Coaching staff thread

2 additional names in the Coaching Support Staff category:

Sarah Hogan- Coaching Chief of Staff
Pete Ohnegian- Player Development Coach
 
A reminder that titles are mainly for public consumption and to list on a resume. The true responsibilities, while under the umbrella of the name, are very specific and give DQ a bunch of wiggle room on how to divy up assignments etc. There is a lot of experience on this staff so he has himself a great set of minds to create a great Frankenstein coaching staff. This is should be blast to watch it execute.
 
Whitt Jr. Had a very successful intro as DC.

This is one confident dude.

In answer to a question about being named DC and how thankful he was -

‘I’ve seen younger guys with limited experience get these jobs for the past several years. I’ve interviewed for some jobs but it didn’t work out. But I’ve even ready for this job since 2015.’ 😎
 
I have been trying to keep it pretty even keel on Whitt, even though I saw quotes and things that all sounded good. The biggest downside that will remain in my mind is the past connection downside. Things like:
- if he struggles, will HC hold him accountable? We saw this play out with Scott / Ron.
However, man, reading this just makes me excited.
www.dyslexia.yale.edu

Joe Whitt, Jr., NFL Coach - Yale Dyslexia

Joe Whitt, Jr., is a teacher at heart. He has a true understanding that people learn differently, and therefore need teachers who can alter teaching styles to get the best out of their students—or in Whitt’s case, his players. Perhaps this comes from following in the footsteps of his father, a...
www.dyslexia.yale.edu www.dyslexia.yale.edu
 
Kingsbury said it would be incorrect to call the offense they are going to install as being along the lines of the spread they used in Arizona for Kyler Murray.
 


Holy cow - what a great first press conference. I think we have the real deal at DC guys. From his relationship with Quinn, to getting his first chance as a DC, to his Dad.... I have rarely seen a coach who filled me with confidence the way Joe Whitt Jr. does in this 15 minutes. Must watch.
 


I thought Kingsbury came off as a bit eccentric. He didn't seem very comfortable especially early on and even seemed to bristle some at some of the questions. Interesting that he does not feel anyone should call the offense they are going to run in DC the 'Air Raid'. I don't really care how a guy comes across with media folks, I just found it a really sharp contrast with Whitt's presser.
 
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Kingsbury struck me as a reluctant witness for the prosecution.

JWJ struck me as an enthusiastic witness for the defense. (Pun intended)
 
I’m already a little smitten with Whitt. That was a great intro, hitting all the right notes and saying all the right things.

I thought it was super interesting to hear him talk about making the QB play post snap. Forcing them into errors. This seems like exactly the scenario that plagued Howell late season.

I also really liked his comments about having staff members from different backgrounds and coaching trees by design so that they can be collaborative.

Can’t wait to watch this team over the next couple of years!
 
Agreed. There's also another bit he goes further into that. I have been waiting since Blache for us not to play off coverage on 3rd and 2. I can't count how many times we gave up a free first down because all our DBs were ten yards off their receivers at the snap of the ball. We've played that way through endless timid coordinators. So sick of read and react.
 
JWJ on interceptions- “You can coach it some…the 1st thing is you’ve gotta have players that can catch the ball.” 🤪
 
Whitt hit it out of the park - no question.

I think Kingsbury's interview session is underrated. The dude walked into the room with a number of landmines out in front of him and he left the room largely unscathed. His interview is remarkable in that Whitt is getting the headlines and it would have been stupid easy for Kliff to trip into something that made national news. He didn't.

A common thing between the two interviews was both men's willingness to say politely but directly "not going to answer that". I think the inability to say this outright has, in the past, lead guys here to say things that didn't need to be said in an effort to answer without answering. I like hearing a guy say "I'm going to answer that" and just shut it down.
 
The overall change in atmosphere is telling.

Under Ron the assistants outside of Del Rio were faceless and had no real public personalities. Most were holdovers from the Panthers and seemed to be here on their last contracts in the NFL.

Kingsbury, Quinn, Whitt, Donatell, Tapp, etc. are coaches that could get jobs with other successful organizations and have clear ambition in them to succeed.
 
Bulldog said:
The overall change in atmosphere is telling.

Under Ron the assistants outside of Del Rio were faceless and had no real public personalities. Most were holdovers from the Panthers and seemed to be here on their last contracts in the NFL.

