UPDATE!! LOL: Man, literally after I wrote this and then posted it on a couple of Seahawk pages, I find out that we just hired this guy Jake Peetz who is basically exactly what I was asking/hoping to get in our offense. If you do get to the last paragraph of this blog post, it’s exactly what I wrote there and had no idea that this guy was even hired before I wrote any of this. There is nothing that I can find on the Seahawk’s website, which is where I was getting my info from. While this is amazing news to me, and it fills the need I was hoping for, as well as helping to assuage the worries I have in Grubb, it doesn’t make my post here any less relevant, so do please enjoy the following, with the now hindsight that Peetz is now our guy.
WARNING: This blog post is probably going to hurt your feelings so I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re intellectually soft and can’t take a punch to your noggin…and it’s probably not for minors at all, honestly.
I just finished all the press conferences today from Durde, Jay Harbaugh, and of course, Ryan Grubb. I have to say that I really do hope I’m wrong about Grubb from my previous comments on him because he really does seem like a likable guy and a knowledgeable football coach.
Durde is a really funny choice for DC, honestly, because he seems totally clueless about it and frankly, all but admitted that in his conference lol …but at least he’s honest and, I guess, ultimately, just plain humble. And he’s hilarious in general, kinda reminds me of me in my younger, less-grouchy days lol. But, I mean, let’s be real, he’s clearly just sort of a place holder anyway, at least he will be for a while, as we already know it’ll be MM calling the defense, but as they bring him (Durde) up, that’s going to be a very fun process to watch as a fan, I think. Honestly, given Frazier, the two from yesterday, Scott and Olivadotti, and Mike Macdonald himself, this choice with Durde at DC is honestly fantastic, and pretty much perfect in every way.
Jay Harbaugh…..uh, okay *shrugging* ….I guess it’s not what you know, it’s..… you know? The guy never played football and is obviously daddy’s boy, except now he’s without his daddy…we’ll see how that one goes, but what was most promising with this one is that in his presser he mentioned the Seahawks are also bringing in a guy named Devin Fitzsimmons, who has a ton of experience in the league coaching Spec Teams, and he’s officially titled as “Assistant Special Teams Coach” UNDER Harboy…hmmmm…
…………………wow, I no joke just thought of something…..hmmmm….(see below)
On Grubb….this is going to be an ongoing thing with me because I really still don’t think he’s NFL ready. Ironically, he kinda mentioned that exact same thing in his presser, so I‘m glad to hear that we actually agree lol . I do think he’s sharp and EVENTUALLY he’ll be a great one in this league…I wasn’t sure of that before today given the fact that he’s been “DeBoer’s boy”, and mostly in JuCo, his whole career….the biggest leap from any level of college to NFL is going to be the speed of the actual game
And, look, I’m just a fan here and never played in the NFL, but I’m 52 and I’ve watched, played, and studied (like, actual, books, folks….and, like, lots of them) since the Carter Administration…I even took a Football Coaching class in college back when WWU actually had a football team *sigh* … I still have the notes! 😀 …in fact, I was the only non-player or coach in the class lol …at the time I was going to school to get a Teacher Certification with the intent to coach eventually…then, for non-football personal and professional reasons, I never got into it and went a different direction in Education….kinda my only one sorta regret in life.
At heart, I’m just a science (not sci-fi) nerd who has a religion called Football.
The game at the NFL level is SO FRIGGIN FAST, MAN! …I know that Mike Mac has his background in defense, so it’s all going to depend on who Grubb can get for his subordinate coaches on offense (stay tuned) …and on that, if things don’t start to take action by Monday, then I’m going to be led to believe that other guys around the league don’t want to play under Grubb when it really should be the other way around…we’ll see on that one. (and this comes back to that thought I just had above…hmmmm….)
I want to make another post about this (coming soon) but recently, in the off season, I’ve been taking advantage of NFL+’s (which I HIGHLY RECOMMEND, by the way!!!) “All 22” coaches films and last night I spent too many hours watching our game vs. Dallas this last season…I’ve already watched both of the Baltimore games against us and the 49ers as well over the last couple of weeks to give me some perspective on MM’s style of defense (more on that coming soon, got a few more games to watch though)….last night, however, something really really struck out at me and, please understand that these coaches’ films are as dry as they can be…one, they’re panned out so they cover all 22 players, so you can see everything from a bird’s eye view. And they run each play twice, one view from the sideline, and then another, more zoomed in, from either the offensive or defensive backfields. But the point is that there’s really zero emotional commitment involved at all because it’s literally just video..no audio whatsoever…no commercials, no announcers, no beer and sliders, just the kind of thing that if you don’t love and study the game as a true football nerd, you’d get bored with real fast. (like so many of you get so easily bored with my posts, I’m sure lol). You also don’t really have score information, or what down it is, and can’t see the clock, so it’s really just about the individual plays, not really the game itself.
