RealityCheck

Owen Hart.

My kind of coach.

Chumming the waters. Too funny. People are mad at you for what they thought you were implying, when they are actually responding to the idea of you first, then superimposing that over why you posted the article. I guess it really is all in the head.

By default, the current organizational structure points to a "buck stops with the Pegulas" kind of equation. In the past, "those at fault" were part of a murky cabal of enigmatic personae. Now, it appears to me to function as a very simple, and hopefully efficient FO. Moves like this need to play out due to the non-linearity of the situation and football in general. This FO should be judged by their win/loss column. In the books of many, the clock is officially set at zero, and the score is zero to zero. JMO.

Obviously, I hope Rex goes down as the greatest head coach in the history of the Cosmos, but who knows how it will really end. I take solace in the fact that it was a good decision to commit to a 5 year deal. That should speak hopefully to a coaching environment that is less prone to hasty decisions and a fear of losing. This team needs to seize the opportunity and dare to be great. Intelligent aggression in all 3 phases is a safe bet for 2015. The running game will come back soon. It has to.

The Texans just Munsoned themselves.

The problem with analogies is that you just stopped talking about football, and now I am not sure that I agree with your definition of curing an illness.

Let go of the hate. Embrace another Super Bowl failure by the Pats at the hands of their former coach. The Super Bowl will represent a cataclysmic shift in the NFL. The Pats will lose worse than the Broncos last year. The Pats will enter next September with Brady on the PUP list. A long and painful playoff drought is about to commence after they get destroyed in 2 weeks. Cleo dropped this on me this morning. Money well spent?

They aren't. Anything with 4 LBs on the field will likely be a sub-package. 4-3 under means what it says. 4 down linemen shifted to the weak side with the 3 LBs slid over to the strong side. When Pettine would sometimes run what looked like a straight-up 3-4, he typically would have one of the reserve safeties come in and line up at one of the inside LB spots. That is one of the sub-packages that began to get Searcy involved before he merged as a good blitzer out of the nickel.

Mercy is for the weak.

Winning your division is mostly about the QB. Once in the playoffs, when facing teams with equally strong QBs, the running game and defense become the new X-factors.

Why do I feel like I just got kicked in the balls?

Exactly. Believe me, I wish this wasn't the case, but it is what I have observed. College coaches run schemes to win, not develop pocket passers. More QBs are forced to run gimmicky offenses that relate little to the pro game...impatience. NFL HCs have short leashes. If they don't win early and often enough, they are fired...impatience. Ever since Parcells jumped around getting all those teams to the playoffs within 3 years has created a 3 year expectation for many coaches from ownership...impatience. The CBA offers less and less time for mandatory work, which leads to more...impatience. The current NFL is loaded with extreme impatience, and it increases in proportion to the amount of money on the line and agents involved. It is an environment that is most definitely ruled by the quick and the dead. GMs and HCs have little time to focus on much outside of trying to win on Sunday, no matter how that is accomplished. This culture of impatience league wide dictates that the onus is on the player to work extremely hard outside of the CBA approved structure and be a disciple of their particular disciplines. I agree with you that impatience is the problem. However, I just think there comes a point in time that you have to accept the situation for exactly what it is, as a young QB in this case, and respond appropriately to the environment they find themselves in. The schedule for the league year stops for no one. I wish in a way that it was more like 1970s football, as a culture I mean.

You make a good point. Unpredictability between the run and pass has been absent for a while. Calling the right plays at the right time and a balanced approach would be ideal.

Assuming Spikes is off the roster: 4-3 under, Kiko, Preston, Nigel. 4-3, the same. 3-3, the same. 4-2, Kiko and Nigel. 3-2, the same. I don't expect much 2-gap 3-4 unless Rex uses it on a passing down where the look is the 3-4, but a safety or 2 might also be lined up at one of the LBr spots allowing for some confusion on who is coming and who is dropping back. Rex will run the 4-3 under and some straight up 4-3, along with weird nickel alignments and a fair bit of dime if the team finds itself with a big lead late in the game.

He is weaker at the point of attack now than he was when he was with the team a few years ago. He is a finesse player that is beginning the negative descent from his physical plateau a few years ago.

QB development is the responsibility of the QB. There is no time in todays NFL once training camp starts to nurse a young QB along. They are either making enough plays to win or they don't. The onus is on these young guys to do everything in their power outside of organized team events to get better. You can't throw games away trying to get a young QB to learn their lessons when perhaps someone else on the roster can get it done. Few owners enjoy seeing over 100 million dollars-plus in payroll flushed down the tubes for 16 games as they watch a young QB continuously burn their hand on the stove until some lights come on, which doesn't always happen. The cream always rises to the top. There is only so much coaching can do, the circuit has to be completed by that player and thanks to the CBA, there is only so much time to do extra work with these guys and then it's up to the player. If Manuel is truly obsessed with becoming a great QB, then he will make progress. If he approaches the QB position with the new staff as simply another day at the office, then I would expect more of the same from him. At the end of the day, he alone owns his body of work. What he absorbs mentally is completely on him. People flunk out of college all the time. Odds are it's not the teachers fault, you either aren't smart enough to begin with or you failed to adequately apply yourself.

Do you have proof of that? I think you might be jumping to conclusions.

The day these dead beat birds start getting jobs, paying taxes, and stop s******g on my vehicles will be the day I care what they have to say. They come here when it suits them and they don't even bother to learn the language.

I judge them by their 40 times and the Wonderlic.

He'll make a good football repair man. A pigskin cobbler if you will. It goes hand in hand with the chipmunk skin visor he'll be wearing in approximately 18 months. I also see a worm farm in his future. "I Got Worms...Obviously!".

With the 2 DTs on the field, would they line up across from the guards?

Incorrect assumption. The 5 LBrs don't all have to be LBrs. Ryan and Pettine use the alignment to confuse the O-line as to who is coming and how. KW could be used in space and in motion prior to the snap. This isn't a new concept, nor is it a scheme. It is a sub-package alignment. Sorry, but I thought this would have been a fun subject for the football nerds as we will most definitely see this employed at times throughout the season.

Making chicken soup out of chicken s*** is a recipe for failure. They need better players that can stay on the field.

He looked better before he had the bolts removed. JMO.