LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

F#$%!

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

Mike Nolan deserves that title, he's earned it. Good for him. Congrats.

Saints FO needs to counter that and see if Kris Richard or Marvin Lewis are interested in coming down to the Big Easy.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

Mike Nolan has been an important part of this coaching staff. Congrats to him, but I fear it is the beginning of the dismantling.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

Plenty of coaches available. Look at what Kubiak did for Minnesota....

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

I'm amazed we kept our D staff as long as we did.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

This is gonna be a VERY interesting offseason. Getcha popcorn ready fellas...

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

I thought Dennis Allen was going to be stolen and we'd promote Nolan to DC.

Oh well. The Cowboys will be a very good team next year, and I fear that we won't.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

We can promote our talented DE coach recently hired from the college ranks.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

HIRE HIM NOW!

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

Success breeds success. The Saints had reached a point where coaching and player talent was attracted to New Orleans in hopes of riding Bree's and Payton's coat tails to a ring. If yesterday's game is seen as an exposure that the king has no clothes, free agent and coaching talent will be much harder to come by and/or much more expensive.

Nolan's departure may be the first shoe to drop.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

Nobody wasn’t Allen.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

I think Allen benefited from Nolan and Neilson as his positional coaches.

Nolan - Linebackers
Neilson - D line

Both units were stout for much of the season, even considering injuries were sustained.

What position did Allen used to coach before becoming a DC?
DB's, and what position on D was the weakest link for this team? DB's - all apart from Vonn Bell.

DA is nothing without a decent cast, which we may see if we dont sign Wade pretty soon.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

If we sign Wade we’ll likely shift to an attacking 3-4 defense but we don’t really have the personnel for it at the moment. We don’t have those 3-4 edge rushers, but I do think Cam Jordan, Mario Edwards, and David Onyemata make for some great 3-4 DE’s. We have our 3-4 ILB’s with Davis and Alonzo, but we gotta get those two EDGE rushers.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

It would be kind of sad to switch to a 3-4 now after it took us so damn long to build a quality 4-3 defense :(

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

This one is going to hurt.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

Damn

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

https://media.giphy.com/media/l3V0H7...TOfu/giphy.gif

This really sucks - now it'll be death by a thousand cuts...

Danno, we couldn't give away Dennis Allen right now...

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

Idk if Nolan was the complete reason but it seemed like our defense completely turned the corner when we hired him.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

Good news is we have the pieces in place: Davis-Anzalone-Klein. We have a promising young guy in Kaden Elliss and quality veteran backup in Craig Robertson. We just need one more piece for Anzalone injury insurance. Kiko was that guy, but a torn ACL will keep him sidelined if not released.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

That's part of the problem.

Sean P needs to stop meddling with the defense.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

A 3-4 would be terrible. We have excellent 4-3 personnel

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

I just wish we could count on Anzalone to play a full season. Didn't he have injury issues in college?

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

It's possible that SP deciding to go to a 3-4 defense just to "shake things up" was what helped contribute to those 7-9 finishes. It was a disaster and it didn't work for us.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

Yes sir. A lot.

That was the knock on Alex coming out of Florida. Superior athlete with speed and quickness however durability was his main issue. So far, most scouting reports were correct.

My hope is that we address LB spot during free agency. Demario needs an assassin next to him who can get to those sidelines (watch the Niners LB on Sat vs MN) at the blink of an eye.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

We don't even have good enough linebackers for a 4-3, outside of Davis, who was robbed of a probowl. No way we have the speed or athleticism required for 3-4 linebackers. And we don't have enough picks or cap space to sign enough in one off season.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

In fact, I don't think this team has put enough emphasis on linebacker going all the way back to Jim Haslett, who ironically played linebacker. We've sometimes had one guy who was good, the rest are pick up pieces. Of course, we can't have four all stars like the dome patrol, but c'mon.

If you think about the greatest defenses of all time, they all had great linebackers. We have Davis and that's pretty much it. Klein played well at times. Anzelone played well at times when he wasn't injured.

We need one more guy like Davis who can run sideline to sideline, be stout in the run lanes, cover in the middle of the field, and get to the QB when needed.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

Mike Nolan turned this defense around for Dennis Allen who has never ever developed a single NFL linebacker. Anzalone we drafted but I think everyone else were free agents coming to the Saints and letting Nolan make the most of them.

I've said it to family and friends but I haven't wanted to disrespect Allen....but I'm not a fan. He doesn't know how to game plan to beat his opponent early on. He is however pretty good at making half time adjustments. That's not enough production to suit me. Our position coaches made this team great and they are being poached now. With a different staff we may not see a strong young defense again for quite sometime.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

+1. I'd personally love to see a 3 down backer with Demario. I wish AJ Klein was faster but it looks like he takes the bus everywhere. Smart player, knows where to be but simply not fast enough.

Kiko, Ellis and Anzalone are injured guys & Craig Rob is a just a back up.

I'd like to see upgrades this off season.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

This drives me crazy about Dennis Allen... the counter-punch defense. We play vanilla in the first half of a game and then make the necessary adjustments instead of imposing our will from the start. That’s why our defense always stinks for the first few weeks.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

As most of you have stated... Allen is bad in the first half, but he is also known for giving up leads or backbreaking plays at the end of a game.

Allen is good in the 2nd and 3rd qtrs and that’s because his game plan is always poor in the 1st, adjustments are good but then by the 4th the other team adjusts.

He hasn’t been too bad, let’s face it, before Allen we were constantly last in the league. We all said for years if we only had a avg defense we could be unstoppable... well for the last 3 years our defense has been solid but we haven’t punched through. I am fine with Allen staying, but we need more talent up front that can stay healthy.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

Definitely agree.
I was certainly of the belief that all we needed was a decent D to get us going, but that was when our offense was a quick starting machine which could mask a ton of issues elsewhere.
Now our offense isnt the unstoppable force and tends to get too pass happy we notice every little failure, even when the D is statistically better than in previous years.

As Brees doesnt have the arm to throw the deep ball anymore, teams dont respect it and play underneath coverage - which is why Kamara is so crowded whenever he catches the ball.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

Don't forget a big NT to man the middle of a 3-4. We don't have 1 of those either.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

Truth right here.

I can't believe people still defend Allen. It's what I mean when I talk about the non-call being a shiny object waved in front of the eyes of this fan base. It distracts them from the giant red flags waving everywhere. One of those red flags is Allen, and has been obvious since the Minnesota Miracle.

Our LB core and especially our pass rush came to form under Nolan. This is a MAJOR loss for us and it's going to sting.

I wanted Allen gone after 2016 when our defense was historically bad, breaking some record for most passing touchdowns given up. We had a chance to get Wade Phillips and I would've much rather preferred him as defensive coordinator. Pair Phillips with Nolan, and this defense would've been much better in the last 3 years.

On the flip side, I can't believe I am actually saying this; Dallas will be a legit threat in the future if they let McCarthy and Nolan build up on that team. I never bought into the talk that McCarthy was a bad coach coasting off Aaron Rodgers in GB. Rodgers is the problem over there and their front office worships him and has bent their knee to please him. If McCarthy and Nolan are allowed to do their jobs in Dallas, I expect them to make the NFCCG by 2021.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

This is true and this past year, I noticed Brees at many times, was just checking it down to Kamara and not even bothering going through reads down field. You saw this all through the playoff game.

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

Re: LB Coach Mike Nolan Hired by Cowboys
 

A clip of our LB’s before Mike Nolan:

https://i.imgur.com/zDSWuck.gif