GW's rep for burning Ds out?

There has been a view out there for a while that GW D units may become good but they then flame. I don’t think the record supports that idea. r

In terms of his history—

In Tenn. the D was not great statistically to start with but did break through.

97: 11th points, 22nd yards
98: 12th points, 16th yards
99: 15th points, 17th yards
2000: 2nd points, 1st yards

Same with Buffalo…though here I am assuming GW had a lot of say over the defense, even as a head coach.

2001: 29th points, 21st yards
2002: 27th points, 15th yards
2003: 5th points, 2nd yards

In Washington, his D fell apart one year (2006), and there are various theories as to why that one year fell apart, but either way the D came back the next year. BTW the year before he got there, the Washington D was 24th points/25th yards.

2004: 5th points/3rd yards
2005: 9th points/9th yards
2006: 27th points/31st yards
2007: 11th points/8th yards

In New Orleans:

2009: 20th points/25th yards
2010: 7th points/ 4th yards
2011: 13th points/24th yards

Twice there was a regression—Washington 2006, New Orleans 2011. There are various theories as to why it the 2006 D collapsed. With New Orleans it was simple–it was all personnel. GW never had the players in N.O. So I don’t know if they collapsed so much as couldn’t sustain over-achieving with marginal personnel. Plus if you look at the 2010 and 2011 DL starters, in 2011 there are 3 changes.

Either way, rather than having a rep for burning out, maybe his rep should be that he takes struggling defenses and makes top 10 units out of them. In his history from 97-2011, he did that 4 times with 4 different teams.

Is all of that superseded by 2006 and 2011? Well it really depends on what happened in those years, I suppose. Either way I don’t factor New Orleans in as heavily because of special circumstances (he didn’t have the players, except in the secondary, and the DL was massively in flux from year to year.)

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