Jump to content

Mike Vrabel Hired As Head Coach


TitanLegend

Recommended Posts

Speculating in the radio that we will no longer be a primarily power running team and will see a lot more zone schemes.

Quinton Spain is the one guy who I think will have the hardest time adjusting to this, but seeing as he's a RFA, I just can't imagine him not being tendered. Lewan, Jones, and Conklin I think are all athletic enough to do either. Kline also if he's retained.

Also mentioned on the radio that we can expect to go from a man scheme to more of a zone/match-up zone where man and zone are mixed. We could see a learning curve here in the defensive backfield.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, tntitans4life17 said:

That would be terrible and I hope not the case. I would imagine his son ends up in the scouting department or some QC coach. I think Coombs might be the guy we are grooming to be the DC in 2-3 years.

i had the same thought about coombs. he's at that age where he could still coach for another 10 years or so (or more if he goes the lebeau route) but he's old enough that it's very unlikely he'd be looked at for HC openings. the thought could be that he'll be groomed to take over as DC in a few years, especially if he's the fiery motivator he's been described as.

of course, i'm getting way, way ahead of myself but hey, that's what the forum's for lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, TitanSS said:

Speculating in the radio that we will no longer be a primarily power running team and will see a lot more zone schemes.

Quinton Spain is the one guy who I think will have the hardest time adjusting to this, but seeing as he's a RFA, I just can't imagine him not being tendered. Lewan, Jones, and Conklin I think are all athletic enough to do either. Kline also if he's retained.

Also mentioned on the radio that we can expect to go from a man scheme to more of a zone/match-up zone where man and zone are mixed. We could see a learning curve here in the defensive backfield.

I feel that way more about Conklin than anyone. It’ll be interesting to see what they do this offseason with the OL.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, titanrick said:

I think we can put to rest the notion that Pees was "forced out" in Baltimore.  It's nonsense.  This is from December 7th, which was even before week 14's collapse to Pittsburgh.

 

I think it is like some mentioned. He was going to retire but the chance to work with his son along with Vrabel was a good combination to squeeze 2 or so more years out of the NFL. 

I mean if I was his father, I'd do the same. "Sacrifice" in order to get my son set up for a potential long term career at that highest level of his profession. What's 2 more years in order to get his son in the league.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, TitanSS said:

Speculating in the radio that we will no longer be a primarily power running team and will see a lot more zone schemes.

Quinton Spain is the one guy who I think will have the hardest time adjusting to this, but seeing as he's a RFA, I just can't imagine him not being tendered. Lewan, Jones, and Conklin I think are all athletic enough to do either. Kline also if he's retained.

Also mentioned on the radio that we can expect to go from a man scheme to more of a zone/match-up zone where man and zone are mixed. We could see a learning curve here in the defensive backfield.

Actually Spain is perfect for this scheme it suits his style, he’s very athletic an ran a 40yrd 4.9 & 5.02 coming out of West Virginia. So the quickness to play in space is there, as he played in an uptempo spread offense in college. He just struggles with hand placement & he stop moving his feet at times 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

25 minutes ago, TitanRedd said:

Actually Spain is perfect for this scheme it suits his style, he’s very athletic an ran a 40yrd 4.9 & 5.02 coming out of West Virginia. So the quickness to play in space is there, as he played in an uptempo spread offense in college. He just struggles with hand placement & he stop moving his feet at times 

 

Running straight forward in a 40 yard dash is vastly different than moving latterly and playing in space. Watching him play, I've always thought he struggled with movement skills and moving along the LOS and zone blocking has never striked me as his style. Kline was easily the more athletic of the two and was asked to pull far more often because if that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

36 minutes ago, ttitansfan4life said:

I feel that way more about Conklin than anyone. It’ll be interesting to see what they do this offseason with the OL.

Conklin was always reported as a "mauler" but I never saw it. Even before we drafted him I thought he was actually athletic and was lacking in technique and I didn't feel he had near the power that the talking heads said he had. Where I think he lacks in pass protection is when he initially engages the pass rusher.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

40 minutes ago, titanrick said:

I think we can put to rest the notion that Pees was "forced out" in Baltimore.  It's nonsense.  This is from December 7th, which was even before week 14's collapse to Pittsburgh.

