Is Fangio really a better option than Manusky?

Originally posted by RedWaltz24:
PFT thinks it a mistake to not keep Manusky.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/01/13/high-demand-for-greg-manusky/

I agree. I think we'll regret letting him go.

We played pretty soft and conservative on defense, we gave up a lot of late scoring drives to lose close games. Maybe Singletary was involved maybe Manusky was so great. When a team under preforms as massively as this one, heads will roll. Sure maybe we are tossing the baby out with the bath water, but remember we sucked last season, any coach on this staff is replaceable.

Originally posted by GolittaCamper:
We played pretty soft and conservative on defense, we gave up a lot of late scoring drives to lose close games. Maybe Singletary was involved maybe Manusky was so great. When a team under preforms as massively as this one, heads will roll. Sure maybe we are tossing the baby out with the bath water, but remember we sucked last season, any coach on this staff is replaceable.

Hmmm. I dont know if you can say "massively". The fact is, our defense ranked 13th in the league. Is it the top five we where shooting for? No. But when you step back and look at our talent or lack thereof at key positions, we really didn't do that bad. Imagine where we could of ranked with a real offense. As far as personell goes, out side of Spikes, Willis, J.Smith no one really played that well. Our OLBs couldnt beat anyone one on one and our DBs are slow and open to the "big play." In retrospect, I think Manusky plays soft, because of our weak pass rush and CBs force him to.

Now that I think abou it, our bend but dont break defense might be a great complement to an aggressive high scoring offense (if it happens). Unfortantely, it was a disaster with our slow moving "keep the game close" mentality last year.

Originally posted by Oakland-Niner:

Originally posted by GolittaCamper:
We played pretty soft and conservative on defense, we gave up a lot of late scoring drives to lose close games. Maybe Singletary was involved maybe Manusky was so great. When a team under preforms as massively as this one, heads will roll. Sure maybe we are tossing the baby out with the bath water, but remember we sucked last season, any coach on this staff is replaceable.

Hmmm. I dont know if you can say "massively". The fact is, our defense ranked 13th in the league. Is it the top five we where shooting for? No. But when you step back and look at our talent or lack thereof at key positions, we really didn't do that bad. Imagine where we could of ranked with a real offense. As far as personell goes, out side of Spikes, Willis, J.Smith no one really played that well. Our OLBs couldnt beat anyone one on one and our DBs are slow and open to the "big play." In retrospect, I think Manusky plays soft, because of our weak pass rush and CBs force him to.

I think the offense not showing any stability or the ability to sustain drives played a big part in defensive breakdowns.

Manuskys D is very vanilla imo. You could blame that on the personnel. Its time to switch it up. I like what they did with Dingleberry gone. As long as they arent a sucker for the double move and flea flicker then it will be a step up.

SOmeone just posted ea. teams blitz count.............

THe great Manusky had 1.6 all out blitz's a game (thats sending more than 6) and the saints led the NFL..... I think its time for change

Originally posted by SandSlingin49er:
SOmeone just posted ea. teams blitz count.............

The great Manusky had 1.6 all out blitz's a game (thats sending more than 6) and the saints led the NFL..... I think its time for change

There is a stat out there that shows sending 6 or more rarely produces a result. This has been broken down into success rate...and the opponents offensive success rate as well...when sending 3-8. IIRC, 5 was the number that produced the greatest success rate, and it was by a large margin.

Perspective is everything, sending 6 1.6 times a game means nothing...it's what happens when you do send 6 that matter's. In this league, not much happens, IIRC.

Hope you are basing the desire to get rid of Manusky on something more than that.

Originally posted by Oakland-Niner:

Originally posted by GolittaCamper:
We played pretty soft and conservative on defense, we gave up a lot of late scoring drives to lose close games. Maybe Singletary was involved maybe Manusky was so great. When a team under preforms as massively as this one, heads will roll. Sure maybe we are tossing the baby out with the bath water, but remember we sucked last season, any coach on this staff is replaceable.

Hmmm. I dont know if you can say "massively". The fact is, our defense ranked 13th in the league. Is it the top five we where shooting for? No. But when you step back and look at our talent or lack thereof at key positions, we really didn't do that bad. Imagine where we could of ranked with a real offense. As far as personell goes, out side of Spikes, Willis, J.Smith no one really played that well. Our OLBs couldnt beat anyone one on one and our DBs are slow and open to the "big play." In retrospect, I think Manusky plays soft, because of our weak pass rush and CBs force him to.

Now that I think abou it, our bend but dont break defense might be a great complement to an aggressive high scoring offense (if it happens). Unfortantely, it was a disaster with our slow moving "keep the game close" mentality last year.

If the offense even manages a middle of the pack in scoring points this year, this discussion wouldn't even be happening in the zone right now.

Looking around the league, a defense ranked as this, paired with a middle of the pack in scoring offense, gets you 8 wins...just for showing up on Sunday.

