Pittsburgh and a lot of teams used guys off of the street in their secondary. And won games. And none of them have the number of top D picks Rex has on defense.
Not sure if anyone has posted this yet, but it's great. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000451273/article/rex-ryans-greatest-hits
Rex was an enigma from my point of view. I disagree with a lot of the negative sentiment here and consider myself a Rex fan. My bet is he does get another head coaching gig, and pretty quickly. His biggest gaffes? Sparano and inserting Sanchez late in a preseason game (oh, and Kyle Wilson if that was a Rex call). Let's face it Sanchez was a better option than Geno................both are turnover machines......and that being said, having the career record, 2 AFCCG's with Sanchez and Smith as your QB's......well that says a lot. I know he has his shortfalls and inadequacies, but so do most coaches. I'd be real interested to see if he got the Falcon job with Matt Ryan as his QB how that might change his fortunes. There are many areas where he needs improvement......I think he's going to learn that being a "players coach" has some drawbacks and that over inflating his teams ego can backfire.......a decent QB and a good personnel GM in the front office + Rex = a dangerous combination. Rex never had the benefit of the other 2 ingredients.
Again back to the Steelers. They had a ton of injuries on defense and even re-signed James Harrison. Their key D player and the guy the entire defense is based around is Troy Polomolu. So when he went down their DC adjusted their entire scheme. Even though he had to go with backups and new signees they played through it. Successfully. And with no complaining or finger pointing at the front office. The Steelers are an organization who rarely overpay for veteran free agents. They don't kill their cap on a few guys when they'd rather have depth. That's why they let Wallace, etc. go.
All season long too many guys missing assignments on offense and defense. Guys out of position, which can really screw up your offense esp on running plays. And this goes back years. In one game they had to call a time out on the first play of the game. Give me a break. In addition to this: key penalties, poor judgment on using timeouts and challenges. And trick plays that rarely worked. He even tried a fake punt yesterday. It did work but it wasn't a smart call. I guess he's again just "trying to be me."
Woa, what???? That fake punt won us the game. It wasn't the right call? Who the hell are you to say? We couldn't do JACKSHIT in the redzone all day, and Rex knew if you keep giving the Dolphins the ball back they'd eventually score. You don't have to like Rex but now you are reaching.
the fake punt yesterday was a GREAT, ingenious ballsy call. Unfortunately there hasn't been too many of those decisions/executions in recent years under Rex and they waited until his last game to pull something like that off but it was great yesterday. the poster you responded to is a butt-hurt Idzik supporter so take it with a grain of salt. I was as anti-Rex as anyone but that particular call was a great one. Gotta give credit where it's due.
So Rex is a great motivator, his players loved him and played hard for him, we had some of our best years with him as coach, he did a really good job, ...... etc etc etc...... but it's time to move on. huh?!?! That's like saying I have a beautiful wife, it's a great marriage, we have great kids together who love us both, we love each other very much, but these last couple years were kind of rough on us, so "it's time to move on" and get a divorce. We'll miss each other greatly, we really don't want to get a divorce, we have a great family ...... but "it's time to move on" ..... doesn't make any sense to me! ...back to the Rex situation, he can't control everything about the team. He didn't hire Idzik, he didn't decide to let Revis and Cromartie go and not even try to replace them, despite having plenty of unused cap space, he didn't decide to draft Sanchez and Geno Smith, ....Rex did his job very well for the most part, and maximized the talent he was given, so why is the win-loss record the be all, end all for him???? I haven't heard a good explanation for this yet, mostly just personal attacks by posters who have no answer for this.
Idzik is yesteday's newspaper. As for the fake punt: on your own 30 something yard line. With 4 min. left in the game and a 3 point lead. And with the punter throwing a pass. Rarely works. To me it said: What do I care. Let's give it a try. Even if we lose the game. Not intelligent to say the least.
Man the players play hard for him is one of the most bizarre arguments I've ever heard. They sure didn't play hard for him in the 1st half of the AFCCG or the multiple times per season that they have gotten destroyed under Rex. Forget that though all is well because they played hard last two weeks when they were 2-12 and playing for jobs next year.
come on man... There's another side to the story you can tell that's less whiny/ridiculous. They saw on film that Miami continually left the middle of the field wide open on punts, practiced it all week and Rex decided he liked the execution in practice and would use it if necessary. The situation came up where they could put the game away if the play was pulled off and judging how miami lined up it looked like they would leave it open. It was a ballsy call but it was a great one. Pulled off to perfection. Game over. Every risky call is not intelligent unless it works. that's why it's called taking a risk.
If I'm not mistaken, the Jets saw this, made an adjustment at the line, and then ran the fake. I don't think it was a "fuck it were gonna fake no matter what" call. They read the defense, the line shifted and Miami never picked up on it, so they ran the play that PROBABLY won us the game. I didn't like our chances giving Miami the ball back.
the Steelers also have a top tier QB and scored an average of 27 points per game compared to our average of 17 points which I am pretty sure had more to do with them winning more games - in fact we only scored 27 or more points once all season and that was in the final game.
4th down on the Jets 30, 3 point lead, 4 min left in the game. There is no way you make that call unless you don't care or are just trying to show off and be flamboyant. Like him. And how many times has a special teams play looked like it will be open but it's not. Film or no film. And with your punter throwing a pass. One of the dumbest calls I've ever seen. A risk is ok but not when you have a lead late in the game like that.
