RailBoss

I live in Redskin country where Gibbs is more sacred than The Pope. No one\'s bailing on him yet, despite a lousy season and a terrible mistake with Brunnell. The problem in DC lies with the owner, he just can\'t help himself. In my opinion, injuries play a huge roll in the sucess of most teams. Key players out can kill playoff hopes real quick, despite who\'s coaching. Philly will have a tough time without T.O.

dberce1

Agreed, players are the ones who must execute plays. But who calls the plays to be executed??? That\'d be the coaching staff. I think it\'s half and half.

BrooksMustGo

I can find myself in partial agreement with this.

An excellent observation.

Here\'s where I get confused. Billy is basically blaming the players for .500 seasons during the Haslett years. (I think that this makes FAR more sense than Haslett\'s tendency to blame the fans).

So might we agree that Haslett has a hard time picking the key players he needs to win? Could it be that Haslett\'s selection of free agents and draft picks is faulty? These players are the guys that Haslett wanted and the guys he went out and got. But I would agree that we have made several ruinous personnel moves. It seems to me that the players don\'t draft themselves or sign themselves in free agency, so I\'m not ready to absolve Haslett and the front office from any responsibility for underachieving.

But it also seems like there has only been one Haslett year of success. After that year, Haslett then started running off his key personnel. There hasn\'t been anything to sustain since.

http://www.blackandgold.net/site/signature/buddysig.jpg

Tobias-Reiper

...yet...

... the Bucs could not win a SB until Gruden got there and won it with virtually the same players Dungy had for 3-4 years...

... Elway could not win a SB until Shanahan arrived in Denver...

...Dan Reeves went to 4 SB\'s with the Broncos, not the Falcons, so that probably didn\'t matter much for Mr. Blank... Reeves got canned because Michael Vick wasn\'t comfy, and Mr. wheel-chair pushing Sleazoid knows who sells the tickets...

..and ...

... Shanahan has to share the blame for his team has not been as successful since those SB wins... while the Broncos running game has been excellent since he got there, the defense has lacked since the late 90\'s... .it is just this past offseason that the Broncos attempted to address the defense with Bailey and Lynch...and the choices at QB have been shaky... Jake Plummer? Brian Griese?

...Holmgren has to share the blame for his team can\'t get it done... this is the 2nd or 3rd year in a row that his team leads the league in dropped passes... his defense has good players (Trufant, Lucas, Hemlin, Winstrom, Brown, etc...), yet the defensive schemes are lacking and have fielded mediocre results... of course God forbid he gave Rhodes his walking papers, because you know the drill; but that\'s another story...

..I can go on and on...

..but the thing is: all things equal, winning in the NFL takes both having good players and having good coaches: you need good players who not only make plays, but play well together, in offense, defense, and ST\'s... and it is the coaches who put these players together, and give these players the opportunity to be in a position to make these plays (i.e., playcalling). It is also the coaches responsibility to correct mistakes and make adjustments whenever it is called for...

..one quick thing on Gibbs: he\'s got a defense.. give Ramsey the reigns next year from the get-go, and they\'ll contend...
..well, 2 quick things about Gibbs: he has apologized not only to the fans, but actually to his players for the offense\'s bad showing... he keeps telling his players to have faith and give the coaches time to figure it out. I don\'t know if this is a good thing or not, but you know who\'s taking responsibility and who\'s in charge...

'Cause the simple man pays the thrills, the bills and the pills that kill

WhoDat

One thing is for sure - you never learn. Your argument is, as usual, transparent. Coaching doesn\'t matter huh? Didn\'t you say that the Saints had the most talent in the NFC South - top 5 or 10 talent in the league at the beginning of the year? I\'m sure you did - hell, I did. If only players matter - why are the Saints 7-8 instead of at least 10-5 or 11-4? All this talent should make them that good no?

Maybe the players just aren\'t really as talented as we thought. Maybe they can\'t put it together. By the way, who selected them to the team? The coach? Is this \"Jim Haslett\'s team\" or \"Mickey Loomis\' team\"? LOL. And if coaching doesn\'t matter, do players naturally mature on their own? Do they learn the game from other players?

You\'ve made some weak a$$ arguments, but this one is close to the top. I go out of town and you get bold. The Saints win a couple and now you\'re the guy who has been right for years. I might throttle it back some if I were you, lest you and I get into it, and we all know who gets embarrassed in that case.

\"Excuses, excuses, excuses. That’s all anyone ever makes for the New Orleans Saints’ organization.\" - Eric Narcisse


\"Being a Saints fan is almost like being addicted to crack,\" he said.[i]\"You know you should stop, but you just can\'t.\"

xan

There is an interesting article in today\'s New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/30/sp...gin&oref=login

The Jets are 10 and 6. They are in an enviable \"win and in\" scenario for the playoffs, plus, they are in the toughest division of the toughest conference in the NFL.

Talk about deja vu all over again (you Cajuns should know that term).
___
Coaches have to adapt. The best ones, like Belicheck, Andy Reid, and Tony Dungy, assess and reassess constantly. They work with what works for any given package of players.

GumboBC -
The coaches you mention still have reached the promised land.
AND HEY!! They each beat the Saints this year (Mora coaching Reeves team, with Vick doing what Reeves wanted Vick to do in the first place).
Not to kick a man when he\'s down, but thanks for inadvertantly making my point. Each of these coaches have far less \"talent\" than the universally acclaimed Saints. What, oh what, could these guys be doing right?

