To answer your question.....YES. No other coach in the league would have called that defense with 1:30 remaining & Alex Smith having to drive 85 yards to win it. All you have to do is keep everything in front of you. A field goal can only tie it at best.

Steve Spagnuolo to the Saints?
 

In his two seasons as the defensive coordinator for the New York Giants in 2007 and 2008 here is where they ranked:

2007 season:

7th overall defense
11th against the pass
8th against the rush

2008 season:

5th overall
8th against the pass
9th against the rush

He was on an upward trend when the rams took him from the Giants. Looks like the role of defensive coordinator fits him best. What do you think?

Spagnuolo spent 8 years with the Eagles where he was in three different positions throughout his tenure before he was recruited to New York:

1999: Defensive assistant/ Quality control-Philly was 24th overall in Defense
2000: Defensive assistant/ Quality control-Philly was 10th overall in Defense
2001: Defensive backs- Philly was 7th overall in Defense and 2nd against the pass
2002: Defensive backs- Pilly was 4th overall in Defense and 7th against the pass as well as 9th against the rush
2003: Defensive backs- Philly was 20th overall
2004:Linebackers- Philly was 10th overall
2005:Linebackers- Philly was 23rd overall
2006:Linebackers- Philly was 15th overall but 9th against the pass.

He did put everything in front of them that is why they made it to midfield before Davis caught that pass. I was wondering why he didn't blitz the same way they had been doing it the entire 3rd and most of the 4th quarter. It was making Alex Smith very uncomfortable. Thats where all of the three and outs were coming from.

Because we won the superbowl in 2009, Williams received some praise but it really had nothing to do with Williams in my opinion. In his 3 years here, the defense gave up on an average of 344 yards per game. That's terrible. The only difference between the superbowl year and these last 2 are turnovers. 2009 we had 26 ints and a +11 turnover ratio! 2010 and 2011 combined we only have 18 ints and -5 turnover ratio. We need a front 4 that can apply pressure so that we can use the FS like we did with Sharper where he is able to ball hawk and not be in coverage all the time. Relying on the blitz puts our FS in coverage too much and not allowing him to roam like Sharper did and like Ed Reed and the head and shoulders guy does.

our front 4 is terrible. hell so are our linebackers ....wait the secondary is too with the exception of greer.....lol. I think we need to hit free agency hard and hope for some defensive gems in the draft.

Question is how much input did Greg Williams have in player selection and evaluation. If he selected them and coached them????? Jordan, Jenkins, Robinson 1st round selections 1st round impact?

Nothing to do with it, that is so foolish as to be ridiculous. That defense was detracted from all year-long by pundits, and preventing yardage wasn't their forte. Their forte was in keeping yardage minimized, and creation of turnovers. We haven't had that as much in the last 2 years, true.

Here's what I have to say--Thanks Greg Williams, for the Super-Bowl win. You were part of that, and all the nay-saying ninnies don't seem to get you just aren't going to win one every year. There are 32 teams, for Christ's sake. Get a grip, the offense did great, EXCEPT for giving up 5 turnovers, and Thomas got knocked out in the first drive, a nearly crucial part of the plan. Stop focusing on one drive, and look at the real cause, the TURNOVERS. Jesus, the blind will not see, apparently.

And can we all learn that "loose" is not "lose." Why is it people make that error so much, is it a typo? Lose is when you don't win, and loose means you are free to roam, not tied down.

X-2 None of the defensive players turned the ball over! You CAN NOT have turnovers in playoff games. Every team that turned the ball over lost!

Is Spagnolo available after the Rams fired him?? He ran a pretty good D up in NY....

Hasn't GW gone yet?

Do I need to help him pack?

Look here guy, all of your posts about this topic lean toward you telling us we are all stupid and are ninnies because we don't see things the way you do. You ever look in the mirror with a comment like"the blind will not see".

Lastly...THIS IS NOT ENGLISH CLASS!!. If we have typos who gives a crap. It's a forum not school. Get over your self please.

Peter King is reporting the same thing.

how about this....MAKE THEM FIGHT FOR EVERY YARD, CONTEST EVERY THROW AND WRAP UP ON A TACKLE....that is what the 49ers did all day long...we should have done this too especially with alex smith at QB and so little time left...yes the turnovers lost the game...but to give up those 2 drives for TD's to SF and let them have it easily...we had no penalties in this game, that last TD play would've been a great time for 1...a PI call gives them the ball on the 1 but no TD!!! Vernon Davis shouldve been knocked down before that ball got close to him

Preachin to the quire bro!!

Accepted.

Yep and we were pretty badly rated in many indicators of a good defense, for goodness sake.

This season we have had some horrendous scares with Houston and Carolina and Atlanta and Tennessee. I remember well the repeat passes to our non-coverage defense of
Atlanta - Ryan passes to H.Douglas
and Tennessee's last 2 drives and Locker passes to N Washington.

Each time a whole chunk of yards being given up. Heck keep them away. Let them hail mary the ball from 50 yards away with no time on the clock.

ok its official now.....its breaking news on NFL.COM

Is it the same story that says he's "expected" to leave?

