Same sort of hope that was in Detroit early last season. Granted, SF has a better D, but Martz was way too pass happy late in the season.

Agereed, Martz was absolutely pass wacky last season. I don't remember him getting that weird when he was successful in St. Louis.

Who the heck did the Lions have at running back while Martz was so pass happy? Would any of those guys even crack the 49ers' depth chart (Gore, D.Foster, Robinson)?

From the article:

"I come from a team that was 32nd in defense," Martz said of the Lions. "People ask why we threw the ball so much."

Clearly, San Francisco's consistent, effective defense will allow Martz to avoid similar criticisms at his new job.

#4

You obviously didn't watch any of the 49ers defense in 2007. Statistics are very misleading with this group because this defense was on the field more than any other defense in the league (due to the offense's inability to move the ball). Their defensive personnel is clearly superior to Lions on paper. The 49ers offense will be better than dead last in 2008, and if they can find anything resembling a pass rush, don't be surprised to see their defensive stats really spike.

both Bay Area teams on the way up. 49ers maybe to win divison as Cardinals are the Cardinals (which means they are crappy team always), Seahawks might be good and are favorite and Rams stink.
Raiders and Chargers to compete for AFc West, so all 3 California teams to battle for division titles.
B Johnson and I Bruce and D Foster good pikcups for crappy offense. Now the offense might be able to score 20 pints in a game. 49ers will have to win games by scores like 17-13 and 16-14 if team wants to make playoffs.

The Seahawks may be good? They made it to the second round of the playoff without a running game or a real TE. Which they both have now with the drafting of Carlson and the new line coach, along with an actual guard to help out Walter Jones. Watch out for seattle in the playoffs.

Also, the bay area teams have nowhere to go but up.

re6
If they are good, they might make it to superbowl. I been saying that panthers are probably best NFc team,. either Panthers or eagles or Saehawks could win NFC.

I keep forgetting, but is it a good thing if Raiderjoe likes your team? Or is that a sign to just forget about this upcoming season?

#3

Duckett could probably crack the niners RB depth chart. I can't imagine that Tatum Bell is any worse/better than Foster either.

Having watched Shaun Hill in college, I can tell you that he is good, but very poorly suited for Martz's offense.

Hill has poor accuracy, mediocre arm strength, and poor mobility. (He was undrafted for a reason, after all.) His strength is good decision-making (and in general a knack for making the right play at the right time). He's a classic "caretaker" or "game-manager" in the sense that if he's your weakest link, you can win with him, but he's not going to carry you in the NFL. I think his upside is Trent Dilfer (and by the way, Dilfer didn't suck in his prime, he was decent). But would you want Dilfer running your Martz-coordinated offense?

I've always thought it interesting that both Gibbs and Martz are from the Coryell coaching tree. Talk about two different branches!

Only in that Gibbs believed in the deep ball and power running. if not for Art Monk, I'd be horrified to see what Gibbs regular season recoard would look like

Hill has poor accuracy, mediocre arm strength, and poor mobility. (He was undrafted for a reason, after all.) His strength is good decision-making (and in general a knack for making the right play at the right time). He’s a classic “caretaker”

I saw most of his college games, and I'd offer a somewhat similar but somewhat different report. And take this report bearing in mind that not only was he not drafted, he wasn't offered a D1 scholarship out of HS. How many guys like that are there starting in the NFL? Anyway...

Strengths:

1. Very smart guy. He will pick up the Martz playbook. He's the only QB Ralph Friedgen has had at MD who was able to master the entire Ralph playbook (which has a lot of pro-set stuff from Ralph's days as an NFL assistant, but mixes is a bunch of option plays as well... if only Ralph could recruit some decent players).

2. Very good decision maker (I agree).

3. Mobile. Funny that McNabb bowl game doesn't think so. Shaun ran a modified option offense in college and ran for almost 500 yards and 7 TDs his senior year.

4. Accurate passer. he completed 60% of his passes, for 220 yds a game, 13 TDs and 9 INTs w/o having a single NFL caliber player on offense. Not bad.

Weaknesses
1, 2, 3: Arm strength.

Carlos, you're joking, right?

Shaun Hill had not one, but TWO NFL receivers! Matt Murphy, and Joe Dugan.

Let me clarify my statements on Hill (Carlos, we're actually not far apart).

1. Mobility: Hill is a prototypical "deceptively fast" player. As we all know, "deceptively fast" is a euphemism for "slow." However, as Carlos noted he's very smart, and that includes knowing how to run effectively. So I guess it's not fair to say he's got poor mobility, but it's true that he's slow.

2. Accuracy: He wasn't very accurate in college as I recall. He played in the ACC which had the weakest competition of any major conference, and he had an outstanding running game to help him out (with NFL-draftee and ACC offensive POY Bruce Perry at RB). He also rarely threw deep. In that context, 60% isn't so impressive.

Now it seems to me that having a weak arm and poor accuracy pretty much kills any potential success in the Martz system.

Carlos, do you have a better comp than Dilfer?

You obviously didn’t watch any of the 49ers defense in 2007. Statistics are very misleading with this group because this defense was on the field more than any other defense in the league (due to the offense’s inability to move the ball).

I kind of got a sense of that as well, but I think I only saw maybe 2 of their games. I've been wondering for a while how their defensive DVOA would look if you broke it down by quarter. I also wouldn't be too shocked if they nosedived as the season went on. Playing with an offense that bad has got to be demoralizing. I still don't really like them to take the division this year, but with some semblance of an offense they should at least graduate from laughingstock and go back to being a team on the rise.

