Super Bowl LV proved the same thing as Super Bowl I. Better OL wins
February 8th, 2021 at 6:54 AM ^
Michigan can be better than they were on the OL. If EW was so great then how come he landed at FAU? Because nobody else wants a coach who can’t get along with other staff and relate to players. Good riddance.
February 8th, 2021 at 7:38 AM ^
EW landed at FAU mostly because he was let go in late Jan. Try finding a job after all the jobs are filled....
February 8th, 2021 at 7:49 AM ^
Or maybe living in Boca Raton at age 59 appeals to Warinner and the Mrs.
February 8th, 2021 at 10:11 AM ^
It's not rocket science.
February 8th, 2021 at 8:04 AM ^
Maybe we can just let Warriner go without shitting on him unnecessarily. We don't even know exactly how they didn't get along. It also seems to be the go-to reason when we don't really know why someone gets let go. People even kept bringing it up about Shoop even though Brown had already worked with him before and it almost surely wasn't the reason. Maybe it was more about recruiting with Ed. We don't actually know.
February 8th, 2021 at 8:24 AM ^
Yeah....this is the best response unless we have some solid evidence. Let it go..and hope Moore is, or will soon become, as a good a coach as he is a recruiter.
But its tempting to speculate...it basically comes with the territory of a blog.
February 8th, 2021 at 7:15 AM ^
You can win a lot of football games if you have dominant OL's and DL's. But ... Tom Brady.
February 8th, 2021 at 8:21 AM ^
A GOAT QB is a wonderful feature... but doesn't mean much if he is hit within 2-3 seconds of every snap.
February 8th, 2021 at 8:50 AM ^
So is that more about the OL or the DL? Could the Buc's Oline block the Buc's Dline?
February 8th, 2021 at 12:58 PM ^
Certainly better than the Cheifs OL that was missing their starting OTs
February 8th, 2021 at 7:26 AM ^
As with everything these days, there is a pretty large middle-ground here.
Coach W. seems to be pretty damn good identifying and developing talent but apparently did not get along with “others on the coaching staff” (I read this as “Gattis”) and quite frankly was a bit disappointing as a recruiter —- between his rep as a coach and the M brand I would have expected a bit more play from top-tier OL (like the 2 Clarkston kids this year).
I know Brian puts a huge amount of weight on the OL performance from 2 years ago but that was a line with 5 future Pros starting including several looking to be much more than “1-contract role-players” (Jury still out on Bredeson, Runyan, and obviously Mayfield.)
February 8th, 2021 at 8:41 AM ^
Yeah, Warinner is a good coach and his loss will be felt, but his best year came with 5 draft picks, including a first-round center, that he largely didn't recruit. This year his team dealt with a ton of injuries so it's hard to read too much into the performance. But it's not like his track record is spotless and we don't honestly know how Moore is as an o-line coach until we see it.
One thing that has caught me by surprise is that people around here really praise Warinner yet oftentimes discredit Mike Zordich even though the latter had a much longer track record here at UM of pumping out top-flight units and was about the same level of recruiter. I am fine with good coaches just being good coaches, but I also feel like this site adopts certain positions and no amount of evidence can shake it beyond the passage of time.
February 8th, 2021 at 8:51 AM ^
The current narrative that Warinner was a lousy coach who was mean to his players is interesting:
February 8th, 2021 at 9:39 AM ^
I assume, like most coaches, he was more of a loud, demanding guy when you're losing than when you're doing well. I did read up on some other fanbases that had him as a coach (Minny and OSU) and both had your random "he was kind of an asshole at times" when he left, so maybe he rubbed some guys wrong. But at the same time, I have to imagine that's true for most coaches.
I do find those "new coach changes the culture" articles to be vapid. They basically feel like templates, where current players say the new guy is so much different than the old guy they fired and how they're so optimistic about the future. Because of course that's the only thing you'd hear - nobody is going to say "man, I miss the old guy because this new one seems like an idiot".
