The comparison rules for QBs evidently hold for coaches, too.

My one concern with Morris - didn't he leave K-State under less than ideal circumstances?

That's what I remembered, Google agrees somewhat.

Doesn't this happen every year, though? The assistants on the Super Bowl winner are always hot in the copycat league. Mike Martz, Marvin Lewis, Charlie Weis, etc.

Re #2
It looks like Morris quit to take a different job, and KState claimed he owed them money based on the contract. I don't think that's really a Saban or Petrino-type scenario.

Geez...nobody even heard of this guy until this year. The defense he coached had a great season, but look at the veteran personnel he had. Lets see how his defenses are performing a season or two from now.

Also...did FO do a site update? I can't view the website in Firefox, I have to use my Internet Explorer Tab extension.

I got it working now...

From the same poll:

Most head coaches polled by ESPN.com identified [Rodney] Harrison [as the dirtiest player in the league] quickly and without equivocation.

"That's not a surprise," Broncos receiver Brandon Stokley said. "I would have bet my life savings on that one."

Harrison got 11 of the 18 votes.

If the Vikings defense has an excellent, or even good season, Frazier will get a promotion somewhere.

I know Tice has been a subject of ridicule, but I think the guy could be an excellent head coach with the right general manager and owner.

#5
-He's getting noticed because he used the talent on the team to the best of their ability. Just about all of the players were there for the prio year or tow, when the d wasn't nearly as good as it was. I think that's why he's getting the attention, for maximizing the talent available, which is what you want your coach to do really.

Re # - But Martz (STL 99) and Lewis (BAL 00) coached units that had historic years, thus becoming hot tickets because of an extended body of work.

The Giant defense was good last season but not historically great. They gave up 38 points to the Patriots in week 17. They then had an impressive playoff run culminating in a great game. I see the job Spags did last year as good and a start on building a resume to be a HC, just not in the class of what Martz and Lewis did.

Re 5:

He had a super-elite defensive line and one good linebacker. Pretty much everyone else on the defense was below average. I mean they gave RW McQuarters significant playing time.

Two weeks into the season the G's looked like the worst defensive team in the NFL, under new asst coach Spags. The D gelled through the year. His defense then stopped 3 of the best offenses in the NFL, including what was likely the best ever, in back to back games, winning the SB as a huge underdog. Yeah, nothing much accomplished there :).

It didn't hurt Steve Spagnuolo's Q rating that he had Troy Aikman following him around for four straight playoff games, singing his praises any time he could shoehorn them in.

Spagnuolo should have to tithe a portion of all future earnings to Aikman.

Even Joe Theismann was embarrassed by how many times Aikman mentioned Spagnuolo on the air.

What's ironic is Spags used almost the same gameplan to beat the Pats that the Pats used to beat the Rams in 2002.

If Belicheck wasn't such an arrogant douche, he might have been prepared.

re: 15

Got a chip on the shoulder there?

Yeah, Belichick's arrogance led to Stephen Neal going down with a knee injury early in the first quarter.

People's impressions of what actually happened with the defensive pressure is somewhat flawed. Most of the very strong DL play was in the second quarter.
The truth is that BB did in fact make the adjustments necessary, but then his OL started committing stupid penalties. Still, by the end of the game the Pats were consistently moving the ball.

It's really easy to call somebody an 'arrogant douche'. But there are real differences between the play of the Giants in 2008 and that of the Pats in 2002. For starters, the main reason the Giants DL had so much success was not because of coaching (on either part), but because they are simply so physically talented.

Another difference is that the Rams in 2002 had Marshall Faulk, arguably the best RB in the NFL at the time. The Pats have Laurence Maroney, who is nowhere near that level. The big knock on Martz at the time was that he didn't simply run the ball. His OL, led by Orlando Pace, should have been able to run on the Pats, whose weakness against the run became very evident the following season, when they didn't make the playoffs. But the Rams didn't really try.

A lot of people have wondered why the Pats didn't try running much, but when they did try, Maroney got nowhere.

If anybody really thinks BB was outcoached by Coughlin and Spagnuolo, I'd like the hear the argument. I think it's clear that the stronger team on that day won, but they won not because they had better coaching, but for a variety of reasons, including lucky catches, lucky fumbles, and a clearly more aggressive attitude.

I hear a lot of people call Belichick arrogant, but I never see that conveyed during his press conferences. He's not like Parcells or Bobby Knight. I'm not saying he doesn't have an ego, but BB usually seems awkward a lot more than he seems arrogant.

What’s ironic is Spags used almost the same gameplan to beat the Pats that the Pats used to beat the Rams in 2002.

This is simply not the case, if you study the X's and O's.

The 2001 Rams offense was keyed around Marshall Faulk and Belichick's defense was predicated on doing whatever it took to take Faulk out of the game, especially the passing game. "Take away what an offense does best, and you'll force them to do things they're less used to doing, and hence will screw up" was the philosophy. The Patriots beat the Rams with scheme, not with physical talent. Their starting D-line was essentially Bobby Hamilton, Brandon Mitchell, a rookie Richard Seymour, and Anthony Pleasant. Not exactly the future HoF, star-studded line that the 2007 Giants boasted.

By contrast, the 2007 Patriots didn't base their entire offense on any single player (except, of course, Brady, but every offense is based on the QB to some extent)--what made them so dangerous was that they could do many different things well--long passes, quick passes, screens, up-the-middle runs, outside runs, etc. However, ANY offense, regardless of what kind of plays it revolves around, requires good O-line play. The Giants had the personnell and came up with a gameplan that allowed their front four to outplay the Pats line and pressure Brady (assisted by the fact that the Pats linemen were playing kind of flat, their starting RG got injured early, and the Giants very talented lineman all played the game of their lives). Brady has said in interviews that there were plays there--gaps for the RB's, open receivers, etc., but that he just didn't have the time to get the ball there. Strategically, I've read that one of the keys was that after Neal got injured, the Giants moved Tuck inside so that he was working against Koppen (remember the "4 Aces arcitle here on FO?) and that that was a key--Koppen had trouble adapting to a fast, DE-type player rather than a powerful DT-type player. And as RickD pointed out, the Pats were starting to move the ball by the end--enough to take the lead with almost no time left, and it was the Pats D (Asante, I'm looking at you) that let them down.

I didn't observe any gameplan similarities between the 2007 Giants and the 2001 Patriots...