silvermike

What did Dungy say?

I mean, broadly speaking - how valuable is the time between now and the Super Bowl? Is it worth waiting to finish our search until we can get at the guys who went all the way? Is Jason Garrett in Feburary worth more than Brian Schottenheimer next week?

RumoUr?

Maybe Jerry will fire Wade and we can bring him round to be Garrett's DC.

I could dig it.

He seems like a guy who can run an offense but not a team. That said, the Lions were a black hole with no talent. I'd be inclined to give him, Mariucci, Marinelli, and Schwartz a pass.

I've read things that suggest that Ryan, son of an NFL HC himself, would be inclined to let him go work for his dad.

The only problem with hiring Marty Schottenheimer is that he has to agree to be hired.

Maybe we can trade them Aaron Maybin for Michael Oher. Ugh.

With the losses yesterday, two coaching prospects are now available for interview. In brief: The Eagles' McDermott is a DC off the Jim (not Jimmy) Johnson tree: blitz and blitz. The Eagles were consistently one of the most aggressive defenses in the league, of course, Tony Romo just picked that apart in two big games six days apart. He's in the boy-genius coaching class (age: 35), and has spent his entire career with the Eagles, previously as a LB and DB coach. Mike Zimmer is the Bengals DC, who had previously worked in Dallas under Barry Switzer and everyone since. He ran the 4-3 until Parcells told him to switch, and then he went back to the 4-3 for a year in Atlanta and two in Cincinnati. The Bengals were the 12th ranked defense in 2008 and shot up to the top ten this year (6th points, 4th yards). Any further thoughts? I'm not particularly impressed with either, though I like that Zimmer has run 4-3 AND 3-4. Flexibility is big.

This end-of-half drive is long, painful, and hasn't had much in the way of yardage.

Maclin looks like he could be blown over on some of these returns.

Wow, this is almost a walkover.

Yeah - I guess at the end of the day, you just want a guy who belongs in charge. Really, that's Cowher's single greatest strength: he was never a tactical genius, he was just the guy who was in charge. That's the risk you run hiring any coordinator.

Shayne Graham is having a playoff choke job of epic proportions - nothing like it since Doug Brien in 2002 or so. ANd yeah, watching this game, if given a choice between Brian Schotteneheimer and Mike Zimmer, I'm going for Marty's kid.

In all honesty, I can't figure out why Gregg Williams failed. He really seemed to be the complete package: he had a clear, sound philosophy towards running his defense, which had huge success in Tennessee. He came in confident and prepared, and ran a tight ship. There may have been better options at the time, but I don't think there were any red flags around Gregg Williams like there were for Mularkey and Jauron. Just something about his game-day management?

A complete failure who was 54-42 with four playoff appearances and only one losing season in six years.

" Leslie Frazier is leader in Buffalo, but 4 or 5 more to interview. Brian Schottenheimer is one. Mike Zimmer is not." Leader among himself and Perry Fewell, presumably?

If the knock on Frazier is that anyone could win with his talent, what does Billick have going for him?

Frazier did coach a college team for a while, at Trinity in the NAIA, winning two conference titles according to Wikipedia.

How did it go for the last team that hired the Vikings defensive coordinator?

The last big name, Super Bowl champion the Redskins hired was a total bust. It's not a magic trick. And the Bills did pursue Gruden and Shanahan, and Cowher. We can't kidnap them and force them to coach.

What do Frazier and Fewell have in common besides an initial and a scheme choice? And in any case, the Vikings blitz a lot more than the Bills do.

Which room? Because I'm not convinced anyone's smarter than Buddy Nix at One Bills Drive. And htat's not a good thing.

Maybin was really the only notable holdout in recent memory. And it's not like he deserved any more money than he got.