Also, looking around the league, and offense that ranks in the bottom of the league in scoring points...doesn't get you jack s**t, no matter how good your defense is. You may as well and stay home is your offense consistently fails to produce the average amount of points per game necessary to win on average in this league. That was our offense...an offense that may as well stayed in the locker room because they were essentially, non-competitive. You have to average so many points a game, if you don't...you are simply not competing, you may as well not even show up. That was us. You can't win by trying to change that average of points to suit you...you can't win by scoring 17 points on average, when the league average for teams to win more than they lose is 21. If you average less than that numnber...it's the same damn thing as scoring 0 p[oints...the result is the same..on average, you lose, lose, lose.

17 points a game avergae in this league is as good as 0 points a game...you will not have a winning season, you will go home during the playoff's, you may as well have just stayed on the bench...same effect.

Originally posted by SandSlingin49er:
SOmeone just posted ea. teams blitz count.............

THe great Manusky had 1.6 all out blitz's a game (thats sending more than 6) and the saints led the NFL..... I think its time for change

Thank you! The average yards per game rankings during Manusky's tenure (b/c it's over now) is as deceptive as his 6th ranked defense against the run (but 17th in points allowed). Ppl can blame the offense all they want but in the grand scheme of things, this was a defense designed to stop the run first and played conservative to avoid the big play. As a result, we gave up countless 99 yard-like drives in 10+ minutes all season. We bent and broke but did it very slowly as teams exploited the underneath zones and took what we gave them methodically while allowing QB's all day to find the open, underneath RB's, WR's and TE's. At the end of the day we didn't give up a ton of yards and our run defense looked way better then it actually was. We gave up a lot of points (broke) and b/c the defense couldn't get off the field, the offense had fewer opportunities to get the ball back and gain any rhythm itself. We saw this ALL year long. Remember, there were only two teams that game-planned to exploit our front 7 on the ground (KC & Tampa) and both owned us in this matter; even Willis was owned. The rest of the teams easily exploited our underneath soft defense where even our OLB's were constantly dropping back in coverage.

TOP for the offense and defense was almost identical b/c as bad as the offense was at maintaining drives, the defense was equally bad at getting off the field on 3rd downs or creating TO's. Period.

Manusky is an intelligent man and played to the stats. We all saw how much more effective our secondary was (Goldson, Harris, Bly, Spencer, Clements, etc.) when Manusky schemed a team-pass rushing concept and even the TO's went up big time. This year, he played to get out of SF IMHO. In his long tenure here he had every opportunity to build a dominant defense; something other DC's did in just one or two seasons. For God's sakes, look at San Diego's 3-4, #1 in the NFL with essentially zero players left over from the "Lights Out!" days.

There is no question that this is by FAR, the most vanilla 3-4 defense of the entire NFL, the Nolan or Singletary or Raye-version of defense.

For a veteran defense who have had the same personnel for 5 years now under the same defense (including added pass rushers to the mix ala Brooks/LaBoy), this team continued to be exposed, outcoached, outschemed, zero half-time adjustments, destroyed easily when the game was on the line, constant crucial penalties, bone-headed play after bone-headed play, undisciplined, players quitting, no players developing at all (only regressing), etc.

In 2010, there were NO excuses for the defense (they failed) and any fan who watched every game could admit to that without hesitation. At the end of the day, given the offense had 4 QB changes, 2 OC changes, 2 philosophy changes, 2 rookies starting along the o-line, it's center and LT on IR, its #1 RB on IR, we'd expect what the offense delivered, a lower 1/3 of the league ranking (23rd). But the defense? No excuses!

It's time for a change, w/o question. As long as the new DC comes in with the same "attack" mentality to match Harbaugh and his offensive philosophy, that alone will weed out many of our one-dimensional players on defense and start a shift towards a defense to match today's NFL that is ALWAYS #1 or #2 in the NFL every year.

We should always be striving for that and become the Niners of old...top 5 ranking in offense AND defense!

The way I see it, Fangio is a vet at the 3-4. There's nothing Manusky was doing with our team that Fangio don't know how to do himself. Fangio also add years of experience and Harbaugh have trust in Vic. No brainer.

Originally posted by StOnEy333:

Originally posted by Frisco69ers:
I think the defense looked great in week 17 when Sing was finally gone

I was the cards, man.



And if it means we stop running the soft zone all game, I'm down for the change.

It was more than just a weak team. Clearly the who attitude and approach changed completely. Singlecell single-handedly kept this team out of the playoffs.

Did we hired him now ?

Originally posted by qnnhan7:
The way I see it, Fangio is a vet at the 3-4. There's nothing Manusky was doing with our team that Fangio don't know how to do himself. Fangio also add years of experience and Harbaugh have trust in Vic. No brainer.

