Cowboys Just hired Alexabder as their line coach

[BRM13]

(01-15-2018, 11:06 PM)Nebuchadnezzar Wrote: Ok, let me get this straight.

Paul Alexander has been O Line Coach since 1994 where coaches have job security like no other team and hasn't moved up on that team or asked to be interviewed by another team for a better job.

I get that he's "Well Respected" around the league but that's only because he has been in the same job for over 20 years on a team that promotes from within and gives jobs to guys who don't deserve it, like Zampeze.

Maybe the "Well Respected" part comes from...
From...
From...
I DON'T KNOW!

All I can say is Alexander has never moved up on this team. He's been the O Line coach for over 20 years and never went anywhere.

I don't get it.

Oh well, their loss and our gain. The Cowboys will fire him after two years, maybe three and he will be just a bad memory.

I'm glad PA is gone and the Bengals are trying someone new at the position, but I don't think it is that hard to see how all this has happened.

1.  He's respected/legendary because he had a fairly revolutionary insight into blocking schemes early in his career.  I've seen it referenced in stories explaining why he's asked to speak at so many coaching clinics, but I don't know anything about technical line play, so I can't tell you what it was.  I think it had to do with zone blocking schemes, but I'm not certain.  Combine this with the extraordinary talent of Corey Dillon and you have a lot of success in his area on some historically bad teams.

2.  In the Lost Decade, IIRC the Bengals had 3 competent assistant coaches (RB-Anderson, QB-Anderson and OL-Alexander) and one good/great one (DC-LeBeau).  In that mix, it is easy to see why Mike Brown wanted to keep Paul Alexander around.  To do that he named him Associate Head Coach at some point.  That was done to severely limit his mobility.  By league rules, he could only interview for jobs at a higher rank--Head Coach--unless the Bengals gave permission or his contract was up.  Mike B always extended PA, so he was always under contract and couldn't just go to a team willing to pay him more to coach OL.  The Bengals don't give permission often (see Vance Joseph recently).  So, PA never moved up, but couldn't leave until this year.

Combine 1 and 2 and you get 'respected' but never leaves.  All that said, PA was apparently a one-trick pony.  The game had caught up/passed him by.  His big ideas are something like 20 years old.  Worse, he's also very stubborn and a poor judge of talent.  Relative to the rest of the coaching staff, he'd gone from one of the bright spots to one of the problems.  Bill Lazor seems to have been in quite the hurry to move on from him.  It's been widely noted he overruled PA on blocking schemes late in the year with obvious improvement in performance.  Good for Lazor.  The Cowboys think they are getting an innovative 'legend'.  He'll probably do OK with all the talent they have, but I think the Bengals won this 'trade' pretty easily.  It will definitely be interesting to see how this plays out.