"Expected" does not equal "is"

Nfl.com says Greg williams has agreed to join the rams as the defensive coordinator

There we go, I like that we won a Super Bowl with him but we had to go in another direction, go and get spags coach Payton!

Nfl.com says Greg williams has agreed to join the rams as the defensive coordinator

There we go, I like that we won a Super Bowl with him but we had to go in another direction, go and get spags coach Payton!

Good luck to him. Thanks for his part in the Superbowl.

I'll say this again, do not be surprised to see him excel in St. Louis. There's a lot of young talent on their line and they won't need to bring 7-8 like we did to get pressure.

IS!!

This FO doesn't do anything without a back up plan. I wonder who they will bring in and how much of the draft he will influence?

Thank you. I was sick and tired of speculation and the same exact "expected to" report that was re-posted 77 times.

1-IMO: Del Rio, Nolan or Spags (I'm fine with any of 'em)

2-IMO: Loomis will listen to any and all involved in the process and make a final determination with Payton.

Normally...when they use words like "expected" or "league sources" 99 times out 100 it means someone has got some pretty concrete info but cant add any finality to it because paperwork or whatever hasn't officially been done with the league yet. I'm just glad he's gone....no lets go get Spags, Nolan or Del Rio!!!

Glad he's gone. Now we can move on to better things.

Thanks GW. You helped us win a trophy.

Its unfortunate it didn't work out.

Good Luck in St Louis. I hope you destroy SF on a regular basis.

Watching it on NFL Network now. It is official.
He did have a part in taking the Saints oragainization to a SB, a first for this team. Thnx for that.
----------
Now, my other comments...
too bad it ended on this note. I bet he was leaving anyway. Win or NFC or SB or this last Playoff game, he was leaving.
I have watched , I have courage to watch it now, that last play. Yeah, Saints defnse and that particular guy of ours, made it really easy for AF.
Done. We Saints fans saw our team lose it . Couldawouldshoulda, if, if the Saints had just done something earlier. Scored
I am sure GW did not want it to end like here. I am sure he wished he had done the other.

I heard that Mike Nolan and Steve Spagnolo are candidates to replace Williams. Both, I think, are upgrades.

Thank you, Gregg Williams, for helping us win our first Super Bowl.

Steve Spagnuolo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Come on down South... Philly fans sucks and Reid is going to get fired after next year. :twisted:

I am thankful for GW helping us win a Super Bowl but it was time to move on. Now lets go get Spags!

I saw this one coming, I knew he was going to leave just didnt know where.

After reading all the Gregg Williams hate posts on 3 different Saint's sites, I'd say Saints fans aren't any better.

Somebody email me when he's gone. I'm going out to get a life!

nah nah naaah nah nah nah naaah nah hey hey hey goodbyeee

Thanks for the Superbowl Greg. You truly changed the mindset of our defense its to bad the players stopped believing in it.

I find the "who do we get rid of?" talk a bit unsettling as well. The Saints had a terrific year and left us with some great memories. I understand where choupique is coming from sometimes. Or maybe I'm becoming a grumpy old man.

Most of us are guilty of nationalism here so we let the absurdities fly. I'm guilty. Especially this weekend.

I know everyone wants to point fingers at teh defense and mainy Greg Williams.... but reality is having 5 turnovers didn't help.
The score could have been much much worse

Thank you Gregg for all you have did for the Saints Nation and good luck in your travels............ Now, what we have turned into is the G.W. Jacksonville D, oh, did any of you ever look at those old games when he was DC there, well if not just look at what we have on the D now, some truly talented players that do not fit GW's scheme. All is not lost though we just need to dump a few players, draft young aggressive players and watch the Saints be in the top 7 or less D. I do want Sprags, really,really bad, 2 DT's and 1 LB., that should get it......... The youth movement ladies and gentlemen, this D with the right DC can be bad a$$ for years to come and we are only 3 players away.

I definitely try to stay away from the angry/hateful messages. Hopefully in my fog of depression/flabbergastedness I didn't write anything too awful.

That said, I sort of understand some of the frustration with Williams:

Over the past two years we've seen his defenses come up big with some stops when needed. However, considering the amount of points the offense puts up, it feels like the D shouldn't have to be making "big stops" because we should be ahead by a lot more.

We've also seen the Offense bail out the Defense, but I can only think of one game where the D has bailed out the Offense: the Tennessee game this year. When we couldn't get a first down to close out the game, the D kept the lead for us. But even calling that a "bailout" is being generous.

In our last two playoff losses we needed the D to step up big and they didn't. Yes, they kept us in it after some turnovers, but it's not like they pitched shutouts after those TOs.

It seems to me like there is a pattern there. And considering what we've spent on Defensive talent both in money and draft picks, the pattern has to be tracked back to the guy at the top, which is Williams.

I greatly appreciate what he did for the team when we won the Superbowl. I really do. I'm sorry things didn't work out and I wish him all the luck in the world in St. Louis...as long as they're not playing the Saints. :)