Mike Nolan Fired

Genghis Khan

The worst version of myself
Joined
Apr 7, 2013
Messages
38,146
Marvin Lewis, Quinn, Edwards Among Top Cowboys Coordinator Candidates?
Marvin Lewis, George Edwards and Dan Quinn Are Among The Dallas Cowboys Top Coordinator Candidates - But It Oughta Be A Long List

MIKE FISHER 2 HOURS AGO

FRISCO - Mike Nolan is fired as of Friday, but the Dallas Cowboys didn't wait until Friday to sniff around ideas for his replacement as defensive coordinator.


The Jones family has a keen awareness, for certain, about George Edwards. About Marvin Lewis. And about Dan Quinn. They need to know more - about more people. They need to not allow head coach Mike McCarthy to make the hire unilaterally. And they need to hurry, before the good ones are scooped up elsewhere.

Some names ...

1) George Edwards - The obvious front-runner. He would represent the "change'' the Jones family is suggesting - but he would still be a "McCarthy guy.''

Edwards was a 4-3 guy with the Vikings. I view that as a good thing; there was never any reason for McCarthy/Nolan to try to change the 2020 Cowboys away from what they were already doing.

2) Marvin Lewis - The former Bengals head coach interviewed for the Cowboys job before Nolan got it. That was a "courtesy''; this time around it should be something more.

Lewis was a success in Cincy, with a record of 131-122 over 16 years - until the playoffs, anyway. But before that? Lewis was one of the league’s best defensive coordinators, running the Ravens during their Super Bowl-caliber run in the late 90’s and early 2000’s.

He deserves more than a "courtesy'' here.

Oh, and there is a McCarthy tie as well; in the early '90's, they were both on the staff at Pitt.

3) Dan Quinn - I'm not aware of a particular Jones/McCarthy connection. But the Joneses are aware of Quinn's Super Bowl resume.

4) Joe Whitt - Whitt was almost hired to this Dallas staff, ahead of Nolan, but after a decade in Green Bay is now an assistant in Atlanta.

5) Mike Pettine - Mike Pettine is the current D-coordinator with the Packers. McCarthy hired him in Green Bay in 2018.

6) - Scott McCurley - He is Dallas' linebackers coach and is a McCarthy guy with no coordinator experience. But he's in the building. He grew up a McCarthy guy - and a Dom Capers guy, who, we suppose, even at age 70, deserves mention.

If McCurley survives the purge ...

7) Jim Haslett - He's now the linebackers coach with Titans. And yeah, he is an old friend of McCarthy's. How friendly? One of McCarthy's first hires in Dallas was Chase Haslett, Jim's son, who works in quality control at The Star.


8) Matt Patricia - Patricia can do the "multiple'' things McCarthy says he desires.

9) Raheem Morris - Morris is was solid hanging on as Atlanta's interim boss.

10) Wade Phillips - The Rams allowed "Mr. Fix-It'' to hit the street, so this season he's served as a "consultant'' to anyone who will ask - high schools, colleges, you name it. He's a Jones family guy (having been the Dallas head coach, of course) and he runs the 3-4, which McCarthy may favor.

But ... if you believe this is a "young man's game,'' and if you believe that McCarthy is going to have some voice here - I don't know that there is a Phillips/McCarthy connection - this seems a long shot.

11) Jon Heacock - My list is short on college guys because that's not my bag. But his Iowa State reputation for being able to defend the spread concepts of the passing game certainly make his a brain worth picking ... which of course is often what some of these interviews turn out to be.

12) Kris Richard - He got dumped here after last year, and in my view, was criticized unfairly. Richard once was a hot head coach candidate but is out of the game in 2020.

Did he forget everything he learned and taught from his “Legion of Boom” days in Seattle? Of course not.


He obviously isn't a McCarthy pal ... thus the "dumping.'' But this defense could use some of his trademark energy (and I mean in practices and in games).

13) Lovie Smith - He's got his Texas ties, he wants back in the game, and he's Rod Marinelli's best friend. Wait - is that last one a good one?

14) Joe Barry - Rams linebackers coach - and Rod Marinelli's son-in-law.

15) Gus Bradley - Accomplished Chargers coordinator.

16) Aaron Glenn - I'm a Texans ties, Saints secondary coach, interviewed for Jets top job.

17) Winston Moss. He - A former McCarthy’s assistant head coach with the Packers.
 

Genghis Khan

The worst version of myself
Joined
Apr 7, 2013
Messages
38,146
I forgot Lewis is DC in AZ State right now. I wonder if he'd take DC here. One of the problems I see is I doubt he'd take a DC job while he's still a candidate for HC elsewhere.
 

