I don't get the sticking with him so long line. The rams went 7 and 9 in his second season and things were pointing up. The only thing that kept them going to the playoffs were his ultra conservatism once the rams got a decent lead which led to a couple of comeback wins for the opposition and a couple of bonehead Brandon Gibson plays against the whiners.
His 3rd year was a total cluster freak, which spags brought upon himself with many questionable personnel moves.
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Regarding 2010, it's easy to call "too conservative" in hindsight after they lost. I felt being conservative was what helped the team have that massive improvement since the team wasn't where they needed to be talent wise yet. And as disappointing as not going to the playoffs was, a 6 game improvement is still a massive improvement even if it wasn't a 7 game improvement instead. You go down that road, soon enough every season that is not a Super Bowl win is a complete failure.
In 2011, I didn't like the one year free agent signings at the expense of keeping youth with greater upside, but I understood why he did it. He wanted to win now to try to keep his job. Most coaches would going into that penultimate year of their contract. None of the signings worked out, but that wasn't what killed that year. It was, by far, the injuries. You can't win when the people protecting your quarterback and the people keeping the opponents from completing passes mostly did not have a job on Opening Day. I honestly don't see the greatest coach in the world doing much better under those circumstances.
I agree with you that the idea that Devaney "kept Spags too long" doesn't make sense. Nobody would have fired the guy after 2010.
