Rating the pass defense

Ditto what SK said.

It'll be interesting to talk about Fish (and Reese) at the end of this year.

 

Well said

 

The numbers game...

RT,

Someone mentioned this already, but if you go strictly by winning percentage, there is an obvious flaw in the reasoning. It doesn't take into consideration talent level. A super stocked team could go 12-4 or 13-3 and make the coach look like a genius in the record books. A better coach may take a bad team and raise them up to a 7-9 record. Who's the better coach? You say the guy with the better record, I say the better coach.

I find it interesting that you say my loaded question involves personlities when clearly you are rating them on numbers. So why would personalities matter?

Why are these coaches 'better' than Fisher?

Jon gruden - an excellent coach, but what makes him better than Fisher? His SB ring?

Tony dungy - an excellent defensive coach, but clearly has WORSE problems on offense than Fisher. Dungy's the guy who 'stole' Les Steckel from us!!! He's in the fortunate situation of not having to worry about the offensive side of the ball...so he's basically a glorified DC.

Mike shanahan - An excellent HC but had a rough start to his career. Couldn't win the big one with ONLY a Hall of Fame QB...also needed TD (the league MVP)!

Andy Reid - what has Reid done...messed up several Champioship games at home and then let TO tear his team apart while coaching poorly in the Super Bowl? He's not my idea of a great coach. He's a good fit for a guy with an awesome team but never won a Super Bowl - let alone more than one.

How are these guys at least equal?

marvin lewis - he rebuilt a team and has one playoff appearance. Um...anything else? And don't recite his resume as a DC...we're talking HC here.

brian billick - for a guy who was dubbed an offensive genius, he's had no offense since he's been a HC. He lucked into an awesome defense and an awesome DC. Notice all that Baltimore has accomplished without Marvin Lewis....

mike holmgren - Has he won a SB without Favre in his prime? No. And as HC/GM, you'd think he'd have built a dominant team about 4 years ago. Seattle's been not very good for years under Holmgren though they have FINALLY put the pieces together.....is that great coaching or great players...awesome left side of OL, the best rusher in the NFL and a very good QB along with an excellent defense (for a change).

mike sherman - has he done anything without Favre? Will he ever? No. He's NOT a good HC.

Tom coughlin - I like Coughlin's fire, but he's not as good as Fisher. We dominated the Jags under Coughlin. What's your reasoning?

Parcells and Gibbs ARE Hall of Fame coaches no doubt about it. Parecells has rebuilt teams that couldn't be rebuilt...in nearly overnight and took 2 different teams to the Superbowl and 3 different ones to the Championship game. He's awesome!

Gibbs is the only HC to have developed his own offensive system and then won 3 Superbowls with the same system but 3 different QB's!

Martz is a glorified OC. A brilliant OC, but he inherited the best team in the NFL...the SB champion rams that had 2 of the best WR's, a league MVP at QB and perhaps the best player in the NFL in Marshall Faulk. And the D was darn good too. He made a lot of strange decisions as HC and degraded their talent pool with bad drafts. Wait til he gets a team in need of rebuilding...then you can tell me how equal or superior or whatever.

The ONLY HC's I think I'd agree are better than Fisher are Parcells, Belicheck and Cower. Cowher is one of the few coaches to keep most of his philosophy intact despite the many changes at DC and OC. They always have a super D and an excellent rush attack. Belicheck needs no discussion.

Gibbs is a Hall of Famer but I don't think he's better than Fisher right now. If Gregg Williams wasn't their DC, that team would be terrible! I have no problem with Gruden and Shanahan as Fisher's equals.

Reid, Billick, Dungy and Holmgren are over-rated IMO. Marvin Lewis may be comparable but right now he has little HC experience to mention. Martz is not a good HC IMO but inherited the best team in the league. Notice that they got worse after he took over and didn't have such a dominant advantage in talent.

Perhaps the greatest coach of all time Vince Lombardi was talked about this way...he could take his team and whip you. Then he could take your players and whip you too!

Gut

 

Gunny...

Dungy came within an eyelash of going to the super bowl in 1999 with shaun king at QB. His best WR that year was yatil green. Does that answer your question?

 

Gut...

