VrabelJr
Veteran Starter w/Big Long Term Deal
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2011
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The forum has become extremely repetitive on both sides of the debate. I'd like to save people risk of Reptitive Strain Injury and offer up an index of cliches with canned responses. Feel free to provide your own and I'll add them.
"We need a new head coach that is offensive minded, young, and innovative"
A refrain that loves to be used in any (all?) threads calling for BB's head. Users of this spew likely have Kyle Shanahan or Mike McDaniel in mind but unfortunately correlation does not equal causation. Kliff Kingsbury, Matt Nagy, Matt Rhule, Nathaniel Hackett, Adam Gase, Jay Gruden, Freddie Kitchens (45), Anthony Lynn (youngish, 48 when HC of LAC) have all been fired in recent seasons and qualify as young and innovative. If you want to remove young but keep innovative you could also include Frank Reich, who has now been fired twice in two years. Sean McVay won a Super Bowl but was that with the previous coach's roster? The last two seasons have been rocky.
"We need to get rid of BB and his culture of nepotism that he brought in with his sons"
Steve and Brian currently coach the highest performing units of the team and there hasn't been any known criticism of their coaching by players. Everyone's other favorite head coach Kyle Shanahan grew up around the game of football. His first jobs were under his father's best friend Gary Kubiak andhe also spent a few seasons working with his dad Mike Shanahan. A certain other six time Super Bowl winning head coach also grew up around the game of football.
"The rebuild started when Brady left and BB hasn't delivered in 4 years"
Did it though? We almost made the playoffs in 2020 and made them in 2021. If those seasons were drastically worse I'd suspect BB would have made different draft choices and FA signings. If there's any fault worth giving to BB it's that he didn't better identify the actual state of the team the past two seasons (that we know of). The drafting in 2022 does suggest he knew something, as he traded back for Cole Strange. Nobody picked between our original spot and Strange moves the needle.
"BB only drafts players that fit his mold of being smart and keeping their mouth shut. He never takes risks."
I've never heard Rob Gronkowski described that way before. This cliche is too simple to be useful. BB has taken many players that didn't fit or did fit his supposed "mold" as both draftees and FAs. LeGarette Blount is another positive example. Aaron Hernandez and Dominique Easley also didn't fit the BB mold and look how those turned out.
This is fair but could also be lacking sample size. The miss on N'Keal Harry continues to sting hard but drafting a WR that high was a rare occasion. The only other WRs drafted in the first or second round are Aaron Dobson (miss), Chad Jackson (miss), and Deion Branch (hit). The jury is still out on Tyquan Thornton and I'm reluctant to write him off just yet with the other dysfunction going on. Do we fault BB for drafting other players instead of WRs at other times? Drafting for a perennial contender is a lot different than drafting for a rebuild.
"BB can't win without Brady. Brady made him"
It's a natural human tendency to try and dstill complex systems into something easy to understand but these generalizations are never accurate whether it's a football team or the stock market.
1) There's three phases to football and 53 roster spots. QB is very important but Brady didn't play defense or special teams.
2) Not just Brady left. Thuney, Cannon, Hightower, Gronk, Edelman, James White, and countless others left, retired, or regressed (McCourty, Slater)
Cliches not rooted in logic or data:
"We need a new head coach that is offensive minded, young, and innovative"
A refrain that loves to be used in any (all?) threads calling for BB's head. Users of this spew likely have Kyle Shanahan or Mike McDaniel in mind but unfortunately correlation does not equal causation. Kliff Kingsbury, Matt Nagy, Matt Rhule, Nathaniel Hackett, Adam Gase, Jay Gruden, Freddie Kitchens (45), Anthony Lynn (youngish, 48 when HC of LAC) have all been fired in recent seasons and qualify as young and innovative. If you want to remove young but keep innovative you could also include Frank Reich, who has now been fired twice in two years. Sean McVay won a Super Bowl but was that with the previous coach's roster? The last two seasons have been rocky.
"We need to get rid of BB and his culture of nepotism that he brought in with his sons"
Steve and Brian currently coach the highest performing units of the team and there hasn't been any known criticism of their coaching by players. Everyone's other favorite head coach Kyle Shanahan grew up around the game of football. His first jobs were under his father's best friend Gary Kubiak andhe also spent a few seasons working with his dad Mike Shanahan. A certain other six time Super Bowl winning head coach also grew up around the game of football.
"The rebuild started when Brady left and BB hasn't delivered in 4 years"
Did it though? We almost made the playoffs in 2020 and made them in 2021. If those seasons were drastically worse I'd suspect BB would have made different draft choices and FA signings. If there's any fault worth giving to BB it's that he didn't better identify the actual state of the team the past two seasons (that we know of). The drafting in 2022 does suggest he knew something, as he traded back for Cole Strange. Nobody picked between our original spot and Strange moves the needle.
"BB only drafts players that fit his mold of being smart and keeping their mouth shut. He never takes risks."
I've never heard Rob Gronkowski described that way before. This cliche is too simple to be useful. BB has taken many players that didn't fit or did fit his supposed "mold" as both draftees and FAs. LeGarette Blount is another positive example. Aaron Hernandez and Dominique Easley also didn't fit the BB mold and look how those turned out.
Fair Criticisms:
"BB doesn't know how to draft WRs"This is fair but could also be lacking sample size. The miss on N'Keal Harry continues to sting hard but drafting a WR that high was a rare occasion. The only other WRs drafted in the first or second round are Aaron Dobson (miss), Chad Jackson (miss), and Deion Branch (hit). The jury is still out on Tyquan Thornton and I'm reluctant to write him off just yet with the other dysfunction going on. Do we fault BB for drafting other players instead of WRs at other times? Drafting for a perennial contender is a lot different than drafting for a rebuild.
"BB can't win without Brady. Brady made him"
It's a natural human tendency to try and dstill complex systems into something easy to understand but these generalizations are never accurate whether it's a football team or the stock market.
1) There's three phases to football and 53 roster spots. QB is very important but Brady didn't play defense or special teams.
2) Not just Brady left. Thuney, Cannon, Hightower, Gronk, Edelman, James White, and countless others left, retired, or regressed (McCourty, Slater)
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