Kingsbury, Quinn, Whitt, Donatell, Tapp, etc. are coaches that could get jobs with other successful organizations and have clear ambition in them to succeed.
Click to expand...
Oh I don't know about that, I think the NFL dictates enough interviews from coordinators (and Ron's management style is very hands-off it seems, so I think we see them plenty) where we had a lot of interactions with Scott and Eric.

Those interactions were extremely wanting, though; in some cases, they simply didn't communicate well. It begs the question, too - do they communicate better with a room full of coaches or players than they do with the media? It's "possible" but we are constantly hoping for the best with Ron's hires. Constantly hoping that our eyes are wrong and things are different somehow behind closed doors. At least on the outset, Whitt looks really solid.

Regardless of what happens, let's hope for accountability from top to bottom, as well as respect. Then no matter what, at least we shouldn't be in a quagmire. If you have to let someone go, but you do it and do your best to allow them to retain their dignity, generally it won't come back to you when there is some clear justification. This was probably the biggest problem in the Snyder tenure, and he originally tried to make up for it by throwing large wads of $$$ at everyone, which was only going to work so long.
 
I finally got around to listening to the press conferences. I thought Kingsbury was fine. It was what I expect a coach’s introductory press conference to be. I listened to his first since a few of you found it a little disappointing. The mics for the press didn’t seem to be working at the start, so that may have set the tone for the rest of it. It think that definitely helped listening to his first as I had no issues with what he said.

Whitt was fantastic. I’m genuinely excited about the defense now. I love how he talked about getting the most out of his players. And also how he said if guys don’t want to be violent on defense, they can find somewhere else to play. I also liked that he spoke about Forbes and Martin. I’ll be curious to see how these guys do with actual coaching. Most of all I loved how he talked about his family, how great a person Quinn is, and my favorite was that if coaches start putting in extra work when they are losing, it means they were cheating you before that. My expectations for the D will probably be way too high for next year, but I love the direction they are already going with the D.
 
I've been so busy the last 2 weeks, work and my wife was traveling so I was single parenting, I just got around to listening to the pressers and catching up on all the hires.

I could write a tome on the pressers, but I am tired, so I won't. At least not right now. But I will say there were 2 themes which stood out to me across both pressers:

1. Adapt to the scheme to the players they have, not fit the players to the scheme they have. Both Kliff and Whitt used almost the exact same words to convey that message. Makes me think either they were well prepared, or more likely, it was a large part of the interview process and what Quinn was looking for.

2. Intentionally bringing together coaches from different "trees" (Whitt used that exact term" so they can meld ideas and not just do the things they have done in the past. That's freaking brilliant with a caveat: there is a risk with a bunch of different ideas and philosophies, you could get into a situation where you can't get consensus and things fall apart.

However, that caveat is offset by collaboration and good leadership. Which I think both coordinators and Quinn seem to have. If they go into the offensive and defensive design meetings with the idea that the best ideas get to prevail, and they have to figure out how to make it all coherent, they'll be in an absolutely fantastic place.
 
It's true. Washington's roster may have some hidden gems, largely because the previous coaching staff utterly failed to challenge the roster to be better in their preparation and in their execution/accountability.

At the same time there was a talent gap at several key spots. What we need is a front office that finds the MINDSET of the successful player and worker and ensure those are the picks we make to go along with the physical talent.

Only when you combine the two do you have something special.

When you blow a #2 overall pick on a player in Chase Young that is NOT a natural leader and doesn't have much interest in his teammates, only his own brand, then that almost guarantees the culture is not going to allow the team to get better over time.

I recall years ago when I was in school a story where Bill Fitch, coach of the Celtics, went up to rookie Larry Bird and asked him to write down on a piece of paper how many wins he thought the team would get in 1981.

Bird wrote down 50 plus.

Noting that the Celtics won only 22 games the year before Fitch said to Bird 'so you think something big is going to be happening this season'?

Bird responded with a smile that 'we're under new management here' :cool:

Someone has to lead. And if we keep that #2 overall pick it is vital that player fits into that type of role for the team.
 
The other thing I hope to see is player improvement. It’s really bizarre to me how little players on this team improved off their rookie years. There are exceptions, but too foo often it felt like curve stayed flat or went down.
 
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