DC Candidates with Saleh Gone

I think they'll search for someone legit. People forget that before they ended up settling on Sorensen....they tried to get some bigger names but it didn't work out. Hopefully they have better luck this time because Bradley ain't it and like some have mentioned...if it's Bradley and this defense gets torched up and down the field next year...that'll be a wrap for Kyle.

Gus Bradley's Colts D against the Giants in 2024 was one of the worst defensive performances I've ever seen.

He'd be a terrible hire

Originally posted by LambdaChi49:
I think they'll search for someone legit. People forget that before they ended up settling on Sorensen....they tried to get some bigger names but it didn't work out. Hopefully they have better luck this time because Bradley ain't it and like some have mentioned...if it's Bradley and this defense gets torched up and down the field next year...that'll be a wrap for Kyle.

Didn't we try asking about Steve Spagnolo or am I mistaken? Obviously it wasn't going to happen but they'll clearly try everything. I'm sure they'll even try to get Schwartz, too.

The problem is, as you mention, this team always seems to go "aw shucks" and just fall back on plan Z hoping it works. Whether it's trying to trade for Stafford and then end up trading for Trey Lance. Or trying to hire Bill Belichick as DC and end up hiring Sorensen.

At this point, Gus Bradley is plan Z. But he's a very, very likely plan Z and has a higher floor than Sorensen, I'll give him that at least.

Originally posted by Schulzy:
Gus Bradley's Colts D in 2024 was one of the worst defensive performances I've ever seen.

He'd be a terrible hire

Fixed that for you.

Originally posted by Fanaticofnfl:

Originally posted by LambdaChi49:
I think they'll search for someone legit. People forget that before they ended up settling on Sorensen....they tried to get some bigger names but it didn't work out. Hopefully they have better luck this time because Bradley ain't it and like some have mentioned...if it's Bradley and this defense gets torched up and down the field next year...that'll be a wrap for Kyle.

Didn't we try asking about Steve Spagnolo or am I mistaken? Obviously it wasn't going to happen but they'll clearly try everything. I'm sure they'll even try to get Schwartz, too.

The problem is, as you mention, this team always seems to go "aw shucks" and just fall back on plan Z hoping it works. Whether it's trying to trade for Stafford and then end up trading for Trey Lance. Or trying to hire Bill Belichick as DC and end up hiring Sorensen.

At this point, Gus Bradley is plan Z. But he's a very, very likely plan Z and has a higher floor than Sorensen, I'll give him that at least.

On this team it's called doing their due diligence.

Originally posted by Schulzy:
Gus Bradley's Colts D against the Giants in 2024 was one of the worst defensive performances I've ever seen.

He'd be a terrible hire

Yep it will be a lazy hire. If they go that route they are not serious about winning a SB.

I must be suffering from recency along with everyone else. I looked it up and apparently Bradley's defense has finished top half every year except 23 & 24.

Originally posted by OnTheClock:
I must be suffering from recency along with everyone else. I looked it up and apparently his defense has finished top half every year except 23 & 24.

#15 in 2022 and 2021 is doing a lot of the heavy lifting there.

He hasn't had a top 14 defense since 2020.

Originally posted by OnTheClock:
I must be suffering from recency along with everyone else. I looked it up and apparently his defense has finished top half every year except 23 & 24.

They also need to get away from the Carroll defensive tree. There's a reason why he was fired in Seattle and McDonald has had a lot of success.

Teams are too heavy in personnel now than they were 6 years ago and they are running duo more than ever. Having light edges does not work.

Originally posted by OnTheClock:
I must be suffering from recency along with everyone else. I looked it up and apparently his defense has finished top half every year except 23 & 24.

this seems a serious cooking up of stats
I guess when he was Jacksonvilles HC it wasnt "his" defense either so those dont count or something ?

and I guess we only counting yardage defense, but not scoring defense

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/coaches/BradGu0.htm

there sure are an awful lot of 20s in those yards and pts defense columns

Originally posted by jcs:

Originally posted by the_dynasty:

Originally posted by NYniner85:
Meh you can adapt and innovate. It doesn't have to be stagnant your whole career…that's my point. Kyle has some core principles, but the offense he ran with Jimmy isn't the same now. McVay changes up stuff.

Gus has showed no innovation or awareness to adapt once they started figuring out how to play against it or he didn't have the dogs to make his system go.

I don't think we need to have some ridiculously hard scheme that doesn't allow these guys to play fast and go. I also don't think you have to continue running the same s**t yr after yr regardless of if not really working anymore.

here's what I dont get. Kyle fell in love with the wide-9 after 2019 was a dominant defense. before 2019 we tried different stuff with Saleh, we tried heavy cover-3 with a single high safety seattle look, Armstead as a LEO (remember that ?) and so forth

so 2019 rolls around, we do wide-9 with by far the most talent we've had on dline (Buckner, rookie Bosa exploding on the scene, prime Armstead kicked inside and dynamic although already showing signs of chronic issues Dee Ford)

so now for 7 years we are trying to chase the same high/experience and we MUST do wide-9. I dont get it. This is the same issue Pete Carroll had. Pete loved his soft zone defense and even with good players he refused to change, game passed him by. At least Pete's defense dominated and won a SB for him. But its the same issue, chasing one thing that worked 7 years ago. It just doesnt make sense, NFL is what have you done for me lately so why be so fixated with a scheme that worked coincidentally when they had the most talent on dline by far ?

It blew my mind that we kept trotting out 240# B.Huff out there on rushing downs and had him line up wide expecting him to set the edge on an OT and TE combo all the way until our last game in the Seattle blowout. He's clearly obsessed with it.

Houston and Cleveland still run the wide 9. It can work, but you need the right guys up front to really have it click.

Originally posted by the_dynasty:

Originally posted by OnTheClock:

I must be suffering from recency along with everyone else. I looked it up and apparently his defense has finished top half every year except 23 & 24.

this seems a serious cooking up of stats
I guess when he was Jacksonvilles HC it wasnt "his" defense either so those dont count or something ?

and I guess we only counting yardage defense, but not scoring defense

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/coaches/BradGu0.htm

there sure are an awful lot of 20s in those yards and pts defense columns

I think what I hate the most is he hasn't had a top half rush D since 2018

Originally posted by OnTheClock:
I think what I hate the most is he hasn't had a top half rush D since 2018

We had one here until all of Bosa Warner and Mykel went down

Originally posted by GorefullBore:
Houston and Cleveland still run the wide 9. It can work, but you need the right guys up front to really have it click.

yeah if you have Garrett/Graham/Collins and Will Anderson/Danielle Hunter/Rankins on your DL it can still work.

as would another scheme probably

what if you dont have Myles or Will Anderson ?

what if you dont have good fast LBs to clean up on runs that go through ? like Schwesinger or even Al-Shaiir ?

my concern isnt really necessarily with wide-9 itself but the fact we dont want to try anything else at all ever again. I get that there are DCs who specialize in one scheme. Thats their job. Fangio will always be a 3-4 guy, Schwartz will always be a 4-3 wide-9 guy. I dont get why we are so fixated on this specific scheme and not just taking a good coordinator who'd try something else. its the same thing about matching talent to scheme instead of the other way around.

Settling for Bradley really sucks.