Cowher is a run every down coach, I want a coach trhat will let his QB do his thing like Shula, like Dungy. Granted both these guys had HoF qb's but they allowed them to do what the do to win games. No conservative football please!
Exactly. That argument is so pathetic IMO anyway. It's not like Ross is going "Hmm, Cowher and Gruden both want to be the next Dolphins head coach, but no one has won a Super Bowl coaching two different teams, so I'm going to pass on them." If they want the job, you give it to them!
This is SUCH a misconception about Bill Cowher. It's unfortunate that his commitment to extremely tough, physical football teams with great defenses has resulted in mass misperceptions about the nature of his offenses in Pittsburgh, but that's what is happening. Ron Erhardt, Chan Gailey, Mike Mularkey and Ken Whisenhunt were his four longest-tenured offensive coordinators in Pittsburgh. He had two others Ray Sherman and Kevin Gilbride, but fired them after 1 and 2 years, respectively, in large part because they were too conservative. Ron Erhardt, who along with Ray Perkins, has an entire offensive passing system named after him (Erhardt-Perkins). Chan Gailey, who innovated Kordell Stewart into a "Slash" player and later even had him playing quarterback full time, who installed a pistol spread in Kansas City with Tyler Thigpen, and who is running a bunch of spread concepts in a totally dominant Buffalo offense run by relatively unknown, under-talented players. Mike Mularkey, currently running Matt Ryan's offense in Atlanta, known for his trick plays and willingness to go anywhere to find new play design ideas, even at one point taking a play design that someone wrote to him in a letter, because he liked it. The opposite of conservative. And Ken Whisenhunt, who had Kurt Warner running probably the most aggressive wide receiver-oriented passing system in the NFL, and came inches from winning a Super Bowl with that system. Oh yeah, and as I think maybe schmolioot pointed out to me, Bill Cowher also stashed Bruce Arians on his coaching roster, and Bruce is anything but conservative as an offensive coordinator. Yes, clearly Bill Cowher's first order of business when he got here would be hiring Kippy Brown as his offensive coordinator.
You can directly blame media templates for this train of fan thought. Fans get it from the media. The media lazily shoehorns facts into predefined story structures. This in turn leads to lazy, stereotyped thinking on the part of the fan. It'd be interesting to know if Sherman and Gilbride were fired for not being innovative enough or because their offenses were just plain bad. Also, Steelers fans loathe Bruce Arians. Just saying.
I'm pretty sure Gilbride at the least has a reputation for being way too conservative...and I thought he garnered some of that reputation in Pittsburgh but I could be remembering it wrong. But as Nomina said....Kordell Stewart and Antwaan Randle-El...those two just absolutely scream conservative traditionalist, no?
As far as hiring previous SB winning coaches go, i can see the "fire isnt there anymore" argument, but i dont buy into it with all coaches. Infact i think Jimmys problem wasn't lack of fire at all, his departure was fall out from having to replace a icon QB AND that his personal decisions werent as sound as he would have liked.. I think he had plenty of fire to prove he could win without Jerry Jones looking over his shoulder constantly. BUT we have run the table on how to hire the next coach havent we? To the point where you have to say "lets not look at trends of success of coaching but ask,, who is the best man for the job period. We tried these thigs before.. Hired a SB winning coach to replace an Icon coach (Johnson for Shula)..didnt work. Hired a COY that was the asistant HC and took over the team form the the previous HC. (Wanny for Jimmy)..didnt work. Hired the popular national championship HC straight out of college with control of the franchise,(Saban) Didn't work. Hired a very popular successful OC from a high powered offense ( Cam Cam) Didn't work. Hired the "Czar" of rebulding to run the entire opertation from top to bottom and buy HIS groceries (Parcells) Failing. So at this point what gimmicky coach or GM set up do we go with next? What, who is the right way to go? I dont know, i like Gruden alot, I like Cowher, I think that Gurden has something to prove that he can buld a SB winning team and not win one with someone elses players...i just dont like the idea of trying a revolutionary knew gimmicky offense,,stick with what he knows and make it work. Cowher..i like him because he knows talented coaches and isnt a ground and pound guy per se,,he seems to adjust to the talent he has..i like that.
I'm not challenging you on that point, just wondering if conservatism is really the reason for their firings. And to contrast, it would be nice to know if those Gailey, Whisenhunt, etc offenses were any good. Randle-El was a nice gimmick player, but I see Kordell Stewart's name and the Ghost of Cowher Disregards QBs Past rears his ugly head no matter how many slashes Gailey comes up with.
Depends on your definition of "successful". If "successful" means winning another SB then we know for a fact that the stats show exactly the opposite. And when I think of who most people consider the best coaches in the NFL, I don't see guys who had proven track records before landing where ever they are now.
Of course they do. They also all but organized a parade when Mike Mularkey was hired away. The one issue fans in Pittsburgh had with Bill Cowher was that he'd hire creative guys to run his offense instead of good ole ballers who would just run the damn ball.
Oh, I know. I'm not saying they're right to do so. Then again, I threw a parade when Mularkey got the boot here. His only creative impulse seemed to be the flea flicker.
I know. I'm merely pointing out that the ones who actually followed every Pittsburgh game strangely enough didn't come away with the impression that Cowher ball was too darn conservative.
I'm not trying to disrespect a running game or people that value a running game, but I just looked over the stats at Pro Football reference during Cowher's career at Pittsburgh. I don't have average rankgins or attempts, but in general, his pittsburgh offenses were in the top 5 of the league in rush attempts and bottom 5 in the league in pass attempts. The highest I saw them rank in pass attempts was 9th, and I think that was one year under Gailey and one year under Mularkey. The lowest I saw them ranked relative to rushing attempts was 14th. In 2005, with Whisenhunt as the OC, Pittsburgh ran the ball 618 times and passed it 342 times. Trick plays and specialty players aside, Bill Cowher has clearly been a ground and pound coach in his career.
