This is a really great signing! It is a check and balance to get us over the hump, that hump being Kyle Shanahan.
This is in NO way disrespect! I actually really like Kyle as a coach. He is really good at playing to his players strengths and exploiting players and defenses weaknesses. His scheme is amazing as well and he is a heck of a play designer, and a really good play caller (not all the time, but most of the time). However, this is the most accurate statement I can make regarding Kyle after the last 5 years,
if/when we get to the Superbowl it will hands down be because of Kyle, however if we ever win the Superbowl it will be in spite of Kyle.
I think John Lynch realizes this and knows that we may not win a superbowl through offense like most teams now, but it will require an elite defense to help Kyle's performance when it matters.
The reason I feel this way is because, when we were tied with Kansas City in the superbowl and we had over 1 minute and 40 secs of the first half left with 3 timeouts and the ball on the 20, Kyle ran out the clock instead of completely demoralizing Kansas City by scoring again. This is called playing not to lose (i.e. playing scared) instead of playing to win. Kyle actually said so himself that he was playing scared in the state of the franchise interview after that superbowl, saying "he didn't want to give the ball back to Mahomes with any time on the clock." Mahomes was already in his head, and Kansas City was playing to win, kyle was playing not to lose. Most of the time, the team that plays to win, actually wins when they play a team like us that day. His mindset instead of thinking lets eat up some clock and score one more time was, we are offensively going to fail and I don't want to give the ball back to Mahomes.
Now, the NFC Philly game. I more upset about this game then that Superbowl, mainly for one reason. Kyle at least seemed to respect Kansas City and studied them well. But for the Philly game, it seems like he completely disregarded the Eagles defensive line and did not watch any film on them. He went in that game unprepared, and did not adjust until it was too late. So, the first drive (4 plays) had 2 play action passes that both resulted in sacks back in the backfield. The next drive, there is another play action pass that either was a sack or almost a sack. That's 3 plays that show you the o-line can't handle the d-line, and you should probably stop having your 3rd string rookie quaterback stop turning his back to their d-line since each time resulted in a sack. However, Kyle, in his wisdom, made absolutely no adjustments even when it was obvious before the game that our 0-line was going to be outmatched. Then, Kyle calls one more play action pass, and decides to put Tyler Kroft on Hassan Reddick, the pass rusher 2nd only to NICK BOSA! (That's like thinking you were going to block bosa by putting dante pettis on him, come on!) And of course brock purdy turns his back to the d-line, and what happens happens. And if you defend kyle expecting kroft to block reddick, rewatch the play and you can see Mike McGlinchey failed and if Reddick doesn't get Purdy the d-lineman that beat McGlinchey would have sacked him. So again, another play where Brock turns his back to the d-line, and as soon as he turns around there are 2 players there to hit him, one does and then goodbye Purdy.
Also, I wouldn't be as mad about the PA passes if we established at any point in that game that we can run on Philly. But all run plays up to that point were no gains or tacked for a loss. So the PA passes at a certain point don't make sense and Kyle did not respect Philly's D-line. It's like he didn't even study them.
When reporters bring these things up to Kyle, he doubles down and says a sarcastic remark like he would do it again. This to me shows he doesn't really learn from his mistakes, but I hope I'm wrong and he becomes our Andy Reid for us.
So in conclusion, great signing because if we're going to win a Superbowl with Kyle as coach, it will be because we have an elite defense. If our defense is not top 5, we do not win the Lombardi Trophy.
[ Edited by Kali49er on Mar 14, 2023 at 4:40 PM ]
