Any concerns about Kubiak?

Joshua · #1 09-30-2008, 09:37 AM

While I'm certainly not advocating firing Kubiak or anything that extreme, this is year three so I think we do have sufficient body of work to begin to judge him. Since that's what message boards are for, here we go-

Kubiak's in-game coaching is starting to concern me. When he first started I expected some growing pains, but thought he would get past these in a year or so. Now, in year three, I still do not see a confident head coach who can quickly make decisive (and correct) decisions. The glaring examples this year are the mistakes with the challenges (at the least, call a timeout so you can see a replay) and the fake punt by the Jags. The fake punt I have the hardest time with. I simply can't imagine Dungy, Fisher, etc. letting that ball get snapped.

I'm also not seeing a coach who can develop week-to-week game plans to either optimize our talent or take advantage of a perceived weakness. Maybe it's just me but our game plan seems to the same each week with a wrinkle or two thrown in. Watching the Pitt-Ravens game last night, Pitt was stagnant and needed a jump start and went to the no-huddle. This got them going and proved to be the right call. I could be wrong, but I don't remember us ever trying anything as daring to jumpstart our offense.

Finally, I know he is not the defensive guy, but he ultimately is responsible for it and for whatever reason, it is bad. If Richard Smith is the problem, Kubiak must identify this and correct it.

Having said all this, I do think Kubiak has done a good job in drafting players (although Okoye and Bennett's start to this year have tarnished this star a little, hopefully they'll turn it around). He also had an incredibly difficult task and has done a decent job of turning the attitude around at Reliant. However, the difference in winning and losing in the NFL is often miniscule and can often turn on proper in-game coaching decisions. Unfortunately, I have seen little from Kubiak to suggest he's the guy to get these decisions right. Even if he is the guy to assemble the necessary talent to compete with the best, if he continues to blow a couple calls a game, this may still cost us the game.

Arky · #2 09-30-2008, 02:01 PM

I'd like to see Bob McNair sign Kubiak to a 10-year deal.

A little history: In the Cowgirls early days, coach Tom Landry came under fire in his 5th year as there was a groundswell of fans calling for his head because of 5 straight losing seasons. Owner Tex Schram responded by giving Landry a 10-year contract extension. Game over.

dadmg · #3 10-01-2008, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Any concerns about Kubiak?

No. Which is surprising considering I was against his hiring in the first place.

KJ3 · #4 10-01-2008, 03:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arky

I'd like to see Bob McNair sign Kubiak to a 10-year deal.

A little history: In the Cowgirls early days, coach Tom Landry came under fire in his 5th year as there was a groundswell of fans calling for his head because of 5 straight losing seasons. Owner Tex Schram responded by giving Landry a 10-year contract extension. Game over.

haha, they can't lose forever, right? hand over those reigns!

NBT · #5 10-01-2008, 04:03 PM

No concerns, however he is showing an alarming tndency to stay with players and certain coaches too long to suit me.

nunusguy · #6 10-02-2008, 08:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NBT

No concerns, however he is showing an alarming tndency to stay with players and certain coaches too long to suit me.

Couldn't agree more NBT, and that makes it a big concern for me.
The Capers regime had a bad case of cronyism, and Kubiak has the same disease. We may be getting to the place where McNair might want to sit down and tell his employee he's been down that road before with his first HC, and he doesn't much need it a second time.
Or maybe Rick Smith is the one to talk to (that would be the chain of command for McNair I suppose). Could be the young GM is the one to make the tough personnel decisions if his HC can't ?

NBT · #7 10-02-2008, 02:12 PM

Schaub seems to have gotten over his yips so he seems safe, but Kubiak needs to look at his entire repertoire and use more people that he has in order to keep fresh players in the game. Kubiak needs to also sit down with Ricard Smith and say it is this way or the highway. We must have a gameplan that doesn't sit back and wait for the offense to come to them. that is a sure fire way to defeat. Richard Smith needs to generate a more aggresive game plan. Heck let Frank Bush make the gameplan.

cadams · #8 10-02-2008, 02:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NBT

Schaub seems to have gotten over his yips so he seems safe, but Kubiak needs to look at his entire repertoire and use more people that he has in order to keep fresh players in the game. Kubiak needs to also sit down with Ricard Smith and say it is this way or the highway. We must have a gameplan that doesn't sit back and wait for the offense to come to them. that is a sure fire way to defeat. Richard Smith needs generate a more aggresive game plan. Heck let Frank Bush make the gameplan.

i dont know why bush isnt already doing that.

coloradodude · #9 10-02-2008, 09:55 PM

Just remember, a head coach is only as good as those assistant coaches he surrounds himself with. These guys are there to provide him with quick information while he's managing other areas of the game and personnel.

Honestly, shouldn't the Special Teams coach or that guys assistant noticed the formation of the Titans? There's one breakdown. Koobs needs to chew their butt for things like that.

KJ3 · #10 10-03-2008, 07:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by coloradodude

Koobs needs to chew their butt for things like that.

"that's on me"

[/excuse]

painekiller · #11 10-03-2008, 10:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by coloradodude

Koobs needs to chew their butt for things like that.

