1 Like
Well, one way of looking at it is that he did have Vildor playing at an NFL level (It’s not his fault the guy didn’t pick off the facemask pass)—out of necessity.
The CB talent HAS to improve. The Lions JUST missed a SB berth.
Pretty good with what they have in the secondary.
1 Like
It’s hard for me to accept the “he wasn’t given anything to work with” argument. Throughout AG’s tenure here there have been communication problems in the secondary on the regular. He fired Pleasant, who’s a damn good secondary coach, due to lack of performance. I guess the “he didn’t have anything to work with” excuse only works for AG but it’s on for that to cost others their job?
Additionally, the lack of development at CB is troubling. Jacobs has gotten worse, not better, with this staff. Sutton regressed under this coaching staff. Okudah certainly never developed. Will Harris isn’t a reliable corner. For some reason despite multiple players and coaches - nobody can seem to play CB with any measure of success in this scheme. I think after 3 seasons of that the excuses have run out for me personally. I’m glad they got ANOTHER new CB coach and I hope this guy can finally get results…. If not, serious questions need to be asked about what’s going on.
3 Likes
You make some good points @Luke
We need some stability and consistency in the secondary. We are swapping coaches and players like clean underwear after late night taco bell.
Take Jacobs for example. Dude had 3 different corner coaches in 3 years. That’s not good for player development.
Hopefully the new coach and AG can finally get on the same page.
The talent of course needs an upgrade as well. But stability in coaching means a lot to player development
1 Like
playing devils advocate a little bit here
the secondary was starting to play better after pleaseants firing outside of Okudah, who was injured that entire second half of the season. Jerry Jacobs was playing solid, Kerby started to show out with more playing time aswell.
Lions have shown to make changes when they feel like they need to
Both after Pleasents firing and Lynn getting his ass benched the team improved significantly in those respective departments afterwards
Do i think Pleasant was a solid coach? yes. Was he also going against the coaching staff and going “rogue” also seems to be yes
AG gets some blame considering its 3 years now and the secondary has been a continous issue (injuries you can argue affected them this year, but still, Jacobs and Kerby regressing is bad no way about it)
though at the same time, AG and his aggressive blitz scheming helped us all the way to the championship game at the same time.
pretty much where im at, they got one more year, put some resources (I swear if they get injured again man…) into the secondary, new CB coach, improved talent on the D
If the pass defense is still appaling, time to answer some tough questions.
1 Like
Like who really from the coaching staff would whisper anything to the beat writers?..I’m not buying it. Sounds like the reporters whispering to each what they’re speculating or making-up. Maybe I’m wrong though but very few of those reporters are any more tapped into what the coaches are thinking than we are.
I do think it was funny how Risdon was slamming Carlos the other day on the Huge Show though. Risdon has actually grown on me but he’s still very far from being a scheme expert. He needs a lot more training in that department.
1 Like
So Bly becomes Secondary coach?
Respectfully, that is a stretch, justin rogers for example is very plugged in. I never said it was the media that was whispering.
Risdon never claims to be a scheme expert. There are stories about carlos, lots of them, he isn’t well liked in the lions bullpen. Neither is wojo. Jeff knows a lot more about football then most and he puts his name behind his work and owns when he is wrong.
It is fine to disagree w the notion that bly is on thin ice, but its been a recurring conversation and when there is smoke there is typically fire.
Same group of people who said BJ wasnt going anywhere for 2 years now, who said buggs was lazy and not long for this team, who said mosely reinjured himself in the offseason and almost got cut, the Jamo saga…they are the same ones w these whipsers.
1 Like
I doubt it . . . he may stay. I think the guy they hired to be passing game coordinator is basically taking Dunker’s spot.
Who knows on Bly. He had garbage to work with and got garbage out of the players.
3 Likes
Duker being gone is interesting. The turnover under AG continues.
New thread on it now
2 Likes
Absolutely agree.
If they had a dominating, smothering, strike fear into the opponents O line and terrify their quarterback bad ass pass rush the CB’s would look MUCH better.
1 Like
I got an idea, lets make AG the secondary coach (since that seems to be what he is good at) and hire a real DC
1 Like
I just don’t buy that Bly coached- down Sutton and Jacobs. Like, Sutton was good for the first half of the season but teams learned he’d bite on every double-move. Maybe MCDC is not impressed with Bly because he couldn’t coreect this in Sutton?..but there’s speculation he was playing injured and Risdon even said he lost his confidence.
Again, Sutton was great in Pittsburgh when he had a pass-rush and none of our CB’s are going to be good here until we get a pass rush. We can hire any DB coach and have Deion and Revis as our CB’s and if we don’t have a pass rush, those guys are gonna fail.
And just to reiterate, we just went to the NFC championship and were 1/2 from going to the Superbowl with no pass rush and one decent CB…and we’re not happy with our DB coach.
We were actually second in the league in pressure rate.
So we had a pass rush. We just needed to bring extra bodies to unleash it. We also didn’t finish our pressures. So it was no doubt a flawed group but I think simply year to year variance was probably effecting sack totals. There always an element of that to sacks.
Talent at Corner was a bigger problem IMO. But I also don’t think you can discount the potential effect of improved coaching as well. Especially in tandem with a talent infusion.
1 Like
With Brian Duker on his way to MIA, it’s likely Bly will stay and Townsend will be DBs coach.
I saw a lot of miscommunication between CBs and S. There were several “hand off” issues back there. Those have to get ironed out. We had a lot of injuries to our DBs. Guys you practice with are leaving for some time. If I remember correctly, this issue was prevalent when Pleasant was here.
I’m a firm believer, the problem is the players and lack of ability to playmake and communicate.
2 Likes
We also blitzed on 3rd down more than 75% of the league, so that so-called QB pressure was generated at the expense of guys in pass coverage.
Just curious, was Bly coaching the Safeties as well or only the CB’s?
CBs were his dominion with Duker handling safeties.
That’s my understanding at least.
And sure on the blitzing. KC’s corners hold up fine in a similar situation. Minny’s held up pretty well and as opposed to KC I don’t think Minny’s CBs were all that talented.
1 Like