Changes coming with or without Jeff Fisher

[den-the-coach]

Marlon McCree

I think it was Troy Brown who stripped him.

You're absolutely correct counselor, it was Troy Brown!

 

[Elmgrovegnome]

If not Shanahan, then yeah Chucky does look possible. For the same reasons above, he knows how to leave well enough alone on the other side of the ball.

Hell no. Gruden is one of the most overrated coaches in the NFL. He walked into two ideal situations with great rosters. He didn't build the teams in Oakland and Tampa. He eventually started tearing them down. Mainly because players didn't like playing for him and he regularly threw them under the bus when things went wrong.

Is there any hard evidence that Fisher actually does mettle with the offense?? Seems like we run with that as fact round these parts, but I am not sure I have ever heard the coaches say as much. I know he hires some uninspiring (at least unknown) OCs though.

He is the head coach. He has to be the guy to dictate what he wants. It is rare for a head coach to just hand the reigns over to an OC. Vermeil was forced to do it. That is not the way it normally works.

I don't think he meddles with is per se, at least not on a playcaling basis. But I'm sure he has high-level input into the gameplan, and he's the one that sets the overall philosophy of safety first, minimizing risks, and so on. And I would think in-game, he would be the one who would decide when it's time to sit on a lead.

Yes and he is very set in his ways.

 

[jrry32]

Hell no. Gruden is one of the most overrated coaches in the NFL. He walked into two ideal situations with great rosters. He didn't build the teams in Oakland and Tampa. He eventually started tearing them down. Mainly because players didn't like playing for him and he regularly threw them under the bus when things went wrong.

I'm not a huge Gruden fan either. But I think that oversimplifies things a bit. Gruden "tearing" down the Bucs had more to do with his preference for veteran players and his belief that he could find his franchise QB in the mid to late rounds. Which led to him recycling veteran journeyman QBs while trying to develop his eventual duds.

That in conjunction with the defense aging and breaking up (as great defenses eventually do) is what broke things up in Tampa.

That all said, if we didn't turn over roster control to Gruden, I'm okay with him. Wouldn't be the hire I'm most excited about, but he can get the offense executing.

 

[thirteen28]

I don't think Norv made this decision without a push. Minnesota was growing quite frustrated with his refusal to accept that his OL couldn't block well enough for Norv to run his vertically-oriented Air Coryell. Minnesota had the same issues the year before with Norv. I think it was a mutual parting of ways.

Look at who they hired to replace him. An OC known for the short passing game.

I've heard some of that, and I'm sure there is at least a grain of truth to it. But that offense always has shorter routes built into it as well. Usually the QB progression is from the longer routes to the shorter ones, maybe he just didn't want to change that aspect, I don't know.

As for his replacement, they didn't have many choices to be sure.

Shanahan would be OC. He'd have no say over the defense.

That's the opposite of how the Shanahan-Gibbs ZBS works. The Shanahan-Gibbs ZBS isn't designed to go through a specific gap. It's designed for the HB to determine the gap based on his vision and ability to press the LOS.

And Shanahan and his cohorts are known for being OL gurus.

I brainfarted on the HC thing, my bad.

I've seen it explained both ways, and it certainly looked like that's how Terrell Davis ran during his Broncos days. That being said, I'll defer some to you on this. On the other hand, it seems like Gurley this year, many times when there is room to run he instead runs right into the back of an offensive lineman. Did his vision disappear overnight, is he just lacking the patience, or is at least some of this design? I'm baffled.

If Shanahan came in as OC, I would certainly hope he wouldn't try to fit our lineman to a scheme that didn't suit them. They are big physical maulers, and that's what they should be doing.

It's the opposite, my friend. The power blocking scheme tells the HB which hole to run through. The HB can choose not to run through that hole. But it's designed to go through a certain hole.

And our blocking scheme hasn't changed over the past two years. It's been the same scheme for Gurley. We're a hybrid scheme. We run both power and zone blocking. Gurley doesn't lack freedom this year. Our OL just sucks at run blocking.

As for Norv's modern passing game, I have to disagree with that. Vikings fans have wanted Norv gone for years because he refused to adapt his passing scheme to what they had on offense. He continued to run deep drops and vertical passing concepts with a bad OL and a QB who didn't throw vertically well (Bridgewater).

Norv was a brilliant offensive mind. He still likely is. But he refuses to adapt to the modern game. He's actually a lot like Fisher. He's stuck in his ways.

I hate that we have a hybrid scheme at all, as I just don't think the guys we have are cut out for the ZBS at all. Furthermore, what really turns me off to it is this - virtually every one of our OL that have taken a snap this year has gotten worse at run blocking. In GRob's first two years, there wasn't much question about his run blocking ability, and in fact, there wasn't much question about it coming out of college. Now all of a sudden this year, a guy who is athletically gifted enough to be very good at it, who has had success in the past, and worked extra in the offseason, now he can't run block nearly as effectively. Saffold, Havenstein, Wichman, Brown ... all worse run blockers than the year before. If not explicitly scheme related, it's hard for me to believe it's not in large part coaching related.

I still think Norv's passing game is modern and adaptable to the present rules that make scoring easier. It just sounds to me like he didn't want to adapt to his circumstances, much like Josh McDaniel didn't during his lone year with the Rams (or Martz, for that matter, in his latter Rams years).

