Quote:Hiring Babich and Fisch as coordinators were two massive mistakes from the beginning.

 

Newly hired head coaches tend to have to put a staff together quickly, so they go with guys they've worked with previously.  Babich got Gus into coaching at the collegiate level, and was somewhat of a mentor to Bradley early on as a coach.  They're close.

 

Fisch and Gus worked together on the Tampa staff, and developed a rapport. 

 

In both cases, the hires weren't really a surprise based on the history there, and the need to build a staff quickly.  Both guys stuck around longer than they probably should have.  For Fisch, it was mostly because of a lack of talent.  When the team gave him the QB to run the offense, he didn't utilize him correctly.  He also didn't get along with the new QB, so that had to be addressed.

 

For Babich, it was also about talent issues, but he lasted a little longer because he managed to make the defense almost respectable last year.  The expectation was that the improvements would continue this season.  That didn't happen, and the unit actually seemed to regress.  Some of that was injury and lack of depth, but some of it was also the play calling and the lack of creativity in scheming to work with the talent he had. 

 

Someone had to take a fall, and both Fisch and Babich were held accountable.  We see how hiring Olson, Hackett, and Marrone helped the offense improve pretty significantly this year, although it's still not quite where it needs to be. 

 

Head coaches who have the opportunity to get to a 2nd coordinator tend to do a better job of landing the right guy for their team because there's not nearly as much of a sense of urgency as when they were hired.  I think the Olson hire, despite the widespread panning it got here when he was brought in, proved to be the right one for this team. 

Quote:For those with half-filled glasses, Fisch was replaced by Olson. If Gus hits another home run with a new DC and Dave improves the defensive roster, we may have nothing to gripe about.

 

Agreed.  The hope is that Gus gets the right guy to run the defense with his new coordinator in similar fashion to what has transpired with Olson.  The focus for the majority of this off season will no doubt be on fixing the defense, both with personnel and coaches.  Gus' job depends on getting this right.

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