Herzog wrote:

It helps the transition having a couple guys that already know how to do things.

i think it does. like i said i’d rather have garcon, but either would do i think.

Rams should target wide receiver DeSean Jackson in free agency

i just took several things from the article and posted them here.

Washington has two wide receivers eligible for free agency in the upcoming offseason: Jackson and Pierre Garcon.

Both are currently on the wrong side of 30. But it’s unlikely that Washington would re-sign both wideouts.

…

The market value for Jackson is $22.8 million over three years, for an average annual salary of $7.6 million (via Spotrac).

That’s comparable to the $6.7 million estimate for Kenny Britt, who is a free agent as well.

Jackson, however, is from Los Angeles and recently had over 1,000 yards while playing under McVay.

…

According to Pro Football Focus rankings, Garcon was the No. 8 overall receiver in the NFL this season.

Jackson received a grade of 77.0 — comparable with the New England Patriots’ Julian Edelman, the Cleveland Browns’ Terrelle Pryor and the Chicago Bears’ Alshon Jeffery. It’s higher than Britt, who received a 76.5.

ok. so yeah. one or both might be a pain in the ass. but i’m thinking about it, and this offense needs continuity. no. goff has not played with either of these guys.

but these guys played under mcvay. they know the offense. there won’t be confusion in what routes they should be running. they will know what to expect in minicamps and training camps. they can help goff learn the offense. they can work with him in the offseason when mcvay can’t. they can also work with the current rams receivers in learning the offense.

now do these guys want to go to an offense where basically they have to rebuild? who knows? they’re 30 years old. i don’t know that they would be in that mindset. having to teach younger guys when they might not even be around when the rams actually become successful. IF THEY EVEN ARE SUCCESSFUL.

i’m hoping they hire a good mix of veteran and young coaches.

especially on the defensive side. phillips won’t be coaching forever.

obviously, wes is on the offensive side, but mcvay will need fresh ideas on that side too. i don’t know much about him, but i got this from his baylor bio where he was coaching qbs. he also coached qbs for 2 years at west texas a&m.

Former Texas-El Paso quarterback and Houston native Wes Phillips enters his first year as Baylor’s quarterbacks coach, but he is no stranger to offensive coordinator Lee Hays or the Bears’ new spread offense.

Phillips has spent the past two seasons in a similar position under Hays at West Texas A&M. The Buffaloes enjoyed their most successful season in some 55 years in 2005, going 10-2 to post their first winning season since 1998 and the program’s first 10-win campaign since 1950. Along the way, WTAMU won the Lone Star Conference with an 8-1 record, its first league title since 1986, and advanced to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Division II Playoffs for the first time in school history.

West Texas A&M led the 2005 Division II ranks in passing offense, throwing for an average of 363.8 yards per contest, and Phillips’ pupil Dalton Bell was a national finalist for the Harlon Hill Trophy. Bell completed 68.5 percent of his passes for 3,799 yards and 30 touchdowns with just 13 interceptions in 454 attempts. He ranked No. 3 nationally in total offense yards (349.2 ypg) and 13th in pass efficiency with a 154.9 rating while establishing school and conference single-season records for both total offense (3,843) and passing (3,799) yards. Bell posted seven 300-yard passing games, including four of 400 or more yards.

Prior to joining the WTAMU staff, Phillips spent one season as a student assistant coach at his alma mater, UTEP, and played two years with the San Diego Riptide in the Arena Football League 2.

A three-year letterwinner for the Miners (1999, 2000 and 2001), Phillips was a member of the 2000 UTEP team which shared the WAC title, posted the program’s highest win total in more than a decade and played in the Humanitarian Bowl. He still ranks among the school’s single-season leaders in both pass efficiency (No. 9 with a 120.03 rating in 2001) and completion percentage (No. 8 at 55.6 percent in 2001).

The son of former NFL head coach and current San Diego Chargers defensive coordinator Wade Phillips and the grandson of former Houston Oilers and New Orleans Saints coaching legend Bum Phillips, Wes received his bachelor’s degree in philosophy from UTEP in 2001.

if he can be as good on offense as his father is on defense, i’ll take that. and his grandfather was pretty good too, as most of us know, so the “football genes” must be strong in that family for whatever that’s worth.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 7 months ago by InvaderRam.

PA Ram wrote:

Bell already has 100 yards rushing. It’s really kind of interesting how he runs.

it is fun to watch. wonder if anyone else could even think about doing that.

sanbagger wrote:

PA Ram wrote:

WHO THE HE’LL IS THIS JARED COOK GUY? WTF!