Chocolate Lab

Mere Commoner
Joined
Oct 2, 2014
Messages
20,535
They need to not allow head coach Mike McCarthy to make the hire unilaterally.
Yeah, Fisher wasn't called Jerry's "back pocket boy" for nothing.
 

Chocolate Lab

Mere Commoner
Joined
Oct 2, 2014
Messages
20,535
Why is Quinn even a good option? Are we still going back to Seattle on that? When I think of Atlanta, I think of those teams scoring a lot but giving up a lot on defense. I don't get it. Seems to me like we already tried the Seattle stuff with Richard anyway.

I still say we need to figure out what system we want to run first. McCarthy seems to like the 34 better.

All that said, going off Jerry's history of hating paying coaches he doesn't have some connection with, I'd still bet on Edwards.
 

Chocolate Lab

Mere Commoner
Joined
Oct 2, 2014
Messages
20,535
Given what's out there I wouldn't have a big problem with that.

Or if they (or Capers) thought he was too old, what about the McCurley guy with Capers as an assistant to sort of mentor him.
 

dpf1123

DCC 4Life
Joined
Apr 8, 2013
Messages
2,174
Mike Nolan fired; 6 candidates to become the Cowboys’ new defensive coordinator



By Jon Machota Jan 8, 2021

There was some belief midway through the season that the Cowboys would be looking for a new defensive coordinator in January. But Dallas played better defensively down the stretch. The players seemed more bought in, and they recorded 12 takeaways during the final four games as the team went 3-1. In the end, however, that wasn’t enough for defensive coordinator Mike Nolan or defensive line coach Jim Tomsula to keep their jobs. Both were fired after only one season on Mike McCarthy’s coaching staff. And more defensive staff changes could be coming soon.

“I am appreciative of my relationships with both Mike and Jim, and I am grateful for the contributions that both of them made to our team under difficult circumstances in 2020,” McCarthy said in a prepared statement. “These are never easy decisions to make, and we wish them, and their families, the very best in the future.” No team in Cowboys history allowed more points than the 473 that were scored against Dallas in 2020. The rush defense was the worst part, allowing 158.8 yards per game, ranking 31st in the NFL. In losses to Washington, Arizona, Baltimore and Cleveland, the Cowboys allowed at least 208 rushing yards each game. The Cowboys entered the season having allowed more than 200 rushing yards in four regular-season games over the previous six seasons combined. There were multiple occasions when the defense showed questionable effort, to the point that it had to be addressed in a team meeting by McCarthy after a 34-17 loss at Baltimore in Week 13.

The biggest mistake was being too ambitious with changes in the year of a pandemic. Nolan and McCarthy hoped to be much more multiple than in previous years when the Cowboys were criticized for being too vanilla with their basic 4-3 looks under previous coordinator Rod Marinelli. Those teams made the playoffs in 2014, 2016 and 2018 but ultimately fell short against the Los Angeles Rams and the Green Bay Packers twice in the divisional round. Nolan’s goal was to be more complex so the Cowboys would have a better chance of advancing if they reached that stage again. When the defense played poorly to start the season, Nolan was forced to dial things back. It led to this interesting explanation from Nolan while he spoke to reporters in October. At the time, Dallas was 2-4. A few weeks later, the group would be 2-7.

“To be honest with you, I wish we were able to sit here and say, ‘Man, we’re creative. We’ve got this and that,’” Nolan said. “We’ve reduced things down to the point that we’re just trying to teach good, sound, basic, fundamental football most the time, and that’s what we’re playing.

“If you look at a defense, I’ll use an extreme, a team like Baltimore who does an awful lot and they do a lot of scheme, a lot of different things throughout. They do it (in) all situations, very successful with it, but they’ve been doing it for a long time. They’ve been doing it for 20 years. So, anyone who’s coming into that system is getting at it. When you just start out, and you’re a new system, some coaches are just simple all the time anyway. But as Mike McCarthy would tell you, and as my experience would tell me, there’s time to be simple. When you’re trying to build like we are, I think that’s a good time.

“But as you progress and you get closer to the playoffs, if you don’t want to go home early in the playoffs, you better have something in your bag because you’re going to play Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, you’re going to play somebody that’s really good, and if you show up with a knife and it’s a gunfight, you’re going to lose. And those quarterbacks, that’s exactly what you got. So you’re always preparing, not only for each week and trying to win, but when you get to the end and you get into the playoffs, so to speak, you want to have enough that you can put up a good fight and not figure, ‘Hey, it sure was great to go to the playoffs, but we go home every time.’
“I know that’s a long ways off and it’s not even our goal right now, but we’re not even at that point, either. So, that’s why we reduced a lot of things and we’re trying to teach good, basic, fundamental things at this point. But if I had to go back to the beginning, we started with a pretty basic thing, too. But it has the ability to go further, meaning scheme-wise, but it’s not going to go anywhere until we play better ball.”

