Long live Whiz

[PACardsFan]

I know many on this board are frustrated by the garbage we've had to watch this year. In many ways, this may be the most painful Cardinal team I have watched in the 47 years that I've followed this franchise. That's obviously due to the much higher expectations that we had coming in to the season. It was always my belief that good football teams had 2 things in common: a good QB & a good HC. It has become painstakingly obvious that if your QB sucks beyond words, then nothing else can reverse the suckiness of the team. Is Whiz partially to blame for this mess? Yes. He obviously grossly underestimated how horrible DA is & how green Hall & Skelton are. He also overestimated his Defense. Was the FO involved in this process? Perhaps, but we'll never know. Great coaches never, never divulge that information. Not if they want to stay employed. We will have to suffer through this season. But I have seen that look in Whiz's eye this past week. I'm hearing from respected AZ insiders that MAJOR changes are in the works. Davis is a goner, Grimm is on a short leash. Whiz will bring in an OC. The D will look quite different next year, if there's football next year. Can Whiz turn this around? Only if the FO is patient & loyal.

I know all of us want to see the Cardinals in the playoffs EVERY year. It's really tough to do that. Hell, Cowher couldn't do it in Pittsburgh. He was almost fired on 3 different occasions. Look at Jeff Fisher's record. He's the longest tenured coach in the NFL. He's had some great seasons, but some ugly ones too.

1994 1-5
1995 7-9
1996 8-8
1997 8-8
1998 8-8

1999 13-3 (lost in SB)
2000 13-3 (lost in Divisional Round)

2001 7-9

2002 11-5(lost AFC Championship game)
2003 12-4 (lost in Divisional game)

2004 5-11
2005 4-12
2006 8-8

2007 10-6 (lost wild card)
2008 13-4 (lost divisional game)
2009 8-8
2010 5-5 & trending downward

Moral of the story: There's peaks & valleys with even the more successful coaches. Trust me, Whiz HAS learned from this debacle. He just is not going to share that with us. Nor should he. I've seen that look in his eyes before (Pats loss 47-7). He's seething. Unfortunately, there's absolutely nothing he can do about it THIS year.

 

[MoeIsBetter]

Completely agree. Even the players say it ever week, preperation has not changed. Their just not executing. Whiz is the man to right this ship...again.

EDIT: Plus we've had coaches that never get the ship turned around. Why get rid of the ONE coach who did?

 

[Cardsfanstl]

I agree. This season has been bad but at least it can be corrected next season.

 

[Cbus cardsfan]

I agree that I don't want Whiz to go anyhwere. Graves? That's another story. I do think it's kind of interesting that 3 of the final 4 teams in the NFC last year gave their coaches new contract extensions in Childress, Whiz, and Phillips and all have had terrible seasons while Payton won it all, didn't recieve one,and has his team gearing up for the playoffs again.

 

[CaptTurbo]

I agree. This season has been bad but at least it can be corrected next season.

We cant correct this in one season.

Need a new DC, whole new defensive scheme
Need an OC new run oriented offense Whiz cant implement
Need a QB, will take 2 years at a minimum
Need multiple pass rush/Linebackers if we stay 3-4

Thats a bit much for 1 year.....

 

[DemsMyBoys]

Nice, nice post and I agree.

I can't believe that Whiz just went all stupid on us. The look in Whiz's eyes and his body language changed this week. He's never going to be John Madden out on the field going nuts. Never. I don't think I want him to be. That's not who he is.

I'm just going to hang in there the rest of this year and watch with great interest what happens in the off season. I hope your sources are good!

 

[ARZCardinals]

Long live Whis as our coach

 

[azsouthendzone]

Long live Whiz as a future OC somewhere. Guy can't draft or hire a free agent to save his life. Guy mismanages personnel. Things are going downhill fast and they will not get better. He will be fired next year.

 

[conraddobler]

The preperation hasn't changed?

Oh really?

I guess that's why I'm not a HC, I'd of been throwing things way before now, probably would need to wear helmets to meetings.

 

[D-Dogg]

I heart Whis, even if he completely fracked up the QB position on this team and has stubbornly held on to the OC role despite his talents being needed to hold the team together, and despite replacing Clancy with Clancy 2.0.