Meh…he dropped a couple, he should have caught, right before he caught “The pass”.

Even on the “the pass” he was jogging out to his, presumably cause it wasn’t designed to go to him. He just jogged himself in to position and AR scrambled long enough to give him a chance to be a hero.

He’s still gonna drop more passes than he should.

Good game though and look forward to GB vs ATL. Hopefully Pitt vs KC is just as fun.

well for me at least. i’m being just a little facetious. my point though is that with a great quarterback and a sound offensive gameplan, players can look better.

hopefully, mcvay provides that. he should provide that over a boras. and hopefully, he can help goff become a solid to very good starter. if we’re lucky, even more.

those two things can make free agent signings a lot easier if you know what i mean.

it isn’t necessarily saying that cook is all of a sudden a better player.

jared cook looks… pretty good.

grumble…

nittany ram wrote:

Well, hiring a coach is never a sure thing especially when he’s a first time head coach. Sometimes even guys that have been successful head coaches with other teams fail in their new locale. There’s just so many things outside of their control that have to break just right for a team to be successful.

What gives me hope is that everything said about McVay has been positive. Everyone that knows him thinks he will be a good head coach. Other coaches, players, media people, etc all think he’s going to succeed.

you’re right. it’s gonna take more than picking the right head coach. lots of things have to break right.

and if the reports are true that shanahan really is a jerk, then i feel good about rooting for a mcvay. he really does sound like a vermeil type coach. whereas shanahan might be a harbaugh type coach who can rub people the wrong way.

Agamemnon wrote:

InvaderRam wrote:

“My passion is coaching defense the way I know how to coach defense. I wanted a four-man front, and this is where it was.”

This line, from Bill Johnson, is interesting, since Wade is a 34 guy.

bill johnson and phillips coached together in atlanta from 2002-3. i believe they ran a 3-4 during phillips’ time there. the first season was ok. the second season everything fell apart. but i think everything fell apart at that point. i think reeves was fired at some point in the season, and wade took over as interim head coach. johnson remained part of the coaching staff after phillips was let go. they probably went to a 4-3 after that.

there must be something there as phillips decided to work with him again. maybe with this 3-4 one gap scheme it’ll be more similar to what johnson likes to coach.

on bill johnson

http://www.nola.com/saints/index.ssf/2009/08/new_orleans_saints_defensive_l_1.html

Eliot Kamenitz/The Times-PicayuneNew Orleans Saints defensive ends coach Bill Johnson twice was a target hire of defensive coordinator Gregg Williams. This season, Sean Payton beat him to the punch, hiring Johnson five days before Williams.
If there is a silver lining to the Saints losing starting defensive ends Charles Grant and Will Smith for four games at the start of the season, it’s that team officials have had months to prepare for their drug-related suspensions.

That involves stocking a roster with short-term and long-term replacements and hiring a defensive line coach to deftly handle the change in culture that Coach Sean Payton demands under new defensive coordinator Gregg Williams.

Enter Bill Johnson, an affable, tough-minded, good ol’ boy whose coaching glass is always half-full.

“To me, it’s an opportunity for somebody else to show that they can play,” Johnson said between practices Wednesday. “Then, when they come back, it’s an opportunity for us to be stronger in the fifth week of the season. It’s an opportunity for us to be stronger in the 16th, 17th, 18th week, because we have somebody else better.”

Listening to Payton and Williams talk, the Saints’ organization hired the ideal defensive line coach for this season and beyond, because of his passion for the game, his reputation for getting the most out of his players and his knowledge of the pass rush.

“He has got a good ol’ boy sense of humor, but he has also got a good ol’ boy sense of kick you in the ass, too,” Williams said. “The players love him, and they love being around him. He coaches them hard, but they have a good time because they laugh and joke, too.”

The pairing of Williams with Johnson has been a work in progress. Williams first tried to hire Johnson in Buffalo in 2001 and again at Washington in 2004, each time to no avail.

Payton actually beat Williams to the punch, hiring Johnson five days before Williams signed in mid-January.

“I’ve tracked Bill for a long time,” Williams said. “I was tracking him when he was in college football. I’m really pleased that we finally have a chance to get our contracts matched up, and we get to work together.”

That opportunity presented itself when Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen fired Mike Shanahan and his coaching staff, enabling Johnson to pursue coaching opportunities in Seattle, Green Bay and New Orleans.

Johnson, 54, reportedly turned down a job offer at Green Bay and signed with the Saints.

