Denny Green is the Mack Brown of the NFL

Jetstream Green · October 15th, 2006, 10:21 PM

Unfortunately, the talent margin is a lot more narrow in the NFL. Mack Brown is a below average coach but his talent on the team and assistants make him seem like a great coach at The University of Texas. Vince Young made him look like a genius but the guy like Green can get talent but has no clue on gameday. Green won with talent in Minnesota but seems to lack the assistant coaches to make it work on gameday. A good head coach would be crazy not to want to take over for Green if he left, this is the most talent on the team (uh, OL not included) since I can remember. Green would make a better GM than a coach.

JeffGollin · October 16th, 2006, 06:08 AM

I don't buy your analogy. Whether or not it was because "Brown's mediocre and his assistants were terrific" has nothing to do with nothing. Even accepting your premise - Brown's the guy who hired those assistants and let them coach. Result - A national championship last year and an incredible W & L record prior to that. Whatever he did, it worked. He is what he is - a winning college football coach.

If you apply the same standards, Dennis "is what he is" - an NFL head coach with a losing record over his first 2¼ seasons with his current team. What factors go into DG's lack of success are debatable. Maybe they have to do with his coaching style; maybe not.

I guess if you feel that DG and Mack Brown have similar coaching styles because they both like to delegate, you could make the case (based on results) that Mack Brown has chosen the better assistants.

I'm not so sure any of us really "know" what the problem is in Arizona. All we can do is speculate. From what I see on the field and from what little we can glean from the media, I'd lay responsibility at the doorstep of (a) lack of a strong enough commitment on the part of RG and DG to fix the offensive line, (b) our HC and assistant coaches not being demanding enough of their players in the mistake dept. and (c) a spotty track record by DG in the hiring of assistants.

I'm also a bit uncomfortable with his somewhat less-than-straight-line approach to dealing with players and communicating with the media - my perception (whether accurate or not) is that, sometimes he says things that don't seem to square with the reality of the moment and sometimes his personnel moves seem impractical, unfair or both.

These deficiencies, in turn, have marred obvious DG skills in building a World Class passing attack, drafting wisely and (I believe) judging talent.

But at the end of the day - in his 3rd year as HC - his team is 1 & 4.

Russ Smith · October 16th, 2006, 06:22 AM

That's a fair analogy, Brown consistently has a ton of talent but before he had a once in a generation talent like Young, he couldn't win the big games.

Green had his once in a generation talent in Moss but still couldn't win the big game in '98.

Scott MS · October 16th, 2006, 06:32 AM

Get a coach with some balls. All the new young guys like Nolan, Mora, and Gruden (young but has been coaching a long time) has an attitude and don't aren't afraid of yelling at their players. We need a guy like that.

Not Dennis Green, who doesn't have the energy, or Dave McGinnis, who wants to be everybody's friend, or Vince Tobin, who was too old and quiet.

Mulli · October 16th, 2006, 06:44 AM

Perhaps an even more appropriate comparison. Green vs. Mackovic.

Russ Smith · October 16th, 2006, 06:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scott MS

Get a coach with some balls. All the new young guys like Nolan, Mora, and Gruden (young but has been coaching a long time) has an attitude and don't aren't afraid of yelling at their players. We need a guy like that.

Not Dennis Green, who doesn't have the energy, or Dave McGinnis, who wants to be everybody's friend, or Vince Tobin, who was too old and quiet.

NOlan is a good comparison because he inherited a team probably even more gutted than we were when Green took over. Nolan and the 49ers decided they would start with the offense because they felt the defense was easier to improve quickly, via the draft and FA.

So they took Smith, took Gore, Snyder and Baas, and had a horrible offense but a learning experience. This year they took Davis(injured), signed Bryant, hired Norv Turner, brought in Dilfer to help Smith(they wanted him the prior year too), and the offense is vastly improved, they're averaging just over 20 PPG this year after just under 15 PPG last year and they're honestly getting better all the time. Smith is a totally different player, on a pace for 24 TD passes, rating of 86.

Now the defense is horrible, arguably the worst in the NFL, hell it's not even arguable they're almost to 200 points allowed, Detroit is next closest with 36 points less allowed. But the 49ers again made a conscious decision to go build the offense first and we'll see next year if Nolan is right about being able to rebuild a defense quicker since undoubtedly next years draft will focus on defense especially in the awful secondary.

Green came in and his focus was pick the BPA, rebuild the OL. he's one more year into his program than Nolan is and right now they already have a better offense than ours, our OL hasn't gotten any better, there's is now one of the strengths of the team(despite large injury issues and Kwame Harris who is worse than Ross). They focussed on one thing and made it a lot better, Green just picked guys who were rated highly but slipped, and right now we have a mix of talent but nothing has really gotten any better.

If the talent gels suddenly, we could be pretty good, but if it doesn't, you would have to say Nolan's "plan" is working a lot better than Green's just draft the BPA approach.