SO, this ONE THING just really stuck out at me LAST NIGHT while watching this Dallas game with this kind of context….that the game is SO FAST!! LOL …I replayed multiple plays over and over but, man, it really is a massive deal compared to college football. Last night I finally learned to put the video speed at .75, which really was perfect for my purposes, but it then crazily seemed like I had suddenly turned on a college football game!
So…some of us just see things that other people don’t see in life…as a Teacher by practice, I’m kind of in the field of Human Development, if that makes sense. I don’t care what field a person might be in, as you gain experience in life with it, you’re just plain going to see things that people with less experience aren’t seeing…again, that’s any field, right? But as a Teacher, which really is what Coaching is plus, plus, plus…I see how people act and respond in ongoing processes of learning things….and I can see and notice things about others AS THEY ARE in the moment of learning. Does that make sense?
SO…back to Grubb and his style of offense….hmmm…over the next few weeks I’m going to try to go back and rewatch some Husky games over the last two seasons and study his offense lots more but from what I know already, I honestly just don’t think these crafty things he did in college are even remotely going to work in the NFL..and there are very specific reasons…I mean FOOTBALL reasons, in terms of how offenses work…in terms of human development…professionals vs amateurs …man, it’s big. And most people think football is just physical, which it is, but, I’m focusing on MENTAL (cognitive) development as well, you need to understand this, that I CAN’T NOT (that’s a double-negative, folks) see WHAT I SEE! LOL
I’ve already mentioned the speed of the game being a major factor, but that’s something any person would easily be able to understand, so what I want to put out there next isn’t so colloquial.
I think Grubb is going to discover that the NFL is less mentally fluid than what he’s experienced at any level of college, especially at the UW…these guys think, and rookies will say this all the time, that after college that it benefits them to not have to worry about doing History of the Horn of Africa, Microeconomics, Statistics or even taking Football Coaching classes because THEN, as a pro, they can ONLY focus on “football”, working out, and playing the game, right? …well, what I’m telling you is that, those classes, and all the research and paper writing they did on those other subjects they probably hated, ALSO helped them be better football players!
In fact, I think MM probably believes that Grubb is going to figure it out, and man, who knows, maybe he will, but it’s going to be one hell of a holy grail of a thing if they can, because I just don’t think guys in the NFL, and, yes, especially many on our team specifically, have the intellect, let alone the mental and emotional fluidity to adapt (learn) to Grubb’s college system.
I’ll be specific here and this is probably going to hit people in their bitter feels but here goes..we are VERY LUCKY to have a guy like Olu, a Pete Carroll draft pick last year, as a developing Center…if anyone has heard him in a press conference or whatever, he’s probably always the smartest guy in any room he enters…and guys like that just know it too. Geno is probably next and then Lockett…we got Wags, who is definitely wanning as a cover guy, by the way, and Diggs…I’m maybe missing people, but I would call those guys “intellectually curious”…they LOVE to learn new things, and, most importantly, NON-FOOTBALL things. Adams is definitely, what I would call, “football smart”, and he is indeed that, but is he going to be interested in Shakespeare? Do you see where I’m going with this? Is this making ANY SENSE? LOL!
So while they’re definitely faster in moving, they’re going to be slower in learning…not dumb, that’s not what I’m saying, not necessarily anyway…it’s more of a willingness thing…and it becomes literally, physically, harder.
As a real and successful Leader of people, you’re (generally) always going to see things that those under you aren’t, and some..welp.. just plain can’t (or won’t). So, Grubb’s offense, and what HE is seeing, might not be able to work at the NFL level, nor probably not on this team.
Let’s hurt some more feels here…the UW is perennially well known and established all around the world as a very heady school, right? My Genetics class at Western was a clone (no science nerd pun intended) of the UW class (same curriculum, and lots of professional collaboration between the Biology programs) and, man, that class KICKED MY BUTT!!! …that class and Organic Chem were my only C’s in college lol
My point is here, is that Grubb might not have even know this yet, but even Husky football players would probably be, on average, headier than guys from Alabama, LSU, or Mississippi State. And, I mean, Abe Lucas seems like a sharp dude when you listen to him but he is, after all, still only a Coug (lol…sorry, not sorry!!)
I get that some people are going to laugh their butt’s off at what I’m saying here, but I highly doubt anyone who would… well, would have even made it passed my 1st paragraph here…so, I know this blog post/article is a near book of details, but that would leave, again, probably the more intellectually curious people to even make it to this period => . (<= that period, right there)
I’m actually betting on that….because I’m saying things here that should probably go in the “things that should never be said” file.