February 8th, 2021 at 8:54 AM ^
Yes, in particular the oft-repeated "2019 blitz pickup was best I ever saw". Yet the run game that year was extremely mediocre despite having NFL talent.
February 8th, 2021 at 9:41 AM ^
I think they picked up blitzes pretty well. It probably helped having a bunch of experienced starters on the line. The incredulous takes about it, though, did get a little grating.
February 8th, 2021 at 11:40 AM ^
I'd say the overwhelming majority have never coached or been on a coaching staff, understand how intricate coaching is at this level. Not just schemes but techniques where one wrong step can mean the play is already lost or a dline or oline losing their battle lost the play and not the player most blamed.
Fans blamed Nua for recruiting and Don Brown leaves, insert new Co-Dc's three dt's are landed and subsequently Nua is a hero again.
Zordich recruited and developed several db's and helped put them in the nfl and sucked after last years debacle?
Warinner sucks now that he isn't here despite obviously putting players into the league and he was mean?
We got Gattis with fans overreacting. Instead of JH getting on Pep to fix the communication issues with his offense. BTW the worst part of his offense, every play call came in late, took to long to communicate and left the qb at the los with less than 10 seconds to read the defense and make any adjustments! Gattis, jmo something is wrong with his offense.
February 8th, 2021 at 8:00 AM ^
The big "what if" here is how Tampa Bay's defensive line would have done against KC's offensive line had KC been at full strength. As it was, Tampa Bay's D-line seemed to be having a field day.
February 8th, 2021 at 10:23 AM ^
The Chiefs lost the Super Bowl when their left tackle, Eric Fisher, injured his achilles versus the Bills. There's a reason LT's are the 2nd highest paid position group.
February 8th, 2021 at 8:08 AM ^
A benefit to the poor line play for KC was the opportunity to see Mahomes be Mahomes. The dude is elusive as hell and able to throw the ball at virtually any arm angle. Some better hands on the receiving end sure would have helped. The 4th and 9 play from the eleven where he kept retreating back outside the 30, got tripped up and still managed to fling the ball with accuracy into the end zone was sure to be a highlight for the ages. If only the receiver hadn't let the ball bounce off his facemask.
Hats off to Brady though - GOAT!
February 8th, 2021 at 11:08 AM ^
Watching Mahomes fling incomplete passes through tight windows 30 yards downfield while parallel to the ground felt a lot like watching some Barry Sanders 2-yard gains.
February 8th, 2021 at 11:53 AM ^
I was thinking about Sanders last night. That guy did what he did against 7 and 8 man boxes. Can you imagine him in the modern NFL. Or what a freak-out would occur on defense every time #20 went in motion out of the backfield.
Once he got past the line of scrimmage any given play could be 6 with him. Kind of terrifying.
I know everyone is faster now, yada yada, but he made a lot of fast people look stupid.
February 8th, 2021 at 8:08 AM ^
We don't know that Sherrone can't coach the OL as well as Warriner. We do know he's a hell of a recruiter.
February 8th, 2021 at 8:50 AM ^
You know what makes you a really good coach? Having really good players. It’s not like Alabama has the best position coaches in the country. They get very good players.
February 8th, 2021 at 11:41 AM ^
Texas might disagree since they whacked Tom Herman to pick up Sark and pay him $5.2M / yr. I would also say that part of what makes a really good college coach is being to attract and keep really good players.
Got to have both to win as exemplified by game last night. Bucs have the players, the strategy and then the execution. Result: Champions!
February 8th, 2021 at 8:13 AM ^
I saw a stat that Mahomes ran 497 yards on the field yesterday. Most of that was side to side or backwards. That’s also the most he’s ever run in a game in his career apparently.
February 8th, 2021 at 8:42 AM ^
Watching him run around all night, I don't doubt this stat to be true! The Tampa defense was legit last night...
February 8th, 2021 at 12:37 PM ^
The stat actually only accounted for yards run before throwing the ball or being sacked. So it doesn’t include scrambles for forward yards. At least per article I just read.