Experience does not equate to success. In Fangio's case, more experience meant a worse overall ranking IN ALL 3 OF HIS PREVIOUS DC JOBS. He took top 15 overall defenses and took them to the bottom or one step above the bottom:

Carolina
1995: 7th
1996: 10th
1997: 15th
1998: 30th (last in the league)

Indianapolis
1999: 15th
2000: 21st
2001: 29th

Houston
2002: 16th
2003: 31st
2004: 23rd
2005: 31st

Lots of people talk about lack of talent on his previous teams. I think that is bullchit! He had at least 3 years on each team to adjust his roster via FA, trade, draft, etc. yet he was never able to fix them. Manusky's defenses were not bad and at least were consistent:

Overall Defense the last 6 years:

2010: 13th overall
2009: 15th overall
2008: 13th overall
2007: 25th overall (still under Nolan regime)

The first year he took over, our defense improved to essentially twice as good according to rankings. Bottom line is we dont know much about how Fangio will do if he comes, but I would be worried. Based on EXPERIENCE, our defense should go to chits here in a year or two.

I don't understand why people are so in love with Manusky. We have been shredded by opponents passing games and give the opposing Qbs 45 years to throw the ball...This is by far a championship defense.

Originally posted by NCommand:

Originally posted by SandSlingin49er:
SOmeone just posted ea. teams blitz count.............

THe great Manusky had 1.6 all out blitz's a game (thats sending more than 6) and the saints led the NFL..... I think its time for change

Thank you! The average yards per game rankings during Manusky's tenure (b/c it's over now) is as deceptive as his 6th ranked defense against the run (but 17th in points allowed). Ppl can blame the offense all they want but in the grand scheme of things, this was a defense designed to stop the run first and played conservative to avoid the big play. As a result, we gave up countless 99 yard-like drives in 10+ minutes all season. We bent and broke but did it very slowly as teams exploited the underneath zones and took what we gave them methodically while allowing QB's all day to find the open, underneath RB's, WR's and TE's. At the end of the day we didn't give up a ton of yards and our run defense looked way better then it actually was. We gave up a lot of points (broke) and b/c the defense couldn't get off the field, the offense had fewer opportunities to get the ball back and gain any rhythm itself. We saw this ALL year long. Remember, there were only two teams that game-planned to exploit our front 7 on the ground (KC & Tampa) and both owned us in this matter; even Willis was owned. The rest of the teams easily exploited our underneath soft defense where even our OLB's were constantly dropping back in coverage.

TOP for the offense and defense was almost identical b/c as bad as the offense was at maintaining drives, the defense was equally bad at getting off the field on 3rd downs or creating TO's. Period.

Manusky is an intelligent man and played to the stats. We all saw how much more effective our secondary was (Goldson, Harris, Bly, Spencer, Clements, etc.) when Manusky schemed a team-pass rushing concept and even the TO's went up big time. This year, he played to get out of SF IMHO. In his long tenure here he had every opportunity to build a dominant defense; something other DC's did in just one or two seasons. For God's sakes, look at San Diego's 3-4, #1 in the NFL with essentially zero players left over from the "Lights Out!" days.

There is no question that this is by FAR, the most vanilla 3-4 defense of the entire NFL, the Nolan or Singletary or Raye-version of defense.

For a veteran defense who have had the same personnel for 5 years now under the same defense (including added pass rushers to the mix ala Brooks/LaBoy), this team continued to be exposed, outcoached, outschemed, zero half-time adjustments, destroyed easily when the game was on the line, constant crucial penalties, bone-headed play after bone-headed play, undisciplined, players quitting, no players developing at all (only regressing), etc.

In 2010, there were NO excuses for the defense (they failed) and any fan who watched every game could admit to that without hesitation. At the end of the day, given the offense had 4 QB changes, 2 OC changes, 2 philosophy changes, 2 rookies starting along the o-line, it's center and LT on IR, its #1 RB on IR, we'd expect what the offense delivered, a lower 1/3 of the league ranking (23rd). But the defense? No excuses!

It's time for a change, w/o question. As long as the new DC comes in with the same "attack" mentality to match Harbaugh and his offensive philosophy, that alone will weed out many of our one-dimensional players on defense and start a shift towards a defense to match today's NFL that is ALWAYS #1 or #2 in the NFL every year.

We should always be striving for that and become the Niners of old...top 5 ranking in offense AND defense!

No more "bend, but don't break". No more cover four shell.

This defense is absolutely geared towards stopping the run above all else and it's hurt us. Blame the players if you want, but a good coach will scheme to their strengths and teach them discipline.

This is what captured my attention watching Stanford... discipline. The players appeared to be in the correct positions to contain the offense. I think that factors more into my preference for Fangio than his attacking style.

Discipline first. Attacking second. Without the first, the second will fail.

Our defense last season lacked discipline at every level. Well, the defensive line was generally good... but other than that, there were containment breakdowns all over the field. We even managed to regress in our ability to tackle. Hell, I saw Willis get run over for the first time in his career.

There are no excuses for a veteran defense that has been together in the same scheme this long.

It's time to try something new.