GumboBC

The Rick Venturi File:

Rick Venturi’s record isn't impressive. . Rick Venturi's goal, however, is rather grand. He wants the New Orleans Saints run defense to improve upon the whopping 4.7-yard average they allowed last season. As a matter of fact, the Saints defense has ranked near the bottom of the league in rushing yards allowed since 2001.Which just happens to be the same year Rick Venturi took over defensive coordinator duties from Ron Zook.

The Saints have seemingly made over the defense every year in hopes of improvement. They’ve brought in big run-stuffing tackles, different linebackers, different strategies, but the one thing that has remained constant is Rick Venturi. Well, that and the fact that the Saints defense has allowed over 4-yards per carry under Venturi.

At some point you have to wonder if the problem might not be the players but with Venturi’s scheme itself. And you have to wonder how qualified Venturi is to serve as a defensive coordinator in the NFL.

Well … Let’s look at Venturi’s qualifications.

Adding up all of Rick Venturi’s games as a head coach, both on the college and pro level, Venturi is 2-47-1 in his 50 games. While the case can be made that Venturi just happened to coach some terrible teams, it’s still not much evidence to suggest Venturi is qualified to coach in the NFL.

But, let’s dig a little deeper….

Prior to joining the Saints, Venturi spent two years working under head coach Bill Belichick with the Cleveland Browns, first as secondary coach in 1994 and as defensive coordinator/linebackers coach in 1995. Result – Belichick is fired!! Granted, the Browns weren’t a very good team, but still there’s nothing to suggest Venturi can be a successful coach in the NFL.

But, there’s got to be some success that Venturi has had to get him where he is today. Obviously, I’m overlooking something. Some part of Venturi’s career had to elevate him to the position he holds today.

I’ll just come out and say it. There is no evidence in Venturi’s past that suggests he is qualified for anything other than a position coach. And even that’s debatable. Somehow this guy has managed to survive in a business where coaches are fired for little to no reason. This guy is like a cat. But even a cat only has 9-lives. I’d say Venturi is on at least his 8th life.

I’ve often thought that Venturi’s defenses were badly coached. I’ve always thought the schemes were flawed. Granted Venturi hasn’t had the best talent at every position, but I think there’s been enough talent to play much better than we have the past 3-years.

Maybe I’m being a little hard on Venturi. But Venturi’s defenses have been hard for me to watch. I hope the addition of John Pease will get some of the problems straightened out.

Does anyone else think the problem with our defense might be Rick Venturi??

WhoDat

Welcome to the party Billy. You always this slow?

Seriously though, I remember having this discussion more than a year ago at least. Only twice in his career has venturi ever been associated with a winning team (if memory serves), and one of those was the 2000 Saints - with which he had little influence or effect.

Venturi is not a good coach and certainly not deserving of being a top coordinator in the NFL, IMO. The fact that Haslett has not looked elsewhere for a superior candidate is a strike against him as far as I\'m concerned.

GumboBC

That depends on what time the hookers are suppose to show up... :P

BeeoBee

i agree with your stats on him but..over the past three years..you can\'t really point the finger souly at him..YET...i was ready to put just him under the microscope at the beginning of last year but then almost every player got hurt and you had second stringers in there so i couldnt..towards the end of the year when mostly everyone came back..you have to say you saw SOME improvment ending the season so..i\'m back full circle to where i was last year this time..lets see what happens with this years defense...he will have nowhere to hide or no one to blame if this D fails cause theres plenty of depth..lets see what the man can do..just my 2 cents

kenpersons

He\'s been on the Saints staff since Mora was here. How does an NFL coach on bad teams make it through multiple regimes (I believe he\'s survived under three GM\'s and three head coaches)?

I wonder what the name of the stripper is, and how old she (he?) was. You know Venturi caught Tom Benson with the wrong piece of candy and has the polaroids in a safe deposit box.

Seriously. If he\'s not blackmailing, he must be able to coach. It\'s that simple. There\'s too many guys with capable resumes looking to get jobs in the NFL for him to tie up a payroll spot this long and not be able to coach. There\'s always more to it than what we see.

You\'re all going to love him in February when it\'s his turn to hoist the Lombardi trophy.



[Edited on 7/7/2004 by kenpersons]

It\'s not a question of whether or not the Saints will win the Super Bowl this year. It\'s a question of which Saint will be the MVP of the game.

What do you mean I\'m not supposed to snort the granola?

saintz08

In Billy\'s defense , he just learned what a stop route was a few months ago so he is coming along just fine . Soon he might even work up to being a critic .... A big swig of 08eraid and he will be ready to get in there on the toughest posts .... :P

GumboBC

Here\'s something else to consider.

Earlier I mentioned Venturi worked under Belichick in \'94 and \'95.

In 1994 Venturi was the secondary coach and the Browns defense was ranked #1.

In 1995 Venturi was promoted to D-Coordinator and the Browns defense plummeted from 1st to 20th.

Now, I\'ll be the first one to admit, there could be all kinds of reasons the defense slipped. But that Venturi has got to be the unluckiest dude in the world.

Euphoria

I think the reason we haven\'t seen the departure of Venturi is due to his relationship with Mr. Benson. I hear Benson had promised to \"take care of him\" for standing in when Mora departed us, ect.

kenpersons

Well, if Venturi is getting a free pass, then it\'s up to Haslett to take accountability and make the defense work, yes?

GumboBC

I\'m sure there is some loyalty to Rick Venturi in some kind of way, but I seriously doubt Venturi is getting a free ride. There\'s entirely too much on the line for Jim Haslett.

Haslett has been a very sucessful defensive coordinator and I think if he felt Venturi couldn\'t get the job done, he would take the reins.

That said, I still think Venturi could have done a much better job. This year we seem to have more speed for the defense Venturi wants to run. We\'ll see...