I don’t think DK is smart enough to run a complex offense of any kind..there I said it. In fact, that’s one of my biggest problems with him…for 5 straight years, he’s made the exact same MENTAL mistakes and he’s done it over and over and over WITHOUT LEARNING …people who can’t (or won’t) learn are actually stupid…oops, did I just say that??? And, more specifically, I think that’s the reason why our offense under Waldren, specifically, often failed. You are welcome to reference any of the other posts I’ve made on this blog about him to further understand the actual football specifics. And no, trying to learn Sign doesn’t really count, as he seemed to learn it basically to get away with cussing at the other players who he regularly CHOOSES to get into fisticuffs with on the field, without getting a flag.
Also, aside from Olu, who I mentioned above, I don’t think the rest of our Oline, even as it’s developing, will pick up what Grubb is laying down either. Most of the crazy nerdy crafty aspects of his offense really starts with the Oline and how it makes space for the skill guys. That could be said for ANY offense, I get it, but I’ve only scratched the surface so far of a what I understand on Grubb’s offense, and have so SO much more to learn myself about Grubb’s special stuff, but then, of course, I want to compare it to other offenses (which is kinda what I was doing last night with the Dallas game). Grubb said in his conference that his offense was adapted from professional style offenses, so who knows, but my point is that you can be as Einstein as it gets but if you can’t get people to learn E=mc^2, let alone to teach them to run a nuclear reactor safely, then we just plain ain’t having no nuclear freaking energy, man.
Dig?
Good, because if you dug THAT, then let’s get into some REALZY STUFF! …like human brain development 😀
No one would really have a reason to know this unless you’re a Teacher or in Human Development and Psychological fields, but our brains lose a lot of their capacity to learn new things as we grow older. This is a process in human brain development and it happens to everyone (called Synaptic Pruning, if you want to Google it) but it REALLY slows down and stops in our late 20s (yes, everyone is a little different, but by and large, that’s just humans as a species). So, it’s much harder to learn new things, or I should say, WANT to learn new things, as an older adult than it is as a quickly developing child or young adult, which is obviously when most people go to school/college or learn their trades or specialites in life. It’s not that we CAN’T learn new things as we get older, but our CAPACITY to learn new things is basically fixed by our late 20s. So coaching adults to learn new systems, tactics, actual movements, etc., gets much harder as we move out of our early 20s, which is obviously the time when these atheletes are getting pumped full of book smarts as their brains are still developing.
To be clear, if our brains are not stressed to learn more complex stuff BEFORE this process stops in our mid-to-late 20s, then our learning is basically fixed for life after that. And, again, this happens to everyone, not just “smarter” or “dumber” people, but my point is that by the time people reach this age, if they didn’t work their brains intellectually and force new and stressful learning before that, then, yeah, the want to learn new things just suffers later in life.
Okay, final point, and I want to come back to that “hmmm” thought I referenced above…as I was writing this, and literally as of today after now seeing these subordinate coaches being brought in and in their specific capacity, I really think that Mike Macdonald might literally be a friggin genius…and I mean, literally, just as everyone seems to be saying about it.
So, check this out….this guy is, as it’s really clear to me now, especially with the Spec Teams coaches, that he KNOWS he has limits in his own experience at being a head coach in the NFL. So, he’s not just bringing guys in to coach this team, but he’s also bringing guys in to help HIMSELF LEARN to develop THOSE GUYS! …so, it’s like he’s wise enough to know that his limits, and what he would have to work on and get better at himself, is LEARNING how to DEVELOP other coaches under him, to then, of course, delegate responsibilities down through the chain of his command. And developing people, something that Pete Carroll was definitelly at a mastery level of, is extremely difficult, time consuming, and not something you can just force.
So, maybe he brings in Jay Harbaugh (who it sounds like is actually a close personal friend of MM, honestly) but with zero NFL experience in the superior position of Spec Teams coordinator, and then brings in Fitzsimmons, who has a TON of NFL experience, technically under him as his Assistant. It’s the same with Scott/Olivadotti and Durde as DC, and even himself with Frazier as Assistant Head Coach, who probably really should be a hot Head Coach commodity himself at this point.
Now, okay, maybe this kind of thing has been happening for years in the NFL, or even at the college level, I don’t know and maybe others can help me better understand that, but, geez, I mean in my lifetime, aside from a couple of real flops, the Seahawks have had a relatively long stream of really great and transformative NFL head coaches, who already had tier one executive level NFL experience BEFORE they got here! …so this kind of thing to me, as a life-long Seahawk fan is really just so new! Lol
Again, this whole process is obviously an evolution and we’ll know far more about these details as the offensive coaches start to be brought in under Grubb. And, yes, I do know about Huff, but, again, that’s the kind of lack of NFL experience that I’m talking about here, and is the crux of my whole worry about Grubb in the first place. But if they can follow this “genius model” I just mentioned above and bring in, say, a long tenured NFL guy at say, WR, or RB coach, or something like that, then, man, we could be seriously into something really really good then, AND for a very very long time.
End