Zimmer really isn't an uber-douche. We don't like him because of last year, but he's actually incredibly well-liked around the NFL by coaches and players alike.

Norv Turner is an upgrade over what we currently have. And Fisher being completely hands off with the offense would be an upgrade. However, Norv Turner isn't what I want in an OC if Fisher stays on.

Fair enough on Zimmer, I'll admit my biases from that game last year color my opinion. Even knowing that, I just don't like the guy.

Outside of Norv, I'm just not sure who I want. If Shanahan could adapt to the OL we had instead of the smaller, more agile types he has preferred in the past, I could get on board. But at the end of the day, I'm just not sure how Fisher is going to attract a top notch OC to come here, because his job is going to be hanging in the balance next year even if he does get an extension.

Good reply, thanks for taking the time to write it.

 

[Ellard80]

You know... I mostly blame the offensive woes of this team the last 5 years... on the dude who has been here the entire time... the coach.

However, as I watching hardknocks and hearing all these announcers talking about Goff and how he says and others say "Well the plays sometimes are 16 words long..."

My reaction to that has been: "That's fucking stupid"

There is no reason that the play language has to be that long and convoluted... I mean hey guys our offense has sucked the past 5 years. Making things more complicated and laborious has definitely produced better offense this season.

This coaching staff just sucks... especially on the offensive side.

 

[jrry32]

I've heard some of that, and I'm sure there is at least a grain of truth to it. But that offense always has shorter routes built into it as well. Usually the QB progression is from the longer routes to the shorter ones, maybe he just didn't want to change that aspect, I don't know.

As for his replacement, they didn't have many choices to be sure.

The offense having shorter routes doesn't do anything for the QB when the play design calls for 5 or 7 step drops or asks the QB to hold the ball to wait for the routes to develop. That's the problem with Norv. He was trying to run an offense like Mike Martz's without protection for his QB.

I brainfarted on the HC thing, my bad.

I've seen it explained both ways, and it certainly looked like that's how Terrell Davis ran during his Broncos days. That being said, I'll defer some to you on this. On the other hand, it seems like Gurley this year, many times when there is room to run he instead runs right into the back of an offensive lineman. Did his vision disappear overnight, is he just lacking the patience, or is at least some of this design? I'm baffled.

If Shanahan came in as OC, I would certainly hope he wouldn't try to fit our lineman to a scheme that didn't suit them. They are big physical maulers, and that's what they should be doing.

I think a lot of people make the mistake of looking at the play in hindsight. It appears there's running room because LB pursuit angles depend on the path of the HB. It may look like there was a hole outside because Gurley cut it up inside or vice versa.

I can tell you that from what I've seen on All-22 tape, Gurley's vision and patience aren't lacking.

As for our OLs, to be frank, I haven't seen physical maulers this year. I've seen an uncoordinated bunch who don't run block well in any scheme.

I hate that we have a hybrid scheme at all, as I just don't think the guys we have are cut out for the ZBS at all. Furthermore, what really turns me off to it is this - virtually every one of our OL that have taken a snap this year has gotten worse at run blocking. In GRob's first two years, there wasn't much question about his run blocking ability, and in fact, there wasn't much question about it coming out of college. Now all of a sudden this year, a guy who is athletically gifted enough to be very good at it, who has had success in the past, and worked extra in the offseason, now he can't run block nearly as effectively. Saffold, Havenstein, Wichman, Brown ... all worse run blockers than the year before. If not explicitly scheme related, it's hard for me to believe it's not in large part coaching related.

I think it's both. I think it's scheme-related and coaching-related.

I still think Norv's passing game is modern and adaptable to the present rules that make scoring easier. It just sounds to me like he didn't want to adapt to his circumstances, much like Josh McDaniel didn't during his lone year with the Rams (or Martz, for that matter, in his latter Rams years).

That's the exact problem. He won't adapt.

Fair enough on Zimmer, I'll admit my biases from that game last year color my opinion. Even knowing that, I just don't like the guy.

Outside of Norv, I'm just not sure who I want. If Shanahan could adapt to the OL we had instead of the smaller, more agile types he has preferred in the past, I could get on board. But at the end of the day, I'm just not sure how Fisher is going to attract a top notch OC to come here, because his job is going to be hanging in the balance next year even if he does get an extension.

Good reply, thanks for taking the time to write it.

I think there are some good options out there depending on who is fired. But I don't trust Fisher. I still wish he would have hired the guy I begged for this past off-season.(John DeFilippo)

 

[Bruce2980]

I agree, and I don't think any qualified OC would want to work for Fisher. And that is why we are where we are?

 

[FRO]

If you reward Fisher with a 6th year after 5 losing ones, you are signaling to every player and everyone in the league that mediocrity is accepted by the Rams. It's too late for Fisher to finally realize he needs to turn the offense over to a quality coordinator. He should have figured that out from day one in 2012 when he picked Schotty over Hue. He got the defensive coordinator right, but doing it his way on offense has been a failure. Also what big time coordinator will want to work under Fisher. He may say he will turn over the full reigns of the offense, but once things get tough you can rest assured he will stick his hands in things. It's time to move on. 5 years and vast draft and free agency resources are enough to show that you can sink or swim. Fisher sunk. He got more than a fair shake. Time to make the move.