Great Position Coaching Cannot Be Overlooked

Originally posted by thojess:

Originally posted by waiting4number6:

Originally posted by global_nomad:
Didn't he res-erect Antonio Bryant's career

Bryant was always good, the problem with him is he's a moron. That's why we let him go.

He may be a moron, but there were some pretty moronic decisions being made by our FO at that point as well (and lets face it, the dumb moves have continued... Rossum anyone?). IMO, you don't release your best WR because of an alleged offense that he doesn't even get convicted of. In fact, later when said player immediately starts lighting it up with another team, firings are in order.

There were numerous other problems with Bryant besides the traffic incident. That was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

No one ever doubted his ability - that is why so many different teams took a chance on him. By the way, this board has given Bill Parcells a lot of credit recently for wise personnel moves. Well, one of the moves he made while with Dallas was get rid of Antonio Bryant. 'nuff said.

Originally posted by ninerfan818:

Originally posted by SDDAVE:

Quote:
matt49er
the 9ers need a new OL/WR/DB coaches


pasodoc9er
Hey, look , Dave, i am with you all the way on the ineptitude of our WR coach. He has not been good enough to keep 4 yrs. Nor even 2. But he is not our worst position coach. That prize is all locked up by our OL coach, if you can call him that. Never has a specialty coach performed as poorly as our OL coach. And those are 2 guys who have no business being here next yr. (my opinion only).

Amen to both of you. In complete agreeement.

I agree with that also...

Hmmm...Harris Barton, Jerry Rice, Ronnie Lot...DO you think young Jed has their numbers on his speed dial?? Man that would be off the charts. I think the need's to get back and re-discover it's roots. Glad to see Dwight Clark back in the mix.

Great players RARELY make even good coaches. They usually do not understand how to deal with players of only average talent. The best coaches are usually very analytical guys who have a great work ethic.

Look around the NFL right now. How many HCs were great, or even "good" players?

But to the topic, I agree that position coaches are often over-looked by the common fan. In SF we have seen what Bobb McKittrick could do with mediocre OL talent, and we have seen how garbage position coaches have wasted four years for Alex Smith. I am left to wonder where the 49ers would be right now if Mike Johnson would have been the QB coach when Smith came out of college.

Drew Brees > Alex Smith

Originally posted by SDDAVE:
Last night during the Saints game, the announcers opined that Curtis Johnson of the Saints was the finest WR coach in the NFL. When I checked his record and compared it to our Jerry Sullivan, I was flabbergasted that there could be such a huge disparity in results and performance. As the Saints WR coach he has developed: Devery Henderson, Marques Colston, Lance Moore and Robert Meacham. While coaching at the U of Miami and San Diego St., he was responsible for the development of: Andre Johnson, Santana Moss, Reggie Wayne, Yatil Green and Darnay Scott. Bio

Sullivan's references on the Niner Bio are David Boston and Anquan Boldin. That's it, with not one Niners receiver mentioned in his four year stint. Amazing.
Sully Bio

The moral of the story, great position coaches are worth their weight in gold. Just look at what Mike Johnson has done with Alex, no accident.

Then explain to me why everyone around the league says Jerry Sullivan is arguably the finest WR coach...

Assuming Raye stays on, he may have the opportunity to hire his own OL coach. Foerster was already on the team when Singletary signed him to be the OC. However, before we bury the guy, consider that the offense has been in a state of flux...from the I formation to the spread, Hill to Alex, a number of young receivers, multiple injuries, etc. Not saying he shouldn't be considered for replacement, but look at the talent on our OL...not sterling, compared to other teams. One of the biggest things is lack of continuity...and that'll likely change again, unless they decide to re-sign Baas, which seems doubtful at this point. So, there could be a new LG and RT next season. I'm hopeful they'll re-sign Pashos, at least for depth, if not to start at RT. They'll need to draft one of the best OT's and OG's, and probably not too soon to find Heitmann's eventual replacement...it sure doesn't look like Wallace is the guy. BL: we can say Foerster's the problem...and he probably is, in part, but it's not all on him, given what's been going on with the offense in general.

Originally posted by WestCoast:

Originally posted by SDDAVE:
Last night during the Saints game, the announcers opined that Curtis Johnson of the Saints was the finest WR coach in the NFL. When I checked his record and compared it to our Jerry Sullivan, I was flabbergasted that there could be such a huge disparity in results and performance. As the Saints WR coach he has developed: Devery Henderson, Marques Colston, Lance Moore and Robert Meacham. While coaching at the U of Miami and San Diego St., he was responsible for the development of: Andre Johnson, Santana Moss, Reggie Wayne, Yatil Green and Darnay Scott. Bio

Sullivan's references on the Niner Bio are David Boston and Anquan Boldin. That's it, with not one Niners receiver mentioned in his four year stint. Amazing.
Sully Bio

The moral of the story, great position coaches are worth their weight in gold. Just look at what Mike Johnson has done with Alex, no accident.