If Kubiak remotely said anything in public then he would loose me as a fan, and all of the team. What Gary says in public is what a true leader says. And none of us currently sit in the coaches meeting, or the player meeting and we do not know who Gary chews out. But watch him on the sideline, I bet you he is chewing someone out on Mondays.

Now to the original question, am I concerned? Yes I am for all the things we have all seen. Game time mistakes, playing the old guys when playing the young guy makes more long term sense, staying with a scheme that has not won in a while.

I believe the vanilla defense is because that is what Kubiak wants, I believe the play calling on offense is Kubiak, depending on the old legs of Green is Kubiak call.

I want to see the entire season play out. We have played 3 of the strongest teams in the NFL. After this week our schedule gets considerable weaker, and we should be able to get a better read on this team.

When we signed Richard Smith I was excited, his STs for the Oilers were an aggressive attacking group, and I had hoped he would have the same kind of attitude with his defense. We all see how that turned out, and IMO it is because Gary wants a defense that is packaged plainly. Our guys almost always starts a play in the same front, and it is not working.

Now if the defense does not have a miracle turn around, I hope Gary sees the the need to upgrade the DC and makes a change, I am not looking for Gary's head yet like some on the public forums, but I will be looking for major changes to the coaching staff.

NBT · #12 10-03-2008, 01:10 PM

IF it is indeed Kubiak's gaming, then what the heck is he thinking about? I know these first 4 are tough teams to play, much less beat, but give it a shot Bro! We pay damn good money for these tickets. We deserve a better coaching job than we are getting.

papabear · #13 10-03-2008, 01:47 PM

Richard Smith is a popular whipping boy these days, and rightfully so. I said last year that with all the injuries it was fair to give him another year. I'm willing to let him have the full year. I'm not confident that he will make me want to keep him, but I don't think that a mid-year change will do any good at all...so we're stuck dancing with who we brung.

Even though I'm not happy with him, I think some of the whining about him is unfounded. He has blitzed more this year than last. He's tried some different looks...Mario with his hand off the ground for one. I hate seeing him in coverage, but if they are ever going to create any kind of confusion with a front like that than the offense has to know that the pressure could come from anywhere. That's probably a bad example, but I do think he's tried different things. Besides, other than a handfull of teams (Patriots and Ravens used to), most teams line up in their base front a vast majority of the time anyway. I'm more concerned with what we do once the balls snapped. That's hard to see from the couch, at least in the secondary.

The fact is we've had plenty of chances to make plays on defense. We've had good coverage on a ton of pass plays, but the corner/DB never found the ball. That tells me that we had the right scheme called to cover the play, but the guys in the field didn't execute. Of course, That's not always the case, but I've seen it many times.

Everyone has been screaming about all the quick slants the Jags ran, and how we never adjusted to it. We have no idea what the adjustments Smith tried to make were. It's pretty easy to tell the CB's to play with inside leverage or for the LB's to get into the right zone and take away the slant, but it's not that easy for them to actually do it....without getting beat for a big gain especially. I'm not saying Smith made the right adjustments. I'm saying I have no way of knowing what he adjustments if any he tried, or if the players just weren't executing.

On the Garrard Scrambles, they didn't spy with a LB (my guess is so they didn't weaken the coverage) but on Garrard's touchdown, Okoye didn't even try to penetrate. He basically just stayed at the LOS and spied Garrard. Of course he wasn't fast enough to get Garrard when he broke outside of him....but it made me wonder if the D-Line was supposed to be playing contain and the end on that side didn't do it.

We might be the sloppiest tackling football team in the NFL. It's a teamwide dilema. Demeco made a poor attempt at a tackle that would have been a short loss, but went for a big gain. I'm not picking on him, but when best tackler is whiffing you know you have a problem. It amazes me how many yards we give up by wildly diving at guys legs instead of keeping our head up and making solid form tackle. It guess you could say the players aren't buying in because they don't believe in the defense. I would hope that personnel pride would be motivation enough for them to step up.

I think we've got major problems with our defensive coordinator as well, but there's still plenty of cases of guys just not getting it done.

We've had a brutal three game stretch on the road. Before the season most people acknowledged that with our schedule 2-3 was probably as good as we could hope for after the first five. That was before ike. It will be hard to do that now, but I'm not ready to write this team off yet. We gave one away to the Jags, and despite the final in Tenn, that was a very winnable game. We can't afford another division loss this weekend if we want to keep any playoff hopes alive, but I still don't think this team is as 0-16 bad as some people seem to think.

painekiller · #14 10-03-2008, 01:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by papabear

Richard ....... think.

Great post.

TexicanMexican · #15 10-04-2008, 05:58 PM

Like most on this board, I'm not ready to run Kubiak out. Yet.

His in game decisions are starting to trouble me though. The Jags game was definitely winnable but I put the loss on the coaches more than anything else.

I'm not one for making in season coaching changes either but something has to be done with Richard Smith. Give him some chalk and let him go draw in the Reliant parking lot while someone else draws up the defense game plan.