Quote:RG3's regression was as much on Kyle as it was Mike. They frequently clashed with him over his tendency to run outside the pocket--you know, that thing that made him special--they tried to make him a pocket passer, and they generally just didn't want to use him the way he was designed. Talk about a square peg in a round hole, but the Shanahans knew that peg was square and didn't change the offense to fit him.

 

JDR had a few things stacked against him. One, he was replacing a legend, and as much as fans had tired of Coughlin by the end, there was some dismay when he wasn't marching Jaguars 2.0 into the conference championship game in his second year. Two, I think, was Byron Leftwich. Del Rio took a lot of the blame for Leftwich's failure, fairly or not. Three, of course, was the Chris Hanson ax incident, which painted him for the entire world as a total meatheaded moron. And four, and this came later in his tenure, was the way he alienated almost the entire team at once, chasing off two veteran leaders in Mike Peterson and Deon Grant, both guys he had heavily recruited, in the process. Once his back was to the wall in 2009-2010, he went from a laid-back players coach to an absolute drill sergeant, and not only did players not respond, but many lost respect for him. Ultimately, I think that cost Del Rio his job. He probably would have lost it a year or two later anyway--no one survives Gene Smith--but he'd have had a chance to stick around just a little while longer to prove that he could still turn things around.

 

I don't think particularly highly of JDR as a coach, and would certainly consider him to be below average as a pro HC, but he's not Les Steckel or Rod Marinelli.