Coaching/talent

This is amazing. People who think that Greg Williams walks on water play down the level of talent he has on the field to make it seem as if he is a genius.

Others say that it's hard not to be good with Ray Lewis and Ed Reed. In this case it is the Ravens coach who is the lucky SoB who has all the good players.

But if someone - like me for instance - says that the Skins defense is not up to snuff on the talent dimension, a whole bunch of folks will jump ugly with me and tell me how everyone on the defensive side of the ball is a beast and/or a warrior and ought to be in the Pro Bowl.

If both argumetns were true, the Skins would be 8-3 just on the basis of their dominating defense - - but they're not...

Williams made a big difference in a year for several reasons. One of them is that he installed a much more aggressive defensive system this year than was there last year. He gets 100% of the credit for that.

He also has a new DL. Only Wynn is a holdover - unless you count Jermaine Haley - who plays about three snaps of the ball every four games. The DL last year was rotten; it is now upgraded to average. That is a HUGE improvement. And Williams will earn mega bonus points if he can keep Griffin's motor running next year too. Griffin has had a good year earlier in his career but it never carried over into the next year.

He has three coachable linebackers on the field right now who are rarely way out of position. In an aggressive defense, the guys who have to "cover" for the aggression have to do their job or there will be huge plays run against the defense. Last year's defense was built by a coach selected by the players because he would allow them to "freelance". Oh swell!

Williams has two much better than average cover-corners which has allowed him to let the safeties cover for each other because each safety has shown to be "error-prone" this year.

Greg Williams has gotten about all you can expect a coach to get out of this assemblage of players. Now for the defense to step up and actually win a game on its own when the offense puts next to nothing on the board, that will be for the players to do...

Our D is dominant, regardless of how many points they put (or don't put) on the scoreboard.

Also, it's not contradiction to say that we have loads of talent on our roster (including the defense of course) while simultaneously arguing that Williams has done a lot with so little. As I noted previously, what Williams has done is amazing considering how many injuries our defense has suffered.

Williams gets some credit for HIS defensive scheme, doesn't he? Regardless of whether it is more or less aggressive, it's simply better. HIS scheme is working.

This is amazing. People who think that Greg Williams walks on water play down the level of talent he has on the field to make it seem as if he is a genius.
So are you saying the reason the D is ranked #2 overall is because of our overwhelming talent level? I guess it's due to our lot of household names like Lemar Marshall, Ryan Clark, Joe Salave'a, Ron Warner, Antonio Pierce, and Jermaine Haley?

Seems like you're downplaying the job Williams has done.

I'm not saying we don't have some talent, but Williams deserves the majority of the credit for the turnaround of the defense this year. He's got guys who would be scrubs on other teams playing way above expectations.

I happen to believe that players win and lose games far more frequently than coaches win and lose games. I realize that others here disagree but try to explain these things to me.

We had a defensive coordinator here named Mike Nolan. The Skins' defense was decidedly mediocre and he was ushered out of town with a big sigh of relief because people thought he was less than fully competent. MIke Nolan is now the defensive coordinator in Baltimore. He has better players there than he had here and maybe he has some more players there who do what he asks them to do instead of "freelancing". And now he is a "hot commodity" as a coordinator and is considered a candidate for a head coaching job. (Frankly, I would not hire him as a head coach, but his name is out there.)


Meanwhile, in Baltimore in 2000, Marvin Lewis coached that Ravens' defense and it was so good that it won the Ravens a Super Bowl with Trent "Bleeping" Dilfer playing QB. Marvin came here and took over a less talented - and a certainly less cooperative - defensive unit and it didn't work nearly as well.

I don't believe Nolan got a whole lot smarter and more competent by moving 50 miles north while Lewis got a whole lot dumber and less competent by moving 50 miles south. I don't think that coaching ability is dependent on the latitude of the home stadium.

So, I think this situation revolves around the fact that the Skins defensive players have been less talented and less "coachable" than the Ravens players much more than it revolves around the capabilities of the two defensive coordinators. I think both men are/were competent and above the threshold of competence needed to succeed. But they both seem to be doing/have done better in Baltimore...
So there's no possibility that Nolan has become a better coach? It's all on the players and their "coachability"?

As for Lewis he only had one year here, and the D finished #5 overall I think. So how less competent was he? Had he been here for a few years he probably could have done an even better job.

So after Lewis left and the reins of the D were handed to Edwards, the D rankings sunk to the bottom of the league. Did our players suddenly become less coachable?

four reasons our defense is good...
Sean Taylor
Cornellius Griffin
Smoot
Springs
Without them we suck lets not let the smoke and mirrors fool u if we had everyone healthy on both offense and defense we would be superbowl contenders.

Diehard: besides Jansen list one worthwhile injury on offense? The fact is even having Jansen we wouldn't be lighting up the scoreboard. Our offense is anemic.