Cowher is without a doubt a run oriented head coach. However, I think Cowher is more then capable of adapting. Like he did towards the end of his career with Big Ben. He was clearly more balanced with Big Ben throwing well. If I remember correctly when Tommy Maddox was there, Bettis was really slowing down, their running game suffered, he allowed the passing game to help pick up the slack. Cowher was a great great coach. He clearly was capable of adapting and capable of playing with his team. He had a good OL and running game. and in turn ran the ball a lot.
Remember the offense Cowher ran when they went to the SB against Dallas? It was a full on spread offense with 4-5 receivers consistently spread out. In that game, they were in it against a far more talented team until late in the game. As for Gruden, everyone likes to say he won a SB with Dungy's players. For the most part this true but what is rarely mentioned is the team he beat. None other but the team he built in Oakland. In a round about way, he took two teams to the SB.
The question that I have with Jon Gruden is if he feels so highly about this spread offense approach, does he keep his instincts as a ball control passing game coach. His passing back in Tampa was amongst the shortest in the league. He liked QBs with some mobility that could pass accurately. If he's willing to use the spread does Landry Jones and for that matter Tim Tebow as well become a duo QB system for Gruden?
I have no idea. College teams have (Miami being one), a few NFL teams have talked about him. He has a pretty good resume. Now the same as Cowher but he seems like he really wants to adapt to what the college level is producing rather than pidgeon-hole players for the NFL based on the now limited number of pro schools. A smart idea really. Lots of 4-3 teams to choose from, lots of spread offenses. Go where the talent is deepest.
Seems like teams have put some feelers out there for sure. That said, I think he wanted a break. The guy is still collecting 6 mill a year from the Bucs for doing nothing. Why give that up? And if your argument is that Gruden isn't that good because he is without a job, I would take a look back at the Bucs superbowl in which he thrashed the team he built with Brad Johnson, who he made look like an all-time great.
And yet, Bill Cowher only had a top 10 passing offense three times in fifteen years with Pittsburgh. He never had a top five passing offense. His teams were often top in rushing offense. That's on the head coach. With all that talent you named on his staff how could it not be? Was he so ignorant over the value of a quarterback for so long? Reality is he never focused on that part of the game, and his teams reflected that.
When it comes to gruden, what does it say about a coach that can win a superbowl with Brad Johnson at QB..It tells me he generates production offensively thru scheme design, not necessarily just raw playmaking ability by having better players, I think that shows well for his acumen.
Brad Johnson may not have been an elite HOF quarterback, bur he was decent. Look at his numbers. He had some great years and is certainly better than any QB we have ever had since Dan Marino.
It was mentioned earlier, but another guy I am intrigued with is Rob Chudzinski. Rob is another guy who has a lot of college ideas in his style. I was chatting with alen about him the other day, and alen says he is pretty much running the same stuff that he ran when he was the offensive coordinator for Larry Coker at Miami. He's done a heck of a job limiting Cam Newton's reads at this point and hasn't ignored his running skills, and he has kept him relatively productive doing so. What I remember from his Miami days were mutliple receiver formations without using the spread a majority of the time. I remember a great down hill running game and the use of receiving tight ends and multi purpose full backs. A lot of vertical stuff in his offense.
well in the world where everyone thinks you have to have an elite QB to win the whole thing, my point is he did it with a ''decent'' QB, all I'am saying is that it says something about his coaching abilities.
I think Gruden is vastly overrated and I would hate to see him as our next head coach plus he never developed a QB in his NFL coaching career. Since our owner is clueless I see why Gruden might be his first choice.
Just get rid of Sparano, and do NOT give the new HC final say over a new GM (one with experience this time please).
yeah, and he had one of the great defenses in NFL history. The defense scored 21 points in the Super bowl. Regardless. That's 1 team in the past decade.
When Gruden come to Tampa Bay, he already had a defense thanks to Dungy. Plus, the Bucs had RBs and some WRs. The only thing that Gruden had to do is coach Johnson. After that, Gruden's team was never the same as the years went on.
Who says any of us are against that? I'm just making sure we FIX OUR DAMN QB!!!!!!! position already! After that is fixed, then build everything else too. Do you guys not understand us Suck for Luckers or something? Do you think we want to draft Luck, and then say ok time to give away all our picks ?
The team that Gruden left for tampa met him in the Superbowl and has never been the same either since he left. Just sayin.
If Cowher is coaching next season it will be as HC of the New York Giants. It's the job he is waiting for, IMO.
You know who the bucs WRs and RBs were when they won the Superbowl? Lol. That offense was not that talented. The team was never the same because gruden took over a disaster waiting to happen. Cap hell, with a bunch of older beloved players. Gruden didn't help because he chose most of his players, if not all, to replace the older guys, but his coaching should go unquestioned.
McCardell he signed, Keyshawn, Warrick Dunn, Alstott, a crappy OL that they found a way to make decent (WCO). Hmmm, sound familiar?
I really think people are looking at Gruden's past and are coming up with conclusions on how he would do things in Miami, and I think this is a mistake. For one, I doubt Jon would be studying the college spread offenses the way he is if he wasn't thinking about running either some of it as a package or run the offense as a whole. This guy is a film junkie. Instead of just sitting back in his comfy ESPN job and resting on his laurels, this guy is going to coaching clinics and visiting various coaches at the college level just to soak up all he can. I personaly feel that he has no interest in personnel at this point. He just wants to coach. My prediction is that when Jon comes back, he will not be a WCO guy. He will be a full fledge spread offense coach and will turn the NFL on its ear.