 

Yeah, to me it just made more sense as his retirement seemed fishy when he came back, but I found an ESPN article this morning saying his colleagues have known he was going to retire for the majority of the season. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just to throw my two cents out there.

I don't think Pees was necessarily "let go" behind closed doors, but I also don't think much, if any, effort was made to actually retain him by the Ravens front office. His contract was coming to an end and the front office more than likely wanted to gauge how the season went before fully committing to an extension. Knowing that there was a chance the Ravens would move on, given his age and everything else, he probably made the decision to retire on his own terms vs chasing down another coordinator job in the event that he was actually let go. So, when he retired and a coaching job came TO him, and presented him with the chance to coach alongside his son and reunite with a former player/friend in Vrabel, he said sure, why not?

As for how he actually performed and what to expect, I think the most honest take I could give is that he wasn't exactly a great coordinator, but he wasn't the worst either. Given the talent level of our players and the investment we put into that side of the ball through the draft and free agency, it was expected we would field a significantly better defense than we did. So, in that sense there were heavy expectations levied on the defense and Pees consistently failed to field the type of defense we were promised. Which of course lead to a lot of resentment from Ravens fans who have been somewhat spoiled by the historic defenses that have played in Baltimore. Though the overall rating of our defense this past year gets inflated due to the fact that we posted 3 shutouts vs 3 very incompetent backup quarterbacks and played a number of teams with very poor offenses, it should be noted that you still have to have a somewhat competent defensive scheme in order to do something like lead the league in takeaways. His two biggest downfalls were his inability to adjust his scheme in case of injury, e.g. when Brandon Williams went out we literally became the worst rush defense in the NFL, similar story with Jimmy Smith. Secondly, he has played a part in some of the biggest blown leads in the past few years of the Ravens. Obviously football is about execution, but his soft vanilla schemes at the end of games have largely been responsible for allowing opposing teams to seamlessly drive down the field and score in critical junctures of the game, time and time again.

So, what should you guys expect? From what I've read, you guys weren't huge fans of your defense this past year and statistically speaking it was about league average in terms of points allowed and yards per game. If that isn't a fair indicator and the defense was actually worse than where it is ranked statistically, then I think you might be mildly surprised about the overall play of your defense this coming year. However, expect to suffer some agonizingly heartbreaking losses as well, similar to what I noted above w/ the numerous blown leads. Outside of the gut wrenching loss or two, I think you should see something close to another top 15 defense.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, TitanSS said:

Running straight forward in a 40 yard dash is vastly different than moving latterly and playing in space. Watching him play, I've always thought he struggled with movement skills and moving along the LOS and zone blocking has never striked me as his style. Kline was easily the more athletic of the two and was asked to pull far more often because if that.

True but he played in space in college, he has the athletic ability my opinion to play in space he struggles I see is playing in a power scheme because his feet stop moving when driving at times & his hand techinique is ??‍♂️??‍♂️ Playing in zone scheme where he’ll be asked to combo block then climb to the 2nd level & pull more will be easy for him I think, but I do agree Kline is more athletic than him, he just lacks power he’s more of a finesse guard. As for Conklin I couldn’t agree wit you more, he never struck me as a mauler he’s more of a technician.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, TitanSS said:

Running straight forward in a 40 yard dash is vastly different than moving latterly and playing in space. Watching him play, I've always thought he struggled with movement skills and moving along the LOS and zone blocking has never striked me as his style. Kline was easily the more athletic of the two and was asked to pull far more often because if that.

I agree with this, I think Kline is quite easy the more athletic and if that's what they're after, should be the one who gets to stay.

Also, I love the LaFleur hire.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just getting off work and saw the news. LOVE the LaFleur hire. Has been a part of many great offenses and I'm so excited that Marcus finally gets a modern NFL offense.

 

Pees I'm more indifferent on, but if Vrabel can have some impact on late game situations, perhaps it could work out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.




×
×
  • Create New...