2 - Martz has had a tendency to go pass-wacky ever since he became a head coach. An obvious example is SB XXXVI when the Rams passed 44 times and ran the ball 22 times. And this was when he had Marshall Faulk at RB. Not quite the imbalance as in Detroit last year. But pretty imbalanced nonetheless.

To me, the most strking difference bewteen Gibbs and Martz has been the premium Gibbs has put on protecting the passer, whereas Martz seemed to think it ws heresy to fail to put as many receivers as possible out in patterns.

Who says that isn't as good a way to protect the passer as the other?

from the shoddy research department:

"...in 1999, Martz's first year with the Rams, the club scored a then-record 526 points and won Super Bowl XXXIV."

The record at that time was the 556 points scored by the Vikings the year before in 1998. And before that it was the Washington Redskins in 1983 with 541.

It should have read "a then team record..."

Is a 66%-33% ratio really that out of whack? Isn't it usually between 55-60 passing unless you have a big lead or no passing game?

I do, depending on the qb.

Less flippantly, it would be interesting if accurate qb hit totals could be compiled from Martz's four best years, and then compared to Gibbs' four best years. We would then gain some insight as to whether max protect schemes provided for less physical abuse of qbs, compared to sending out the maximum number of receivers into patterns.

Well, the information should be in the game charting project. You could compare quarterback hurries and hits in max protect schemes to four-wide schemes. That way you wouldn't be biasing your conclusions by selection of a particular coach.

#18

It's a pretty crude measure compared to DVOA, but I went through the team's 2007 results game-by-game just asking the simple question "did the defense keep the team in the game through halftime?", defined by "were they still within 16 points (two scores) of their opponent after two quarters?"

I counted four games where the defense didn't keep the team in the game through halftime, although it's worth immediately pointing out that two of those instances were scores of 17-0 where even a single field goal would have meant a two possession game. Interestingly, the defense "succeeded" for the first 6 straight games (team's record: 2-4, riding a 4 game losing streak after starting 2-0), struggled by "losing" 4 of the next 7 (team's record: 1-6), and then finished the year with 3 "wins" (team's record: 2-1, all Shaun Hill starts).

I may have overstated a bit how good their defense actually was/is, but their defense kept them in almost every game in 2007 (with only two real exceptions). I'd agree with the use of the word "demoralizing" for this team's 2007. Demoralizing is losing 9-7 to the Ravens at home, 13-9 to the Rams at home, and 20-16 to the Falcons on the road all in one season. They actually were a FG and 2 TDs away from being 8-8 (although undoubtedly the worst 8-8 team ever).

Well, the information should be in the game charting project. You could compare quarterback hurries and hits in max protect schemes to four-wide schemes. That way you wouldn’t be biasing your conclusions by selection of a particular coach.

You'd have to compare the same down and distance (perhaps game situation as well).

#23 In 2006 -
AVG TEAM DOWN 7 OR MORE passed 66%. AVG TEAM DOWN BTWN 3 & 7 passed 59%. AVG TEAM BTWN -3 AND +3 MARGIN passed 52%. AVG TEAM LEADING BTWN 3 AND 7 passed 51%. AVG TEAM LEADING BY 7 OR MORE passed 44%. The average offensive team trailed by 1.2 points and ran 47% of the time.

#16 - Who are Joe Dugan and Matt Murphy?

Martz was an excellent head coach. His overall record stands up against all but the top 5% or so of NFL coaches. His biggest problem was in personnel, as it is for many coaches who try to take that on.

The criticism he's taken for last year in Detroit is absolutely crazy. The Lions had a simple atrocious defense last year. They finished 31st in DVOA, 32nd in weighted DVOA, 32nd in 3rd down efficiency, 32nd in punts/drive, and 32nd in drive success rate.

Detroit's offense was not elite but they were passable. In fact, they were 16th in drive success rate, 18th in passing DVOA, and 20 in rushing DVOA. When you consider that they were 23rd in adjusted line yards, 29th in power (OL rating), 25th in stuffed rate, and 26th in adjusted sack rate, it would seem Martz's play-calling created at least a mild manner of success considering how terrible the Lions were on defense and on the offensive line.

It is important to note that what little enthusiasm there was for the Lions last year was based on Mike Martz. Before Martz arrived, Roy Williams was only considered a success because CRog and BMW were such epic busts. Mike Furrey was a backup safety.

Roy Williams went back to being an overrated whiner, finishing significantly below S. McDonald, M. Furrey, and C. Johnson in DVOA.

Mike Martz is a great coach in the right situation. It's questionable whether or not that situation is San Francisco, but when he says he has more to work with there than he did in Detroit, he's no doubt telling the truth.

I think the Martz comment on being criticized about passing too much when the defense is last in the NFL is very telling on 2 levels.

First is the nature of chucklehead media and average fans who find an irrational need for big name QB's, WR's and RB's rather than a good player with a greater likelihood of success at a less popular position...and the owners and GM's who subsequently give into them...very funny, considering who the GM of his former team is.

Second is the idea that Martz has never fully grasped the idea that the execution of his offense, the length of offensive drives, and the time of possession during those drives greatly affects his own team's defense. It's a concept he never learned in St. Louis and should have at least learned when the Colts tweaked their approach and finally won their most recent Superbowl.
Balance, dude! Balance and execution!

5. I hear this on the niner boards all the time, but I don't see how it's supported in at all. DVOA ranks them 28th. But there are (and have always been) great defenses coupled with bad offenses - for example 2001 titans (21st ranked offense, 1st ranked defense) - or the Bears (31st ranked offense, 7th ranked defense).

You might be able float the argument that the historically horiffic offense the niners had masked a slightly below average defense - but I don't think you can say they are good.

I think they looked good - from a talent perspective - compared to the offense.