Then explain to me why everyone around the league says Jerry Sullivan is arguably the finest WR coach...

We have been through numerous OC's and have had a change as to who coaches the OL but the WR's coach has not changed. Had Nolan or Sing felt Sully was not the man for the job he would have been replaced. Had the OC's wanted their guy I'm sure that a change would have been made.

His track record speaks for itself and when you look at what he has had to work with here you get the answer as to why the production has not been great. Perhaps the production would have been better had we had a QB who get get the ball to his WR's and an OL who keep give the QB time to find his WR's.

At the end of the day people want to point blame somewhere and they assume the problem is the position coach, not any of the players or the other position coaches or the talent that has been brought in at that position. Where is that talent now ? Ashley Lelie, Darrell Jackson, Johnnie Morton, Curtis Conway, Brandon Lloyd, Maxwell, Marshall, Williams, McCaddley etc ? I've previously pointed out that out of nearly 100 WR's drafted from round 3-7 between 2005-2008 that only 3 have had 1000 yard seasons, and that is where we were drafting WR's before we took Crabtree.

Originally posted by pasodoc9er:
Hey, look , Dave, i am with you all the way on the ineptitude of our WR coach. He has not been good enough to keep 4 yrs. Nor even 2. But he is not our worst position coach. That prize is all locked up by our OL coach, if you can call him that. Never has a specialty coach performed as poorly as our OL coach. And those are 2 guys who have no business being here next yr. (my opinion only).

I agree with you.

Originally posted by DaFaro49ers:
Drew Brees > Alex Smith

Hater

Originally posted by DaFaro49ers:
Drew Brees > Alex Smith

Brilliant assessment...we'd never have figured that out without your help.

Sully is the man. If you've been fortunate enough to see him during practice you'd see he is the most detail oriented coach we have. More than once I have seen him remain on the field after practice to help someone with hand placement, or the proper route depth, headfakes, etc.

As people said the dearth of talent is more to blame than coaching IMHO. The difference between OLine play and WR play is we invested more in the line than we have in our receiving core.

Smiley, Baas, Staley, Harris , Rachal, all guys we drafted in either the first or second round. Plus Jonas Jennings, Marvel Smith, Pashos, Larry Allen in free agency. To not have a solid line after all the resources we have used in the past 5+ years is unacceptable.

On the receiver end guys like Jonnie Morton, Curtis Conway, Brandon Lloyd, Cedric Wilson, Rasheed Marshall, Brandon Williams, Rashaun Woods , and the like, haven't done anything elsewhere. so seemingly no amount of coaching could make up for the lack of physical skills for those players. Blaming Sully seems stupid to me when you consider that guy like Crabtree is playing up to expectations even after a prolonged holdout.

Originally posted by Memphis9er:

Originally posted by DaFaro49ers:
Drew Brees > Alex Smith

Brilliant assessment...we'd never have figured that out without your help.

My simple assessment is stating that, if Drew Brees had the weapons we have at WR...they would shine and make Jerry SUllivan look good! Alex Smith is progressing, but its the truth! so dont hate on facts.

Originally posted by TheGoldStandard:
Sully is the man. If you've been fortunate enough to see him during practice you'd see he is the most detail oriented coach we have. More than once I have seen him remain on the field after practice to help someone with hand placement, or the proper route depth, headfakes, etc.

As people said the dearth of talent is more to blame than coaching IMHO. The difference between OLine play and WR play is we invested more in the line than we have in our receiving core.

Smiley, Baas, Staley, Harris , Rachal, all guys we drafted in either the first or second round. Plus Jonas Jennings, Marvel Smith, Pashos, Larry Allen in free agency. To not have a solid line after all the resources we have used in the past 5+ years is unacceptable.

On the receiver end guys like Jonnie Morton, Curtis Conway, Brandon Lloyd, Cedric Wilson, Rasheed Marshall, Brandon Williams, Rashaun Woods , and the like, haven't done anything elsewhere. so seemingly no amount of coaching could make up for the lack of physical skills for those players. Blaming Sully seems stupid to me when you consider that guy like Crabtree is playing up to expectations even after a prolonged holdout.

And good info on Sully. To add to that before they try to knock him down because Crabtree was well prepared when he signed (which he was however......)