He's still the best coach this team has had in a long, long, long, long forever.

 

[fball13]

I don't think we've seen how good a 'coach' Whiz is yet...

Hall of Fame QBs make coaches look much better than they are (who's the Head Coach of the Colts??? Oh yeah, who cares... they have Peyton Manning).

He showed the insight to hand the reigns over to Warner, so kudos on that... other than that, I haven't seen the genius in his coaching yet. So far this year (his first year without a HOF QB), I'd give him a D-...

Let the blasting begin!

 

[Cheesebeef]

Guy can't draft or hire a free agent to save his life.

it's not his job to. That's the purvey of our GM, Rod Graves, the biggest idiot in pro football.

 

[Duckjake]

Long live Whiz as a future OC somewhere. Guy can't draft or hire a free agent to save his life. Guy mismanages personnel. Things are going downhill fast and they will not get better. He will be fired next year.

OC? The same guy who calls plays where Early Doucet is supposed to block Tamba Hali or No Body is supposed to block Tamba Hali?

 

[azsouthendzone]

it's not his job to. That's the purvey of our GM, Rod Graves, the biggest idiot in pro football.

The only thing Graves does is bring Mike B coffee in the morning. Whiz's fingerprints are all over this mess.

 

[ASUCHRIS]

The only thing Graves does is bring Mike B coffee in the morning. Whiz's fingerprints are all over this mess.

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We get it...everything that is wrong with the Cards is a direct result of Whiz screwing it up, and Matt Leinart is a victim of the big bad bully Whiz and would be leading us to the super bowl if he were still around. I know repetition is the key to memory, but you're anti-Whiz tirades are somewhere beyond tedious at this point.

 

[Dr. Jones]

Although I love Whis....

His coaching staff is atrocious. And he picked all of them. Only the ST coordinator & John Lott deserve to come back next year.

And with all of Fishers bad years.... They still had 13 and 12 win seasons. We couldn't do that with a hall of fame QB on the team. I believe some poor play calling has happened since Whis took over the OC duties. He cant spend enough time tweaking our shabby defense each week because he is making an offensive game plan. But because he has to spend SOME time with the defense, he isn't fully prepared on offense.

I am unsure if Whis has the team in place to properly prepare the team every week for 20 straight weeks. It's why we lose by 30 points once a year. And 20 points atleast two to three other times.

He must atone for our DC..... and GRIMM who he unflinchingly supports. I think they are horrible at their jobs. God do they suck at teaching, preparing, and training.

 

[Duckjake]

And with all of Fishers bad years.... They still had 13 and 12 win seasons. We couldn't do that with a hall of fame QB on the team.

A sad commentary on our favorite franchise. Even with Warner and a roster filled with talented veterans our guys could only manage double digit regular season wins once and are now right back at the bottom of the barrel.

 

[Dr. Jones]

A sad commentary on our favorite franchise. Even with Warner and a roster filled with talented veterans our guys could only manage double digit regular season wins once and are now right back at the bottom of the barrel.

I'll drink with you buddy. It's freaking heartbreaking.




People I like more than SCUD:
Wendall Bryant
Thomas Jones
Simeon Rice
David Boston
Tony Romo <-- A freaking Cowpie


The list is endless. And probably would make for a great thread. I had to think about Michael Vick... But no.... I hate Vick more.

 

[azsouthendzone]

People I like more than SCUD:
Wendall Bryant
Thomas Jones
Simeon Rice
David Boston
Tony Romo <-- A freaking Cowpie

 

[desertdawg]

I'll drink with you buddy. It's freaking heartbreaking.

People I like more than SCUD:

Tony Romo <-- A freaking Cowpie

WHAT?!

 

[D-Dogg]

WHAT?!

YEAAAAAAAHHHH!!!

