Niners hire Jim O'Neil as DC

Originally posted by Phoenix49ers:

Originally posted by qnnhan7:

Never more than a couple of years at anywhere.

So you wanted a guy who held the exact same position for two decades? O'Neil changed jobs a lot but every single one was a promotion.

That at least shows that people over him were willing to progressively give him more higher profile jobs.


I'm not thrilled with the hire but looking at his resume I see a young coach that has moved up the ranks pretty quickly. He's not a guy who got pigeon-holed as a DB coach in college for like 2 decades before moving up.

He clearly has upside, I just hope that he learned from his mistakes in Cleveland.

Honestly, that's what I want to see more articles on. I'd like our Bay Area Media to get grill him on his stint in Cleveland and see what O'Neil has to say about the issues there. I haven't really seen much of anything right now.

Originally posted by Phoenix49ers:

Originally posted by qnnhan7:

Never more than a couple of years at anywhere.

So you wanted a guy who held the exact same position for two decades? O'Neil changed jobs a lot but every single one was a promotion.

That at least shows that people over him were willing to progressively give him more higher profile jobs.


I'm not thrilled with the hire but looking at his resume I see a young coach that has moved up the ranks pretty quickly. He's not a guy who got pigeon-holed as a DB coach in college for like 2 decades before moving up.

He clearly has upside, I just hope that he learned from his mistakes in Cleveland.

Just going by the resume, it does show that he moved on up very quickly. Too quickly it seems. From assistant DB coach to DC in 2 years

Originally posted by qnnhan7:

Just going by the resume, it does show that he moved on up very quickly. Too quickly it seems. From assistant DB coach to DC in 2 years

That isnt all that unusual. I'd rather a guy who moves up really fast and winds up with some growing pains than a guy who has been in the same position for like 10 years and only moves up due to the Peter Principle.

This all we know:

The Browns had a Top 10 defense in yards allowed and scoring under O'Neil in his first season but dropped toward the bottom of the NFL in those statistical categories last season. The Browns ranked 27th in yards allowed and 29th in points allowed.

O'Neil got his chance to take over the Browns defense after spending one season as outside linebackers coach of the Buffalo Bills in 2013. The Bills set a franchise record with 57 sacks that season.



How was personnel on defense in CLE last year to this year?

Originally posted by Joecool:
This all we know:

The Browns had a Top 10 defense in yards allowed and scoring under O'Neil in his first season but dropped toward the bottom of the NFL in those statistical categories last season. The Browns ranked 27th in yards allowed and 29th in points allowed.

O'Neil got his chance to take over the Browns defense after spending one season as outside linebackers coach of the Buffalo Bills in 2013. The Bills set a franchise record with 57 sacks that season.



How was personnel on defense in CLE last year to this year?

Keep in mind Mike Pettine ran that defense in 2014 and decided he needed to work more with the offense giving complete control of the defense to O'Neil.

The Browns had identical 4.5 yrds per rush against in both 2014 and 2015.Ranking 28th and 27th respectively

However.....Passing net yards gained against the browns went from 5.8 to 7.4 per attempt

But in reality......in 2014 the Browns gave up 337 points, on 5857 yards on 1118 plays. Or 5.2 yards per play

29.3 average yards per drive

2015 the Browns gave up 432 points, on 6067 yards, on 998 plays Or 6.1 yards per play



All that said, Cleveland was the 5th worst team in terms of man games lost in 2015 at 162

In 2014 Cleveland ranked 19th and lost only 100

Joe Haden, their best DB was out and or injured for most of last season, which would explain the rise in passing net yards

I've rambled, sorry

The question should be..

do we have the better player on defense than the Browns??

What did ManGenius did so poorly that O'Neil was able to convinced management that he's D with the Browns was not that bad..

Maybe hiring Jo'N was a way to try and go back to what made the 49ers defense good, like when Fangio was here. They also brought in Hafley, from CLE, to be defensive backs coach, and Roy Anderson, the former Colts DB coach. Both CLE and IND were primarily man coverage defenses, especially IND. This is a shift away from what Mangini was doing.

So if JoN can bring a man scheme back to SF, but he ends up sucking at gameplanning, playcalling, etc. then perhaps they dump him after one season and bring in another DC that can keep scheme continuity. The key is to make the defensive roster attractive so that if JoN fails, they can find another DC without looking at the bottom of the barrel.

Originally posted by thl408:
Maybe hiring Jo'N was a way to try and go back to what made the 49ers defense good, like when Fangio was here. They also brought in Hafley, from CLE, to be defensive backs coach, and Roy Anderson, the former Colts DB coach. Both CLE and IND were primarily man coverage defenses, especially IND. This is a shift away from what Mangini was doing.

So if JoN can bring a man scheme back to SF, but he ends up sucking at gameplanning, playcalling, etc. then perhaps they dump him after one season and bring in another DC that can keep scheme continuity. The key is to make the defensive roster attractive so that if JoN fails, they can find another DC without looking at the bottom of the barrel.

This is a quality guestimate as well. I would imagine, these defensive hires would really go over Baalke's desk b/c of his familiarity of our successes in personnel and defensive systems here under Fangio and Mangini and given he'll be drafting and bringing in players to fit this Fangio-like system again.

Do you think a scout is qualified to judge defensive game plan and execution?

First interview:

http://www.49ers.com/video/videos/1-on-1-49ers-DC-Jim-ONeil/a2564501-a298-437d-88e7-895bbe3074ba

Originally posted by TexasDuck:
The Browns had identical 4.5 yrds per rush against in both 2014 and 2015.Ranking 28th and 27th respectively

However.....Passing net yards gained against the browns went from 5.8 to 7.4 per attempt

But in reality......in 2014 the Browns gave up 337 points, on 5857 yards on 1118 plays. Or 5.2 yards per play

29.3 average yards per drive

2015 the Browns gave up 432 points, on 6067 yards, on 998 plays Or 6.1 yards per play



All that said, Cleveland was the 5th worst team in terms of man games lost in 2015 at 162

In 2014 Cleveland ranked 19th and lost only 100

Joe Haden, their best DB was out and or injured for most of last season, which would explain the rise in passing net yards

I've rambled, sorry

Keep rambling...I love it!

Originally posted by NCommand:
Keep rambling...I love it!

LOL I have a great knack for saying nothing in my posts.........sadly, that's not my intention

Originally posted by TexasDuck:

Originally posted by NCommand:
Keep rambling...I love it!

LOL I have a great knack for saying nothing in my posts.........sadly, that's not my intention

I thought it was valuable so again, keep rambling.

Originally posted by Jcool:
First interview:

http://www.49ers.com/video/videos/1-on-1-49ers-DC-Jim-ONeil/a2564501-a298-437d-88e7-895bbe3074ba

Thanks for posting this