From back during the OTA's

Quote:
Singletary also said he almost made first-round draft pick Michael Crabtree cry. Singletary found him running routes during the first minicamp and admonished him for running before he was cleared by the medical staff. Crabtree is recovering from off-season foot surgery.

Singletary recounted the conversation he had with his prized rookie.

"'I've got nothing against you. I'm not angry or anything. I just want you to know, you have to do everything the doctors want you to do so that you can get better.' I said, 'I'm not worried about what you can do.' I said, 'I know. We drafted you at No. 10. We know what you can do. We just want to make sure that when you come out here, you're ready to go.' So, he's done the things that he needs to do, spending a lot of time with (receivers coach Jerry] Sullivan. I know Jerry is excited about what he's seeing as well."

From the bye week after he signed :

Quote:
Crabtree and Sullivan, an 18-year veteran and a real stickler for details, would disappear into the film room for hours and then emerge to apply the classroom work to the practice field. Morgan also was on hand to give Crabtree live demonstrations of how routes were run. Alex Smith threw passes one day. Assistant trainer Nate Breske, a former quarterback at Northern State in South Dakota, threw to him the next.

Originally posted by KRS-1:

Originally posted by WestCoast:

Originally posted by SDDAVE:
Last night during the Saints game, the announcers opined that Curtis Johnson of the Saints was the finest WR coach in the NFL. When I checked his record and compared it to our Jerry Sullivan, I was flabbergasted that there could be such a huge disparity in results and performance. As the Saints WR coach he has developed: Devery Henderson, Marques Colston, Lance Moore and Robert Meacham. While coaching at the U of Miami and San Diego St., he was responsible for the development of: Andre Johnson, Santana Moss, Reggie Wayne, Yatil Green and Darnay Scott. Bio

Sullivan's references on the Niner Bio are David Boston and Anquan Boldin. That's it, with not one Niners receiver mentioned in his four year stint. Amazing.
Sully Bio

The moral of the story, great position coaches are worth their weight in gold. Just look at what Mike Johnson has done with Alex, no accident.

Then explain to me why everyone around the league says Jerry Sullivan is arguably the finest WR coach...

We have been through numerous OC's and have had a change as to who coaches the OL but the WR's coach has not changed. Had Nolan or Sing felt Sully was not the man for the job he would have been replaced. Had the OC's wanted their guy I'm sure that a change would have been made.

His track record speaks for itself and when you look at what he has had to work with here you get the answer as to why the production has not been great. Perhaps the production would have been better had we had a QB who get get the ball to his WR's and an OL who keep give the QB time to find his WR's.

At the end of the day people want to point blame somewhere and they assume the problem is the position coach, not any of the players or the other position coaches or the talent that has been brought in at that position. Where is that talent now ? Ashley Lelie, Darrell Jackson, Johnnie Morton, Curtis Conway, Brandon Lloyd, Maxwell, Marshall, Williams, McCaddley etc ? I've previously pointed out that out of nearly 100 WR's drafted from round 3-7 between 2005-2008 that only 3 have had 1000 yard seasons, and that is where we were drafting WR's before we took Crabtree.

Good comments. I wonder if anyone could have made Woods into something? What a waste of a 1st round draft pick. The guy loved fishing more than playing football.

Originally posted by DaFaro49ers:

Originally posted by Memphis9er:

Originally posted by DaFaro49ers:
Drew Brees > Alex Smith

Brilliant assessment...we'd never have figured that out without your help.

My simple assessment is stating that, if Drew Brees had the weapons we have at WR...they would shine and make Jerry SUllivan look good! Alex Smith is progressing, but its the truth! so dont hate on facts.

The 49ers have no one close to Devery Henderson OR Marques Colston, nor do they have a back with the receiving skills and explosiveness of Reggie Bush.

I get your point, Brees is better than Smith, everyone agrees, but you grossly over-state the point about weapons. Vernon Davis still does not run clean routes nor can he be depended on to make correct sight adjustments. None of the 49er receivers have Henderson's speed and none can do what Colston does. There just is no comparison.

Just leave it that Brees is much more accomplished QB than Smith.

Jim Tomsula is a very good posistion coach as is Tom Rathman. Johnny Lynn, Al Everest and Pete Hoener are pretty solid but thats about it for our posistion coaches. Though I do like Mike Johnson and we'll see what happens with him and Alex Smith down the road.


Get rid of Al Harris, Vantz Singletary, kissass Vance Joseph and Im not crazy about Jerry "I hold grudges" Sullivan. Not sure what Jason Tarver really does (I know he OLB's coach) but he always seems to stick around here and has coaching several differen't posistions/titles on the team.