All jokes aside, this was literally what I thought when I looked at him today and if you’ve watched Ted Lasso (it’s a great show, by the way, and I absolutely can’t stand soccer lol), then, in my mind, Nate here does kinda match Mike MacDonald a lot to me. Everyone seems to be treating him as a kind of “wunderkind” of a head coach but at the end of the day he’s still very young, inexperienced, and has never once held an executive coaching position (a Head Coach, if you need clarity on that one) at any level, so, man, making tough decisions is going to be a real struggle for him. AND, honestly, just like ol’ Nate here, he’s going to be easily pushed around by both Jody Allen and John Schneider, which I’m sure THEY love about him.
As far as his defense goes, sure he’s been successful at every level as DC, or defensive coaches in general, so that’s a great thing, and I get that people thought our defense was trash and boring or whatever, but it’s not like he isn’t in the exact same position that Hurt was in with regards to the players. We’ll see what happens over the next few months before the season starts, but we are NOT going to be just magically become that Baltimore Ravens Defense, folks, not unless he can control the ball on offense (Baltimore had a great rushing offense, #1 in fact, in YPG, which helps the defense of a team a LOT…I hate that more football fans don’t understand that fact). And we also don’t have a Patrick Queen nor a Roquan Smith…they apparently did run a lot of 3 safety stuff, but that’s what Pete Carroll and Hurt were trying to build here as well and it did work very well until the injuries overwhelmed us last season….how much control do coaches have with injuries? ….basically zero.
With regards to the post I wrote last night and all the details I put there, I’m just not sure what positives this change will make, aside from assuaging the “YOU’RE FIRED!!!” crowd, who by and large live their lives from rage-fisting cringe to rage-fisting cringe their whole lives in general and only use football to get their emotions out every weekend. And, obviously, when we do something that sucks next season, they’ll just shift their anger at MacDonald and call for HIS firing, so the big wheel just keeps on turning on THAT one. Lol
He’s going to have a very rough time for a long time, I think.
The real test of this guy is going to happen long before the beginning of the playing season though, and that’s in regards to our Free Agents, which we have a ton of right now. If he goes after them and they still bounce, then that’s a bad sign, obviously…or he could basically just rebuild (I can’t stand that #@$%ing word) the whole team from the ground up by letting them all walk and then going after “his guys”, I guess…who knows? But, again, if he did that, then it’s just a huge J-ball move and he’ll lose any respect he may have previously had with the rest of the players, so I hope he doesn’t do that, he just plain doesn’t have the clout to do something like that yet. I sure hope he can get Leonard Williams done above all else though, we just gotta have that guy for a full season locked up and crowding and crashing up the middle of that Dline..it’s a MUST….but that’s something he’d definitely fully understand for sure.
As far as drafting a QB, that’s probably going to happen now, and maybe that’s a good thing, but I just don’t want him (MM) to ruin a kid by forcing him to start in his first season, so if this does happen, and if neither Drew nor Geno walk on their own, than those two will finally fight it out for a REAL QB competition this time (and not that BS one the media over-exaggerated a couple years ago), and the loser will simply be cut in place of the rookie…that seems like the best plan to me *shrugging*. What is very real, unfortunately, in this league, is that Defensive-minded (former DCs) HEAD COACHES will often draft a QB and have no idea how to develop him properly, and those poor QBs will end up basically just having their whole careers and lives destroyed…Alex Smith, Blake Bortles, and Teddy Bridgewater just to name a few, but it happens a LOT in this league…let’s all just hope that doesn’t happen to us *sigh*.
And who is he going to bring in as subordinate coaches? My hope is that he goes after some seasoned former head coaches who can really help him develop the team, such as possibly Vrabel, Lovie Smith, heck, what’s Tony Dungy doing these days? ….Gruden???
I really just don’t know what to make of this hiring, honestly, so we’ll all just have to see, but those of you who are hoping to cash in on sudden gains next season, well, I’d slow my roll if I were you, as the chances of that happening are going to be VERY small.