I don’t know how they could abandon all that success.

He sucks.

Shanny bailed too quickly. Given our personnel it was never going to be a quick fix, and when that turned out to be the case Shanahan switched horses in the middle of the stream. We ended up in the worst of all possible worlds, without the personnel to run our traditional (under Shanahan) system (because we gave them away), and without the personnel (because we didn’t spend time building from the draft) to run the Bates system. This is Bates’ chance to refurbish his reputation. I wish him well.

He came in with a scheme, which he was determined to implement, suitability of the incumbent talent be damned. The scheme he runs is a good, sound one, when you can stop the run with 7 guys, and rush the passer with 4.

If he had 3 years, he probably would have gotten the thing turned around in Denver. Since he had 1 year, and he was fighting high expectations, it was a disaster. It’s not indicative of his quality as a coach, as he has been a good DC in several places, and was a good interim Head Coach in Miami once.

but he did only have one year. I don’t know if that’s enough time or not, but I would like to have seen more to be sure.

can rush the passer with 4, and stop the run with 7, equally well? or either really, consistently. bates and slowick are both out of their minds. they coach vanilla and worse, scared, if you see game-day coaching out of them at all. my condolences to your once-proud defense. hopefully, they keep the tampa 2 and bates adjusts, because you really have some good players over there, but i wouldn’t be too thrilled with this news. i know i wasn’t when he came here. kiffin to bates is quite a big dropoff in my book. sorry, just the truth.

He just came to Denver at the wrong time: Shanny wanted to win right there and then, he also came in at a time when we didn’t have enough draft picks or enough decent FAs for the scheme to work. Anytime you use Nate Webster in a “contain” system, you know you’re going to get burnt. But he was our only option.

Just think though, if we had hired Morris, Bates may have come back to Denver. Interesting.

He seemed like a guy that looked at things that “wasn’t broke”, but still wanted to fix them.

I am not familiar with the bucs roster, but if you lack behemoths at DT, get ready to go shopping.

I am not a reliable source, but I believe his defenses have all been dismantled in favor of 3-4’s. Don’t get me wrong, what he can do for a team with all the right pieces is extroirdanary, but there is a lot of risk involved because he doesn’t seem to have the ability to adjust if he doesn’t have the right mix of players, or if he loses any of them to injury.

I guess I’m saying that he’s a one trick pony, but it is a great trick.

I said this on another thread, but I’ll repeat it here.

Granted, he may have had disagreements with Shanahan, but getting rid of Gerrard Warren and then bringing in Sam Adams? Terrible. And if there were problems with the scheme vs personnel, it should be the coach’s job to adapt, and make things clear to the players. The players never knew what the heck they were supposed to be doing.
There’s a reason he lasted just one year in Green Bay, then one in Denver.

…is you have to have 11 very good players for it to even have a chance. is that genius, or just 11 very good players lining up and getting it done? when was the last time we rushed 4 and got consistent pressure from the d-line? the orange crush maybe, with 1 “blitzing” linebacker. or never. when you drop 7 all the time, the qb usually has all day to find the seam or hole in the zone. it is not an attacking scheme, and targets will get open consistently, there’s lack of pressure(time) and space to exploit. put simply, they know what you are going to do, all day. wow, that is just great for an offense to have no fear or element of surprise the entire afternoon, isn’t it? you can easily prepare for it all week, too. turnovers? the qb is playing pitch-and-catch out there, are you kidding me? stuffing the run? usually not without an elite front 7, which is hard to find/build. better players? they make any scheme better, including a vanilla one. i don’t believe that we are this bad as players on defense for a moment.

 i despise this approach the last few seasons, and was really hoping for spags or somebody aggressive(nolan will have to do) to use this team’s strengths, and to try to get off the field, giving the ball to…jay cutler! we simply did not try to get off the field. no, we didn’t. bates and slowick are 2 of a kind. play simple, scared, and “we hope to hold them to 3”, a slowick pre-game quote the last game of the season. tampa won’t go completely into the tank with bates because they have solid players all around(and a d-line), but this brand of coaching is generally for established defenses, and doesn’t really add anything to the mix. i don’t believe in this philosophy at all, it is just too easy to protect the qb with any 4-man rush if you decide to, forever, which is a good thing for the offense that you are basically conceding . do you give up ground willingly in a turf war? the bend-don’t-break does. still wanna blame the players? who asked for those players, and gave their input in who to draft? developed/taught them? called the plays? god i am so glad those guys are out of town, well worth firing shanny for. i’m not even kidding. i am so much happier now with nolan, this is a huge uprade from recent hires. he’ll get it done, and make the last 2 look like the clowns that they were. whew. i feel much better now. bring on 2009-year of the defense! it’s about time

we’ve been historically bad the past 2 seasons, and it is simply not the players, or even injuries, that was the cause. just my opinion, but i’m convinced.