Yesterday, 04:35 PM
(Yesterday, 04:18 PM)Bengalitis Wrote: There was no reason to fire Lou.. the personnel sucked and he got them to play well to finish with a winning record...
it was cowardice for Zac to fire Lou. The offense lost as many chances as the defense to score/win, even Burrow has highlighted this.
I like Zac overall, but firing Lou with the personnel Lou havd, to accommodate the offense, is just unjust and weak. If anything Zac failed miserably running the offense and failed to win more games where the real $$$ is invested. Lou the scapegoat. Lou even came to Cinci when nobody wanted to.. very disgraceful to let him go. Good luck next season with same or worse personnel and a new system.. YIKES!
PS. The only reason we went to the SB was because of the defense and Lou, with talented personnel.
I think Lou was a good gameday coordinator. His coverage ideas worked well. He disguised them well. I liked what he did, even though he was a tad conservative when it came to bringing pressure but I also chalk that up to personnel. I suspect one of the biggest reasons he was let go was personnel, but specifically his input and use of said personnel.
He's the defensive coordinator. Players are not just being brought in and he has to figure it out. I think it is a reasonable assumption to make that he had quite a bit of input of who he could work with when it came to player selection. Did he have final say? I would assume not, but I think it is reasonable to believe his opinion was given serious weight.
With that in mind, the free agent selections and draft picks over the last couple of years simply haven't panned out. Bates was let go and that was beyond his control. However, they were never able to find an adequate replacement for Bates. Nick Scott was awful. Geno Stone wasn't very good, either. Hill struggled playing safety and was moved to corner. The defensive line outside of Hendrickson has been very quiet and he wasn't able to solve this, either. Ossai might be turning a corner but is a bit too inconsistent to tell. Myles Murphy has been fairly quiet so far. Little to no interior pass rushers.
I don't think it is all his fault, either. The Bengals don't have a robust scouting department to help in this process. However, this is the reason I suspect he was let go.