“It was harder to hire a staff in ’06 than it is in ’09,” Payton said. “Obviously, I’m biased, but we changed the culture, and how we’re perceived in this league nationally is much different. We were able in ’09 to hire a Gregg Williams and a Bill Johnson, when I don’t know in ’06 those same opportunities would have presented themselves.”

So who is Bill Johnson and why all the fuss? A native of Monroe and former standout at Neville High School and Northwestern Louisiana, he is entering his 30th year of coaching in the college and professional ranks, the last eight with Atlanta (2001-2006) and Denver (2007-08).

While with the Falcons, he helped the club post the seventh-highest sack total in the NFL (third in the NFC) with 242.

“There was a four-year stretch when he was in Atlanta when they led the league in sacks with a four-man rush,” Williams said. “If we’re going to be any good here, we’ve got to do a better job rushing the passer out of a four-man rush.”

Saints defensive tackle Rod Coleman said he benefited from Johnson’s coaching when they were together in Atlanta from 2004 through ’07. Coleman signed with the Saints in March after being released by the Falcons in February 2008 and sitting out the ’08 season.

Coleman registered 28 sacks under Johnson from 2004-06 — the most of any NFL defensive tackle during that period — and went to the Pro Bowl after the 2005 season.

“Bill is intense,” Coleman said. “He makes you dig deeper than you thought you could. It has helped me that I was with him in Atlanta, so I know his mentality and his methods of madness. He’s basically going to grind you, grind you and push you to your limits.

“He’s still tweaking his vision, but as long as you’re working hard for him, he’s going to take care of you. He’ll go to bat for you as long as he knows you’re out there busting your butt for him out there between those white lines.”

What happens on the field is what matters most to Johnson, whose desire to coach a 4-3 defense means more to him than being back in his home state.

“People say I’m here because I had to come back to Louisiana,” Johnson said. “I promise you, if the things I was looking for as a coach would have been in Canada, I would have gone to Canada to coach. I was looking for an element of what I am as a coach and an opportunity to do that with a group that I could rally together and bond with.

“My passion is coaching defense the way I know how to coach defense. I wanted a four-man front, and this is where it was.”

Brian Allee-Walsh can be reached at ballee-walsh@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3805.

zn wrote:

InvaderRam wrote:

so he’d be lined up outside the guard instead of outside the tackle. i’m guessing that puts more responsibility on that outside linebacker?

Yes but in that respect it’s no different from the OLB being a DE in the Rams 4/3 D under Williams.

or rather outside the guard instead of lining up directly opposite the offensive tackle. a 4-3 end would line up outside the tackle.

well. i don’t know that that helps quinn all that much. he’d still be dealing with that offensive tackle instead of being able to run free.

so he’d be lined up outside the guard instead of outside the tackle. i’m guessing that puts more responsibility on that outside linebacker?

zn wrote:

InvaderRam wrote:

honestly. i bet all the great ones come off as arrogant.

Not necessarily. Did Vermeil?

no, he didn’t. and in fact, i see a little vermeil in mcvay. the same energy. the same leadership qualities that engender loyalty from players well beyond their playing careers. i like that.

i was a little over the top there. but my point is that arrogance wouldn’t put me off necessarily.

and what worries me about mcvay isn’t his leadership qualities. it’s that he hasn’t proven himself like shanahan has. shanny has done it time and time and time again. every stop. or at least almost every stop. he’s made a positive impact. now that might mean nothing. you can take wade phillips as an example of a guy that’s improved a defense everywhere he’s went but simply wasn’t head coach material. so yeah. i concede that shanahan might not be head coach material.

but i’d be lying if i said i wasn’t worried about mcvay’s experience. he’s only ever been at one stop.

i could care less. honestly. i bet all the great ones come off as arrogant. i’m a little disappointed. i hope i’m wrong.

maybe he’s too strong a personality for demoff to handle. that’s sad if true. until i’m proven wrong, my opinion is that demoff has no business being vp of football operations. he should stay over on the business operations and public relations side and stuff.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 7 months ago by InvaderRam.

on aaron kromer.

i didn’t realize this until i read this bit over at the herd. as ol coach of the bills, the bills have ranked number one in rushing both years he’s been there. of course when he was in chicago as offensive coordinator, the bears ranked 27th and 16th in rushing. so mixed results.

also, he may have smacked some kid around and threatened him with death… sounds like a winner.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 7 months ago by InvaderRam.

zn wrote:

Quite often the OL coaches are also the run game coordinators (Hanifan had that role with Martz).

So he is looking for a coordinator who has input into the running game.

that’s what i see too. and it’s smart.