dokgonzo wrote: I maintain that BB's biggest glaring weakness is his fixation with "promoting from within." They have people coaching the secondary with zero actual NFL playing experience, and in some cases they're not much older than the players themselves.

I honestly don't think the players in the secondary are as bad as their performance indicates. They look lost, hesitant, slow. And that's not a physical problem, because we know they're all fast enough, we know they can make plays. We've seen it.

BB's stubbornness is the real devil in disguise here. He simply refuses to hire from outside the organization and get the coaching support the team really needs.

As DL pointed out, this team with BB as HC won SB's with guys like Randall Gay and Earthwind Moreland in the secondary. Hardly All Pro players. But at that time he had Romeo as DC. He had Mangina as secondary coach and Joel Collier as his assistant. Is there that same level of talent in the chain of command now? I think not.

 
I also question the coaching assistants, along with Belichick's coaching as well, especially you wonder about basic techniques....such as looking back for the Football, and knocking balls down from the air.  Simple things (which players should know anyway).

But I don't see that as the core issue here.

Bill Belichick consistently drafts undersized, slow-footed, low-rated, no-name players for his Seconday, and skips over all the other choices, and the other players which other Coaches seek out (with success), and other Draft Analysts/Experts project as successful CBs and Safeties.

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The most recent example here is Tavon Wilson, a no-name guy who was on nobody's 2012 NFL Draft board, and who was on nobody's 2012 "mock-draft" list -- even in the 6th round!   Let me repeat that:  Even in the 6TH ROUND!!!

Yet Bill Belichick plucked this guy out of obscurity (when no other GM would have), and made him his second round pick!  Second-Round?  Come on!  This was just beyond incompetence.

Tavon was a guy who played well on special teams in College, and that's about it (which is the reason why nobody ever had him on any of their Boards).  Even the so-called "Highlight Films" of him on YouTube showed him easily getting beaten in coverage situations, and I mean very easily.  I had posted about him after the selection, warning that one Draft report written about him even stated:  "He's a liability in pass coverage".  Hello McFly?

Now, I'm no Football genuis here, but when even I can find YouTube film of this college player getting badly torched in one-on-one coverage situations, my mind tells me that ....hmmmm, there might just be better Cornerbacks in the Draft than this guy.  Ya think?  I wonder how high Pete Carroll rated this guy compared to the other options.

Yet out of hundreds of players, this is Belichick's man?  This was his idea of a top CB?  And he is even willing to waste a second-round draft pick on that?  This is the real problem that is going on here.

So there are just too many players he picks that, while they may have some minor abilities,  they simply fail to come anywhere close to the textbook description of a proper NFL coverage Cornerback.


So how can a "smart" man be so Dumb?

I believe this comes largely from Belichick's love affair with Special Teams players. He began his career as a Special Teams coach.  I think that he wants to pigeon-hole all of his Cornerbacks and his Safeties into double-duty Special Teams/Defensive players.   And he spends far, far too much time evaluating players for just their Special Teams skills, than he does for their actual coverage skills and important coverage matchup attributes (coverage denials, speed, playmaking, height, arm-reach, etc.).

Other coaches and GMs don't do that.  They focus on somebody who they know can actually cover people one-on-one, and then coach the special team stuff later on if needed.  But Bill Belichick gets his wet dreams over special teams utility men, and then thinks that he can later coach them into matching-up with the best NFL Skill Recievers and TEs in the League.  But reality proves him wrong.

It's a reverse logic going on in his head, and that is why Belichick drafts only dud-after-dud-after-dud-after-dud for his Secondary players. When he picks players, he's not wearing a GM's hat (as he should)......he's still wearing his old Special Teams Coach hat  (thinking as a Special Teams Coach).  He just can't let go of that.

Anyway, that's my theory....


 

DerekLarsson2 wrote:

Bill Belichick consistently drafts undersized, slow-footed, low-rated, no-name players for his Seconday, and skips over all the other choices, and the other players which other Coaches seek out (with success), and other Draft Analysts/Experts project as successful CBs and Safeties.

"Again, this is all pointing to coaching. That's the common thread (despite DL's theory that anyone not drafted by Parcells is useless)."

1.  I was clearly speaking to the players that he has drafted for the Secondary, and not    "anyone not drafted by Parcells".

2. It's not just coaching.  Many things that players either do or don't do are instinctive, and cannot even really be "taught" to begin with (like jumping routes at the right time).  It's called talent.  And simple, basic things like looking back for the football, or knocking the ball down, etc., are things that any decent player who has played Football should already know how to do all by himself regardless of any "coaching".  And if they need to be constantly reminded of such things, again that is on the player and not on the 'Coaching'.

3. You cannot possibly defend players like:  Shawn Springs, Duane Starks, Dexter Reed, Darius Butler, Terrance Wheatly, Jonathon Wilhite, Kyle Arrington, Ras Dowling, Gus Scott, Dennard, McCourty, Moore, Bodden, Earthwind Morland, McGowen, Trevon Wilson, Tank Williams.........etc, and make the claim that these were the best available Secondary players to choose from?   They were not. They are inadequate players.  Many of them have been total busts on other teams as well (with other coaching staffs), or they are completely out-of-the-NFL altogether now.

4. None of the Secondary players that Belichick has picked, have ever gone on to become Star players, or even decent players on any other team either (under any other "scheme" or coach) -- except for Asante Samuel which proves the point.  

So the conclusion is inescapable that his judgement and evaluation (and criteria used) of Secondary players is apalling and incompetent.  The players that he picks are bad, and that's what the record over many, many years clearly shows.

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I'm not saying that the coaching is great either, but just look at all the rejects that have come and gone, and come and gone over the last 7 years, and it is breathtaking.  Had he picked even just 2 or 3 more people of the calibre of Asante Samuel  -- then we wouldn't even be having this conversation right now.

Put it this way.  I like Pete Carroll's Secondary picks better than the anything that Belichick has picked.  If we could swap the Seattle Secondary in place of The Patriots Secondary right now ...then we wouldn't be having this conversation now as well.

 
 

DerekLarsson2 wrote:

Put it this way.  I like Pete Carroll's Secondary picks better than the anything that Belichick has picked.  If we could swap the Seattle Secondary in place of The Patriots Secondary right now ...then we wouldn't be having this conversation now as well