 

[NJCardFan]

Some of the best coaches in NFL history never won a Super Bowl(Chuck Knox, Don Coryell, Dan Reeves, to name a few) so that's not a good barometer. To me, what makes a good coach is a coach who can adjust. Whiz hasn't shown me that. Whiz is still running this team like Warner is still here. He has to know that DA sucks. He just has to. Yet he is a pass first coach. But even that would be all well and good had we an offensive line who can actually block someone. But the real barometer for me is that this team, with the exception of 4 players(Fitz, Deuce, AW, Dockett) is 100% hand picked by him. If the talent is lacking, he's the one who brought in this talent. Now it's not his fault that players like Breaston and Doucet are made of glass but Beanie, he had injury problems in college. While I understand the risk of drafting Wells at 31, there wasn't a glaring need at RB and there was good reason why there were 2 other RB's taken before him. Especially considering we had other needs and James Laurinaitis still sitting there(we've had a need at LB Whiz's entire tenure).

Then there are his free agents. Oy. And trading Boldin for basically nothing. No, Whiz is not a good football head coach and this is becoming glaring obvious this season.

 

[azsouthendzone]

Then there are his free agents. Oy. And trading Boldin for basically nothing. No, Whiz is not a good football head coach and this is becoming glaring obvious this season.

 

[TJ]

Long live Whiz as a future OC somewhere. Guy can't draft or hire a free agent to save his life. Guy mismanages personnel. Things are going downhill fast and they will not get better. He will be fired next year.

Some of the best coaches in NFL history never won a Super Bowl(Chuck Knox, Don Coryell, Dan Reeves, to name a few) so that's not a good barometer. To me, what makes a good coach is a coach who can adjust. Whiz hasn't shown me that. Whiz is still running this team like Warner is still here. He has to know that DA sucks. He just has to. Yet he is a pass first coach. But even that would be all well and good had we an offensive line who can actually block someone. But the real barometer for me is that this team, with the exception of 4 players(Fitz, Deuce, AW, Dockett) is 100% hand picked by him. If the talent is lacking, he's the one who brought in this talent. Now it's not his fault that players like Breaston and Doucet are made of glass but Beanie, he had injury problems in college. While I understand the risk of drafting Wells at 31, there wasn't a glaring need at RB and there was good reason why there were 2 other RB's taken before him. Especially considering we had other needs and James Laurinaitis still sitting there(we've had a need at LB Whiz's entire tenure).

Then there are his free agents. Oy. And trading Boldin for basically nothing. No, Whiz is not a good football head coach and this is becoming glaring obvious this season.

These are simple generic responses about a head coach during a down season after a franchise has had success. Moves are over analyzed, fans hang on his every word and people begin to question his coaching prowess.

PACardsfan gave the best example about the ebbs and flows of coaching. Jeff Fisher has been in the league a long time and has had some great seasons and some treacherous ones. I can almost guarantee that the fickle Titans' fans asked for his head on a silver platter around this time in a losing battle. But eventually, he brings the team back to competitiveness. You can use other big name coaches as examples. Just go through their coaching record by each season and you'll see a similar pattern.

As for adjustments. Derek Anderson sucks and there is no offense in which he would succeed. Im sorry: the playbook is not called the "Kurt Warner" playbook. As a matter of fact, we have used more jumbo packages this season than we ever did with Kurt under center. So this assertion that Whis isnt adjusting is baseless, unequivocally.

I will say it again. Anderson is so bad, he is singlehandedly holding back this offense (and part of the defense for that matter). His inaccuracies and uncanny ability to overthrow 6'5" wideouts have been mentioned ad nauseum, but what really pisses me off is we are 31st in 3rd down conversion, which means we are constantly giving the ball back to the other team and leaving our defense on the field for way too long.

Is Whis completely infallible? No. Some of this was brought on by him. But the problem with fans like the aforementioned is they expect nothing but perfection and anything less merits automatic termination. Even if the team was to take that suggestion and fire Whis, what's a better option?

Bottom line is the man has proven success and like most successful NFL coaches, is having one bad season. But this is his first losing season as a head coach in four years of coaching. I would imagine a vast majority of NFL head coaches, past and present, would take that any day. Losing for Whisenhunt is not pathological and until it becomes so, the chatter that he is a bad head coach and needs to be fired should stop immediately.

 

[CaptTurbo]

I dont get the hate for Vick. The guy did more prison time for harming dogs than most people who slaughter entire families get. Sorry dogs do not equal humans imo.

Id take 1 Vick over 1000 SCUDS.