Jim O interview with Mike Brown

[BFritz21]

Mike normally doesn't do interviews, and I guess I'm in the minority that didn't think he did too bad in this one and liked some of the things I heard.

Every other year, it's just "we did some things good, but we just need to improve." This interview has some of that, but it also has more sound of direction and that Mike finally pulled the trigger and did the things needed to improve the team.

He seemed to take notice of the weaknesses and not just say "we need to get better in a lot of areas" and he's actually doing something about it:

Quote:“We were way off offensively last year. It starts with pass protection. We’ve got to get that up to standard. We have to run the ball more effectively than we did over the course of the year. At the end of the year, we were (more effective). So perhaps we’re closer to putting together one of those pieces that has to be corrected. The pass protection issue is still out there and we will work to try to make that what it needs to be. I honestly feel that on offense, overall, we have enough people to be good. We do intend to shore it up. That is one of our principal goals.

“On defense, some of the problems over there were caused by the lack of the offense’s ability to stay on the field, move the ball, get ahead and not make the chore of the defense harder. Do I feel we have people there? I think we do. I think we can add a couple pieces there as well and that will help. And we have to stay healthy in certain spots. By the end of the year, we were down top playing with our (practice) squad linebackers. That was something I had never seen before. To their credit, they went out and did pretty darn well. But we do need (Vontaze) Burfict to be on the field. We need Burfict to be healthy. We need to get our other ‘backers back and playing.

“As a group, I think they’re talented enough to win a lot for us.”

It's still up in the air whether or not he'll actually be active in free agency and the draft to try to improve those things, but it sounds like he will and he's acknowledging specific weaknesses instead of just saying general statements about the entire team.

Then he goes on about the coaches and about how the sweeping change should bring an entire change of culture:

Quote:“That’s how it presented itself. We had a clean slate. The order of work was head coach first. And then the process of settling on that, the assistant coaches were fending for themselves. Once Marvin was taken care of, we turned to the assistant coaching area. Some of our guys chose to leave. Some of them we chose to ask to leave. It was a big changeover. I think it’s around seven guys were moved in some fashion, maybe more. That’s unprecedented. We’ve had more changeover in the assistant coaching level than I can remember short of changing the head coach. That would bring a lot of fresh ideas in here. We’re in need of some fresh ideas. I look forward to how it will be put together a little differently than before. But we also retain a lot of continuity, and I think that’s important too. It’ll be a mix. It will be interesting to see if it plays out right. I think it will.”

The fact that he even says that it's unprecedented (for us, anyways) and that we need new, fresh ideas gets me excited.

Like I said, it sounds like I'm in the minority, but this is another thing for me to like so far this offseason!