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Lanky Livingston
Guest
Very interesting, if so. Haslett on a short leash?
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As we try to move forward with our season and put the awfulness of the Rams game behind us for good, there appears to be a huge storm brewing on our team that, quite frankly, has caught me a bit off guard. I mean, we lose Adam Carriker and Brian Orakpo and you assume that is as bad as it will get for our defense...this week.
Think again.
I was told yesterday that Raheem Morris, the newly minted defensive backs coach here in D.C., actually called the defensive plays in the fourth quarter. This strikes me as somewhat newsworthy, given he is not the defensive coordinator and has been on staff for less than a year. After an argument between Jim Haslett and Raheem on the sidelines during the game--ostensibly due to the lack of adjustment made by the defense against Sam Bradford's dissection of our zone scheme--Morris emerged with play-calling duties. This decision was made by head coach Mike Shanahan.
When I first heard this, I thought, "You know...things weren't working, so why wouldn't Shanahan try to give his team a spark by allowing a man with a fresh take to step in and try to get things jump-started?" I leave it to folks with brighter football minds than I possess to drive their trucks through the holes in that logic. Is it possible for a defense in as much disarray as Washington was in on Sunday to take their marching orders from two separate coaches during the same game and then move on under Haslett the following week like nothing happened? Further, if the move to Morris as a play-caller resulted in players feeling like they were put in a better position to succeed on the field, going back to Haslett the following week would breed a certain amount of...discord, to put it mildly. In other words, this could get worse.
It gets worse. Players are starting to take sides.
Morris wanted to play more man coverage to respond to what the Rams were doing with Danny Amendola, specifically. It seems that Haslett was bent on employing his zone schemes. We have to be fair here and speculate that he was reeling from the losses of Carriker and Orakpo, and was trying to cover up other deficiencies in our defense. That said, even the announcers calling the game commented on the lack of adjustment made by our defense against the St. Louis offense. Members of the secondary were begging to go man on the opposing receivers.
Click link for the rest.
**********************************
As we try to move forward with our season and put the awfulness of the Rams game behind us for good, there appears to be a huge storm brewing on our team that, quite frankly, has caught me a bit off guard. I mean, we lose Adam Carriker and Brian Orakpo and you assume that is as bad as it will get for our defense...this week.
Think again.
I was told yesterday that Raheem Morris, the newly minted defensive backs coach here in D.C., actually called the defensive plays in the fourth quarter. This strikes me as somewhat newsworthy, given he is not the defensive coordinator and has been on staff for less than a year. After an argument between Jim Haslett and Raheem on the sidelines during the game--ostensibly due to the lack of adjustment made by the defense against Sam Bradford's dissection of our zone scheme--Morris emerged with play-calling duties. This decision was made by head coach Mike Shanahan.
When I first heard this, I thought, "You know...things weren't working, so why wouldn't Shanahan try to give his team a spark by allowing a man with a fresh take to step in and try to get things jump-started?" I leave it to folks with brighter football minds than I possess to drive their trucks through the holes in that logic. Is it possible for a defense in as much disarray as Washington was in on Sunday to take their marching orders from two separate coaches during the same game and then move on under Haslett the following week like nothing happened? Further, if the move to Morris as a play-caller resulted in players feeling like they were put in a better position to succeed on the field, going back to Haslett the following week would breed a certain amount of...discord, to put it mildly. In other words, this could get worse.
It gets worse. Players are starting to take sides.
Morris wanted to play more man coverage to respond to what the Rams were doing with Danny Amendola, specifically. It seems that Haslett was bent on employing his zone schemes. We have to be fair here and speculate that he was reeling from the losses of Carriker and Orakpo, and was trying to cover up other deficiencies in our defense. That said, even the announcers calling the game commented on the lack of adjustment made by our defense against the St. Louis offense. Members of the secondary were begging to go man on the opposing receivers.
Click link for the rest.
