Reid: Last Four Games Were "Fool's Gold"

Ok, fine, but…

Jason Witten was in on all 66 plays this week to lead the Dallas offense. Martellus Bennett added 35 snaps and John Phillips was in on two plays. Miles Austin’s 64 snaps led the wideouts. Dez Bryant worked 52 plays and Laurent Robinson was in on 37. Jesse Holley saw action on three plays. Felix Jones managed only six snaps before resting. Sammy Morris handled 33 snaps and Chauncey Washington was worked in on 17 plays.

I don’t know if they were exhausted or not, but when you only have 2 days to prepare for a football game, its not going to end well.

all I can go on is the results, and the opinion of those who understand such things more than I do, which is what I base my opinion on. Those who I trust who seem to know what they are talking about wrote that the wide nine (for one example) was grossly overstated as a scheme from the beginning, the opinions of talking heads at ESPN not withstanding.

Whatever the methods, the results were fairly good. It’s really hard for me to come down on him and say he should have done better, since I don’t see all the coaches’ tape and don’t spend hours reviewing the game plan for both sides and don’t know what kinds of injuries and other concerns arose. Like i said, I can only judge from the results which actually happened over the whole year, and I thought they were good enough to prove his competence.

You certainly have some valid points. I certainly hate zone coverage (though it can work right in certain situations). Maybe Bowles will help with that- since that is a secondary issue.
We don’t know if the personnel decisions were all him- but it took way to long for him to adjust even if it wasn’t (though he did).
I’m okay with the wide-9 and Babin, but it does need to be improved.
The mismatches were a concern, but again hopefully Bowles will help that.
Other than the Patriots, did RB’s and TE’s really kill us? I was under the impression we did fine against them.
Not have players properly prepared really had more to do with the lockout, but it did take too long to fix. Yet it did.

And that’s where we disagree- I see many things that were a problem in the beginning, but were fixed at the end. Even if it was against subpar teams- the defense played well. That doesn’t mean he’s going to turn into the next JJ, but I see enough to think he is competent and deserves a second chance. There still are concerns, and I’m hopeful a real offseason and Bowles can fix that, as well as an improvement from Vick.

on Yes Juan vs. No Juan.

The weird thing is that even with KByars’s list, the facts can be slanted either way.

The adherence to zone coverage

Misusing DRC and Nnamdi … or properly using Asante and assuming the No. 2 corner in the game can play whatever you ask him to play.

personnel decisions, like Page and Matthews,

Both these guys were God awful, Page moreso … but both guys got replaced and Page cut. Not soon enough, IMO, but that’s a valid counter argument

not shifting out of the wide nine and not removing Babin on running downs,

Good point. But didn’t they tighten their alignments on run downs midseason. And couldn’t teams just counter by passing, with maybe a quick-rollout to that side when Babin is off? That’s a stretch though, I’m with you actually here, just playing devil’s advocate.

allowing opposing teams to exploit obvious mismatches, a la allowing Fitzgerald to be covered by rookie safeties and LBs

Are we talking about Asante freelancing or are there other examples of where mismatches were repeatedly exploited?

failure to adjust to the fact that RBs and TEs killed us all year and not having players properly prepared

This is on him. At the same time, dumb shit Casey Mathews knows he’s supposed to cover Brandon Jacobs. Nate Allen knows he’s supposed to cover Wes Welker. You can blame the coordinator for not teaching the guys, or not playing the guys who are smart enough to be in the right spot. But you can also blame the players, the abbreviated offseason and the lack of better options at LB and S, etc.

Anyway, not taking issue with your particular points, just showing that even seemingly plain-to-see points could be bent either way.

What about when he was the OL coach? He had some input on some pretty good guys there didn’t he?