However, I want o douse any flame on absolving the players for their part in the current situation. I adhere to the theory that to acheive greatness, one must surrender to the process, such that when one seeks out one\'s reflection, one only sees the relentless pursuit of perfection as if this was the only part of one\'s ego worth preserving and protecting.

Joe Horn, Payton Manning, Jerry Rice, Julius Peppers are easy examples. These are \"no stone unturned\" seekers of perfection. And they have surrendered to the process of becoming the best.

Calvin: "I wish I was a Tiger."
Hobbes: "Common lament."

GumboBC

WhoDat --

I took a break for a while. Hopefully you\'ve recouperated from all the times I\'ve taken you to the woodshed. But I see I\'m going to have to take you back out to the woodshed and whip some sense in you... :P

First.. Coaching is important, no one ever said it wasn\'t. But, you have always put coaching above the players in terms of importance. Or in terms of wins/loses.

If that was true then coaches like Parcells and Grunden would be in the playoffs every year, woludn\'t they? Why aren\'t they in there, WhoDat? Did they forget how to coach? Or did the players let them down?

So, while coaching is VERY important, ultimately it\'s the players who win and lose games.

Don\'t make me take you out behind the woodshed again..LMAO.. :P



[Edited on 31/12/2004 by GumboBC]

WhoDat

That\'s your argument? LMAO. You may need to go back into retirement, b/c that was weak!

I forgot who I was talking to for a minute. Let me try to break this down in simple terms:

NFC South - who is the most talented team? The Falcons? I really doubt it. There is no question that you need the players to get you there, but coaches make the difference.

Let\'s try another one:
Last year, was Carolina the most talented team in the NFC? Not even close. Was NE the most talented team in the AFC? No. They were both very well coached.

Or another example, do players turn over year in and year out more than ever before in the history of the game? If players make all the difference, why can the Patties and the Eagles do it over and over year in and year out despite wholesale changes in player personnel?

I certainly hope that you can do better than the above.

\"Excuses, excuses, excuses. That’s all anyone ever makes for the New Orleans Saints’ organization.\" - Eric Narcisse


\"Being a Saints fan is almost like being addicted to crack,\" he said.[i]\"You know you should stop, but you just can\'t.\"

rich006

First, I agree with Tobias-Reiper that to be really successful in the NFL, you have to have a combination of good players, good training, good morale, and good game planning, along with a fair amount of dumb luck. However, I\'d like to address another aspect of this argument.

I think some of us are confusing TALENT with ATHLETICISM. The two are different IMHO. I\'d say talent includes both athleticism and game sense. Take a look at the most successful NFL team of the last few years, the Patriots. They aren\'t known for being all that athletic, but they seem to be loaded with game sense. The players consistently execute well, even when they don\'t necessarily have the best speed, quickness, strength, size, etc.

Why? I can think of two reasons. First, it could be that the Patriots\' staff is committed to, and good at, selecting players with good game sense. Second, it could be that the Patriots\' coaches (and veteran players) are really good at developing game sense in their players. Actually I suspect it\'s a combination of the two.

Getting back to the Saints, I think most of us agree that our players have no game sense. Why not? It\'s the converse of the Pats example. Either we are drafting idiots, or the coaches aren\'t developing the game sense in our players. Or as in the case of the Patriots, I think it\'s a combination of the two. I think the Saints have deemphasized game sense from the beginning of the Haslett regime, in favor of speed, athleticism and simple schemes that supposedly wouldn\'t require much on-field decision-making ability. They thought good game planning and athleticism was enough to win in the NFL, and they were wrong. What we\'ve found instead is that there are a few self-reliant players on the team who have continued to excel despite the management failure (I\'m thinking mainly of Horn), but that most players don\'t get the most out of their athletic ability.

My optimistic side says that the honchos started to realize their mistake last off-season. A look at the players we picked up shows that they are not as \"talented\" as some of the guys we got the last two years, but may have better heads for the game: Watson, Bockwoldt, Karney, Young, etc. If in fact Haslett has changed his overall philosophy, I think we might be headed for a little more success in the future, as he will not only choose smarter players but also put more emphasis on developing the mental aspect of the players he has. My concern is that we have some key players who may be uncoachable, either because of inherent tendencies (Brooks comes to mind) or because of the leadership failure they have experienced since arriving in New Orleans (I want to say Sullivan here, but who knows).

You can agree with me or disagree, but the bottom line with the Saints is that even if you think it\'s the players\' fault they stink, you still have to blame Haslett for choosing the players (as BMG said earlier).

"I'm going back to New Orleans, to wear that ball and chain."

mutineer10

Well said. Another example from this season might be the Steelers. Granted, Pittsburgh has a strong O-line, but their success this year points more directly to good coaching. They\'ve won their last 11 games with a rookie QB, one injury-prone RB and another geriatric, overweight one. No real standouts at TE, two acceptably-talented WR\'s (though Plaxico Burress may be the laziest player in the NFL ... except Sully). The defense has suffered key injuries to players like Kendrell Bell, Casey Hampton and Mike Logan, but their replacements have played well enough to place the Steelers at tops in total defense. Coaching\'s gotta have something to do with this (notice also that Pittsburgh re-hired DC Dick LeBeau this year).

[Edited on 2/1/2005 by mutineer10]