February 8th, 2021 at 8:26 AM ^
Yeah, I'm not disagreeing with you, but KC receivers sucked, the 1st half officiating was pretty one sided, and TB's defense was great. Prolly giving a little to much credit to TB's O line. Also, I think the deal with Andy Reid's son was a much bigger deal than anyone realizes. The Chiefs were really flat all game!
February 8th, 2021 at 9:47 AM ^
Agree with your comment about Reid’s son. In a normal Super Bowl week KC would already be in Tampa Bay. I agree that KC seemed flat. Just a terrible tragedy all around.
February 8th, 2021 at 10:26 AM ^
Oh, please. Bitching about refs? KC earned all of their penalties.
February 8th, 2021 at 11:06 AM ^
Yeah, officiating tends to be one sided against the team committing a bunch of penalties. How about keep anybody behind Mike Evans so the corner that got smoked at the line has an option other than “pretend to fall so when you trip the receiver maybe it will pass as incidental contact.” They also had what looked like two guys offisides on a FG attempt in 4th and 5 that cost them 4 points. That’s not one sided officiating.
February 8th, 2021 at 8:35 AM ^
Is it bad OL play or great DL play? Bucs defense has played great all through the playoffs, so I’m leaning towards great DL play.
February 8th, 2021 at 8:44 AM ^
Tampa has outscored KC something like 55-19 since KC took that huge lead in the game earlier this year. Not sure that last night's win was only because the KC OL was playing a backup...
February 8th, 2021 at 8:47 AM ^
Tampa Bay mashed, per PFF, the #2, #6, and #8 offensive lines in the league on the way to the Super Bowl. So either all offensive lines are, in fact, hot garbage or the Tampa defensive line is just really good and their entire defense played well.
KC's injured line (and overall offensive gameplan) wasn't great and struggled to handle the Bucs, but the idea that's because they were poorly coached or inferior to the Bucs without recognizing how good the Bucs were ignores a ton of information. Plus, Michigan was also down their two starting tackles for chunks of this season and looked awful as a result, which would sort of poke a hole in your claim that somehow Warinner is immune to these issues.
February 8th, 2021 at 8:48 AM ^
That 2020 O-line should stifle a lot of wistful remembrances of the former caoch
February 8th, 2021 at 8:51 AM ^
File under 'hot take.'
February 8th, 2021 at 9:05 AM ^
Or maybe it’s a better defense
February 8th, 2021 at 9:08 AM ^
I'm pretty sure his problem was because Don Brown wouldn't let Nua recruit large interior linemen....
Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket....
February 8th, 2021 at 10:03 AM ^
"It all starts up front." has been a saying for 100 years for a reason. When a team is losing the battle in the trenches, even the best OC's/play callers have a difficult time. Getting pressure with 4 and not having to send extra blitzers has always been the key to great defense. The Giants front 4 is the reason Brady doesn't have 2 more rings.
February 8th, 2021 at 10:40 AM ^
Good title.
February 8th, 2021 at 10:45 AM ^
I don't know about bluntly "better OL" but more how one significant mismatch can totally blow a game open. The Bucs have a really good front 7 and the Chiefs had a tattered OL hence Mahomes running for his life all game
It helps too that the Chiefs mediocre defense was finally exposed. When the officials didn't allow them to mug the Bucs WRs all game like they did to the Bills last week, their defense went right back to being mediocre again
February 8th, 2021 at 11:13 AM ^
I think if you've gone through the cycle of hyping up and vilifying a large enough group of assistants to fill an airport shuttle van you gotta wonder if maybe the guy hiring them is the problem.
February 8th, 2021 at 12:31 PM ^
Ed’s gone, and we don’t know how much or even if he is going to be missed. We’re not likely to get the whole story, Great talent makes assistant coaches look very good, note that Alabama’s guys keep moving to better jobs because of the talent they get to coach.