Once again, Coach Whisenhunt's choices for, (and use of), quarterbacks has been bizarre. His desperate move to dump Skelton for Lindley, (during a game), and without being necessitated by injury, has once again confirmed to football people, that this is NOT a destination choice for franchise QB's.
This has been a trademark with him for his entire tenure as a head coach in the NFL. He is, (without a doubt), the most unfriendly QB handler in the entire coaching realm of the NFL during his time as a HC. It is no wonder why Arizona has had such a hard time getting a 'valued' quarterback to choose coming here to play. It is a 'death-nell' sentense for the career of any QB who chooses to come here in free agency.
Examine the facts. No highly valued QB has chosen to come to Az. Even Kurt Warner, (although he was a Denny Green selection), was not 'valued' by anyone in the league when he came here. Everyone in professional football, (except Warner himself), was of the opinion that he was finished as a starting caliber QB in the NFL at the time. Yes, other highly valued QB's have chosen to flirt with our FO during free agency, but none of those seriously considered Az. as the place be as a starting QB. They simply used our franchise's desire to land a top drawer QB in order to up their 'ante' in the free agency sweepstakes, (always choosing to go elsewhere), and they still do so. Prior to Whiz coming here, this was the LAST choice of valued QB's in the entire league.
Add to that, Whiz has not exactly turned this franchise into 'the destination stop' of the NFL for ANY free agents, (much less a franchise QB). First, there was his handling of the Leinart/Warner situation. His obvious dislike of Matt Leinart led him to platoon the two, (a situation that has NEVER been successful in the NFL). While that ploy has at times shown a positive temporary outcome in game performance, (as it did with Leinart/Warner), it has ALWAYS been detrimental to the welfare of the team in the long run.
That certainly was the situation here in the desert. His constantly pitting one against the other, only managed to create a situation in which it was impossible for both to succeed. Even with Whiz' obvious dislike for Leinart, he was reluctant to start Warner over him, for whatever reason. This did nothing to create a situation where competition actually was decisive in selecting a winner. If anything, the job went to Warner grudgingly.
Even to this day, Whiz has shown a proclivity to force a 'competition' between QB candidates, but he has shown NO SENSE for being able to determine when, (or even IF), one candidate has outplayed the other. Given this franchise's past failures at being a destination spot for 'valued' QB's, Whiz' handling of his QB's has simply confirmed to prospective free agent candidates that this is NOT the desired place for them to come.
Add to that, the fact that he has NEVER shown any inclination to instill his confidence in ANY QB on his roster, why should ANY legitimate QB desire to be 'his' guy. At best, any confidence shown by Whiz in his QB is fleeting, (mostly lasting only as long as it takes to make one mistake). One interception, one fumble, one miss-read, one failure to get rid of the ball quickly enough, one poor throw, is all that it takes to have any confidence that Whiz has shown for a particular QB to disappear immediately. No QB can become comfortable in Whiz' scheme. No one really EVER has his total trust and support. He seemingly ALWAYS has some little hurdle set up for the QB to overcome before he can accomplish his job.
Simply put, Whiz almost never puts his QB into a situation where he is MOST LIKELY to succeed. There is, (and always has been), the situation with the offensive line. Whiz never seems to have been on the same page as Grimm in the selection of, and the use of players along the O-line. I am sure that he intended to 'establish the run' mentality that was the forte of the Steelers. That went flying away once he realized that he could pass, pass, pass, with Warner. Yet, instead of changing out the run oriented line, he went about trying to secure as many weapons for Warner to throw to, in order to outscore the opponent in the long run. That created one lasting hurdle for the QB to overcome, as the O-line was not a proficient pass-blocking unit. What's more, he NEVER made it a priority to become proficient at pass blocking. In fact, he chose to ignore that weakness, by failing to help the linemen with TE play to assist in pass blocking. Instead, he used his TE's to provide more targets for his QB to throw to.
While Warner, (with his ability to make extremely quick reads and then fit the ball into extremely tight windows), was successful with that, none of his counterparts have been able to pull that off, (save Leinart), who simply checked down to a shorter throw which 'irked' Whiz to no end. Instead of fixing the line, Whiz has chosen to try to force EACH of his QB's to do what Warner could. None have been able to duplicate that feat, (though Kolb came close while paying the price for it by getting beat nearly to death).
Instead of inspiring great QB play by providing REAL help to his QB, Whiz simply plugs one after the other in, only to see them fail, one after the other. It has never seemed to register with him, that when he had the offense that could outscore his opponent, he never had the defense that could guarantee to hold onto a late lead. Now that he has no offense, he has been forced to fix the defense in order to be at least competitive. He seems somehow unable to channel his efforts to the overall picture, (seeming instead to focus only on one area at a time). Maybe that is the engineer in him. By believing that the data doesn't lie, he goes about concentrating his efforts to one end, knowing that he can fix that, (but seemingly he fails to see that doing so has detrimental consequences for the part of the team he is not concentrating on).
This is what I see as one of Whiz' biggest downfalls as a head coach. He gets too involved with fixing one aspect of his responsibility, but fails to oversee the whole operation. He cannot seem to delegate his responsibilities to position coaches or coordinators, and hold them responsible for their own results. Instead, he seems to jump in, (in their place), and try to fix it himself. He has done this with play calling, defense, and special teams. Each one has been exemplary at one point or another in his tenure as head coach. None have stayed that way when he has not given special attention to it (save for Horton's revival of the defense). To me he just seems better suited to be a position coach, or a coordinator than a head coach. He either seems to give his position coaches complete trust, (without follow-up to see if they are doing what is necessary), or he micro-manages them, (just as he does his quarterbacks). So long as he continues to do this, he seemingly cannot become the head coach that we need for this team in my opinion.
The real problem now, is that of finding a better option than Whiz to replace him. We may have that in Horton, but that is as yet an unknown. Is he the person who can sustain the defense, while finding a capable OC? Someone will more than likely find that out during this upcoming off-season. It would be nice to know that we could be the one to 'discover' Horton as a new HC. With our past experience at dallying around while the rest of the world is acting though, I have little faith that Horton will end up becoming OUR next HC. More than likely, our FO and ownership will remain undecided on what to do, and be relegated to either keeping Whiz for another year, or worse yet, ending up with yet another 'retread' NFL head coach. If that is the case, be prepared to tear down everything that we have now, and start all over, just as we did after hiring Buddy Ryan to replace a somewhat successful Joe Bugel.
