I'm willing to give him one more season before I jump on the "fire D'Onofrio" bandwagon. I see both sides of the argument. There was not a lot to like about our defense this year but our d-line was just poo and we had little depth. That said, he has to show some improvement next year.
That's why I like this new board. There is smart football talk over here. Guys aren't just falling in line with group think and the gang mentality.
Football history is littered with defensive geniuses who struggled horribly when their DL talent was poor. Bill Belichick is one of the best defensive corches in the HISTORY of the game. A brilliant strategist. Strangely, when the talent is down, or he doesn't have pass rushers, his defense has been terrible at New England. Steve Spagnuolo was considered a rising star when he was the Giants' DC. They were killing people and won a Super Bowl with his stifling defense. He parlayed that into a HC gig and then later into a DC gig with the Saints. He's been terrible since leaving the Giants. Did he suddenly get dumb, or does he miss Tuck, Umenyura, Strahan and all those horses on the DL?
I've yet to see in many 79 years of watching football a dominant defense with a horrible DL. Our LBs spent the first 9 games choking on the backtits of such stalwart DTs as Darius ****, who never should have been here, and Corey King, who had no business playing at this stage of his young career. Moore's going to be a beast, but he was overwhelmed out there. How great were Warren Sapp or Jerome Brown as true freshman? We have no idea because they didn't have to play. Poor Shayon Green is a warrior, but he's about 6' tall and 250 with arms shorter than Venus D'Milo. He's got no business out there and is wholly incapable of providing a pass rush.
In the 1 or 2 games where we actually fielded some quality players playing together (Porter, Perryman, EJ, Bush) we did very well. Then, EJ crapped the sheets, Perryman was hurt, and Bush went down. Suddenly, Duh' got stupid again.
Duh is a guy who has had success. He's got a good track record. He had Temple ranked 17th in D, and I think we were 17th or 18th ranked his first year here when we had some talent and experience on the DL. It all starts up front. Watch how much better we get as Olsen Pierre continues to improve (I think he'll be a 1st or 2nd round pick when he leaves here), if Porter sticks around, and the freshman grow up.
