 minutes ago, TitanRedd said:

What you guys fail to realize is not only is McDaniels 1 of the better OC’s in football but he’s a QB guru. This is about taking Marcus to the next level getting our QB the tools he need to be great. McDaniels track record wit developing QB’s & getting the most out of them speak volumes.

What exactly is his track record of developing QBs? Brady, which he inherited, a good season out of Cassel and a couple of average years out of Kyle Orton?

I actually like McDaniels quite a bit and believe he could do well if trusted in the right situation, but it'd be foolish to ignore the fact that he comes with a resume that includes some question marks and red flags.

[SerenityNow]

Not gonna lie Pat Shurmur is starting to look appealing to me. What he’s done with a backup QB and backup RB in that Minnesota offense has been awfully impressive. I know he failed in Cleveland, but what coach actually succeeds there? Cleveland’s problems have been way more deep rooted than bad coaching for pretty much their entire existence, so I don’t really see a failed stint with Cleveland as an indictment on his coaching ability. I could see Shurmur doing some good things for Marcus and this offense. I hope we would interview him if we actually do end up moving on from Mularkey.