Where did you get the idea that i went strictly by winning percentage? Did i even say that? What about the percentage of times a team makes the playoffs? Fisher's teams have made the playoffs 4 times out of 11. 36%. John gruden has 4 playoff appearences in 8 years.

You asked about my rationale for tom coughlin? Simple, he has been an nfl head coach the same number of seasons as fisher but has been to the playoffs one more time. While starkiller comes up with this familiar homeless line few people remember that coughlin took over a first year expansion team in 1995.

I like how you hold these other coaches to such a high standard. Homgren and shanahan suck because they never won a super bowl without their HOF QB. Of course fisher has never won a super bowl at all but they suck. Nice logic. Holmgren just won an nfc championship without brett favre but because he lost to the steelers he sucks. In the meantime jeff fisher coaches a 4-12 team that quit.

Your logic regarding shanahan is stupid. If it was so easy to win a championship with elway how come dan reeves never did it? Shanahan won
2 super bowls and has been to the playoffs 4 times since those super bowls with QBs named greise and plummer. The guy developed the top running game in the league.

More stupid logic with mike sherman. 6 seasons as a head coach, 5 winning seasons and 4 playoff appearences. Anyone who has followed the packers the last 6 seasons will tell you that they have not had great personel. What is the guy supposed to do he has never coaches anywhere else.

According to gut any accomplishment by a coach who has a HOF QB does not count. Am i getting that right?

 

but he also had a good defense when he got there and relied on that.

like he had indys offense when he got there.

 

Fisher needs optimal circumstances to win?

Then he is an average coach.

He has coached up or down to his talent. When circumstances are almost ideal he has won. When they have been bad he has lost. When the team has been inundated with free agent losses or injury they have a 16-32 record. This year when nobody expected much we sucked. Can anyone honestly say that fisher's coaching won us anymore games than we should have? Our team in 2005 was DOA and there was nothing upper echelon about how this team was managed.

According to Gut jeff fisher hired and still keeps on 2 sub par coordinators. 2 of his top three coordinators are sub par! Fisher hired them and keeps them. But he is a better coach than mike shanahan? 2 sub par coordinators but he is upper echelon.

Prior to the 2005 season i was willing to give teflon-jeff a break but after that horrible coaching performance last year why cut him any slack?

 

Roll, as usual your missing the point, I wasn't about Fisher, i was talking about Dungy.

Is he really that good or just benefits from having exceptionally good players.

He's had the best defense and couldn't make the Superbowl.

He's had the best offense and at the moment can't make the Superbowl, and even last year he had a fairly good defense.

 

Gunny...

The bucs were 25th in total defense the year before dungy got there and were 9th in his first year.

Tony dungy has been an nfl head coach 9 years. His first team was 6-10. His teams since have made the playoffs 8 straight years. 8 out of 9 years in the playoffs. He must be doing something right. He has won 63% of all his games which is equal to winning 10 games a year.

 

Poor poor victimized jeff fisher....

Get the hankies out because starkiller is only getting started with his homeless nonsense. The fact is the oilers were only "homeless" one season. 1997 when they played in memphis. Starkiller's thesis that jeff fisher couldn't win unless he had a brand new stadium with 70,000 screaming fans makes my point since a great coach could win without that. I guess fisher could never coach in greenbay because that stadium isn't new?

In 1998 things were rough. Hard uncomfortable seating, bathrooms and nacho venders so far away. Of course that has nothing to do with jeff fisher or the team. The team was not homeless in 1998, the players practiced in nashville and knew they would be staying there. There was no uncertainty. They knew they could move their families to the area and buy homes. It's just that they played in a smaller less modern facility. So? The field is still 100 yards. It's not an excuse! Not for an "upper echelon" coach. Maybe for an average coach.

In 1998 this team had very good players. Eddie, steve, bruce, wycheck,harris, hopkins bishop, robertson robinson, gary walker. A young rookie nickel back named rolle. In game 2 that year we lost 13-7 to the chargers and the legendary ryan leaf making jeff fisher one of the very very few head coaches to lose to leaf. There was the special teams debackles against the bears and seahawks that cost us close games. Gut made reference to them earlier. We had the talent to win that year but didn't. Bud adams certainly wasn't pleased with that 8-8 season but according to starkiller jeff fisher heroically coached that very talented team up to 8-8. Bullcrap!