The Cowboys eventually might get where Nolan was describing, but it will be under a new defensive coordinator with other new coaches.
A few days before Nolan made those comments, Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones was asked about the team’s new defensive coordinator. “I’m OK with Mike Nolan,” Jones said at the time on 105.3 The Fan. “I am.”

It wasn’t exactly the ringing endorsement Jones had given during the season for McCarthy, offensive coordinator Kellen Moore or special-teams coordinator John Fassel. Jones was given many opportunities over the past couple of months to show support for Nolan, but it became clearer that not even winning three of the final four games was going to be enough for Nolan to keep his job.

“I look at the teams that are going to play this weekend,” Jones said on The Fan on Tuesday while responding to a question about giving Nolan a pass because of the COVID-19 circumstances the team faced this season. “Now, they managed to figure out how to do it. We didn’t. But they managed to figure out how to get to the playoffs. There will be one of them that manages to get to the Super Bowl. There are teams in the playoffs that have new coaches. All teams had the same time, the same limited time in minicamps to put their teams together. Many teams had certainly, really serious player availability problems.”

McCarthy was offensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers when Nolan was the head coach in 2005. McCarthy was hired as the Packers head coach in 2006. Tomsula was Nolan’s defensive line coach in San Francisco in 2007 and 2008. Nolan was the New Orleans Saints’ linebackers coach in 2019. Tomsula was Washington’s defensive line coach in 2019.

It doesn’t look great for McCarthy that several key staff changes are already coming after only one season as head coach in Dallas. So who might he be looking at as the Cowboys’ next defensive coordinator? Immediately after the Nolan news surfaced Friday afternoon, I posted a question on Twitter asking fans whom they would like to see as the Cowboys’ next defensive coordinator. By far, the most popular response was former Cowboys head coach Wade Phillips.

Others receiving multiple mentions included former Cowboys secondary coach Kris Richard, former Falcons head coach Dan Quinn, former Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis, former Lions head coach Matt Patricia, Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables, Cowboys linebacker Sean Lee, Cowboys senior defensive assistant George Edwards and former Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz.

Here are six candidates to keep in mind:

George Edwards. He was a senior defensive assistant for the Cowboys in 2020. Edwards spent the previous six seasons as Mike Zimmer’s defensive coordinator in Minnesota. McCarthy has a good understanding of Edwards considering the two faced each other twice a year in the NFC North. Before joining the Vikings, Edwards was the Buffalo Bills’ defensive coordinator in 2010-2011. He was Washington’s defensive coordinator in 2003.

Dan Quinn. He was fired this season, five games into his sixth season as the Atlanta head coach. Quinn led the Falcons to the Super Bowl in 2016. He was previously the Seattle Seahawks’ defensive coordinator in 2013 and 2014, when the team went to consecutive Super Bowls, winning in 2013.

Matt Patricia. He was fired this season, 11 games into his third season as the Detroit Lions’ head coach. His teams went 13-29-1 during his time in charge. This season, the Lions defense allowed more yards (420 per game) than any other NFL team. Detroit also allowed the most points, giving up 32.4 per game. From 2012 to 2017, Patricia was defensive coordinator for the New England Patriots. New England reached the AFC Championship Game every one of those years and won two Super Bowls.

Joe Barry. For the past four seasons, Barry has been the Los Angeles Rams’ assistant head coach and linebackers coach. He was Washington’s defensive coordinator from 2015 to 2016. The Rams had the NFL’s No. 1 defense this season, holding opponents to an NFL-best 282 yards per game and only 18.5 points per game. Former Cowboys DC Rod Marinelli is Barry’s father-in-law.

Winston Moss. He was not employed by an NFL team this past season, but he was McCarthy’s assistant head coach and linebackers coach from 2007 to 2018 with the Packers. The former linebacker played 11 years in the NFL, from 1987 to 1997, with the Buccaneers, Raiders and Seahawks.

Gus Bradley. He was the Chargers’ defensive coordinator for the past four years. Los Angeles finished in the top 10 in total defense in 2018 and 2019. Bradley was the head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars from 2013 to 2016. He was defensive coordinator for the Seahawks from 2009 to 2012. Seattle had one of the NFL’s top defensive units under Bradley in 2011 and 2012. The Raiders reportedly interviewed Bradley recently for their defensive coordinator position.
 
Top Bottom