Which is funny, since, as the HC (and especially as a CEO HC), that call went through his headset and he had a chance to object to it before it didn't work.
Good question. That’s why I didn’t say it happened. I’m saying history plus this going against how Glenn viewed staff-building certainly makes it plausible.
Woody probably has had something to do with it, although given how much time Glenn has spent over the past season walking back comments he made before the season about his approach and his expectations and all that, maybe he's walking back how he wants to build his coaching staff.
Is it possible that Engstrand is in sync with the modern NFL and wanted to be aggressive, but Glenn, as a defensive coach, wanted a passive approach to the game in general, including on offense? Maybe they had a season long disagreement. In the 1st game, the offense looked great and modern! What happened after that?!!!!
I think Fields' concussion in Week 2 had a lot to do with the design of the offense. There were a lot less designed QB runs or RPOs once he came back than there were in that opener against Pittsburgh.
After that the tape was out on Tanner and smart DC around the league were able to adapt. I am sure Glenn had influence, but let's not absolve Tanner completely. I think he didn't deserve to be fired but there were some glaring mistakes that even commentators pointed out in some broadcasts. He earned C+/Incomplete grade and I think deserved to see another season, but then again, you could also make an argument everyone starting with Glenn should have been fired. The best case scenario would have been for us to hire an offensive minded HC, like Kubiak and leave Tanner as the OC (or get someone young like him as OC) with Kubiak calling plays. But... that's in alternate reality at this point...
It looked TERRIBLE in week 2 BEFORE concussion. Like absolutely dog shit terrible where it is hard to get worse prior to concussion in the week 2. I just cannot buy this argument. The fact Tanner was new and unknown in game 1, and there was tape out on him for the 1st time starting with game 2 I think had a lot more to do with it.
I get that it looked terrible before he left the game in Week 2, but once he came back from the injury, they never really tried going back to any of the stuff that worked in Week 1. Even if the other teams in the league had enough film on Engstrand after just a single week to the point that nothing was working, it doesn't make sense why they never really tried to recapture what had actually worked quite well in Week 1. It would be one thing to try and run the offense like that again but have it get stonewalled because other teams had figured it out, but they never really even went back to that style of play in any meaningful way, which makes no sense because that was literally the only thing that they did on offense last season that actually worked and made the team look like they were at least playing the same sport that the rest of the league was playing. They decided to keep Fields in the pocket and try to make him a pocket passer, which is about the time we saw some of those abysmally low passing totals start to come in. Also, if Engstrand's offense was figured out by the rest of the league after just a single week, then he should have been fired during the season rather than waiting until a month after the season was over. You're running an extremely basic offense if the league has it figured out after one week of film.
We finished with a top 10 run game and the worst QB room in the league. Logically that says he wasn’t “figured out” by any means. The failures of the offense had far more to do with lack of talent than the coaching. There’s a reason he had multiple suitors and got scooped up in 3 days. Hes a young bright mind that is adapting to where the NFL is currently and where it’s going. The tape showed that. We on the other hand, are fucking stupid.
I was no more down on Engstrand than any OC we've ever had. Maybe a little more so because he was a 1st time newb but, holy cow, this was like issue 52 on a list of 54 issues. Glenn has NO FUCKING CLUE as to what he's doing. Seriously, may as well call this a full regime change because anyone who actually does FOOTBALL work is now gone. The whole fucking thing is a joke.
There's also the fact that, in the fleeting moments that we actually had Tyrod Taylor out on the field, there were times when the offense actually looked like something that one might recognize as nearing a baseline level of competence. It was a lot like the MLF years, where when he had anyone not named Zach Wilson, the offense actually looked pretty good. Josh Johnson even looked pretty good in that Colts game that Mike White got injured in, and might have had a better outing if they hadn't had to completely abandon the run game because they fell behind early.
Which games of Tyrod can we compare to top Josh Johnson and White performances under MILF? I like Tanner and wanted him to stay, but I think we are overvaluing him here.
He is a good guy, and I would not have fired him, but he was no slam dunk as an OC. When you finish 29th overall on offense, logically it has to be more than just the roster, which has consensus good OL and RB. But again I don't think he was bad, but I think people tend to glorify him too much. He was a project I was willing to see develop and would have kept. Definitely a good passing game coordinator I would say if there is a veteran like Stefanski on top of him, good get for the Falcons for sure.
It's not so much about comparing the two of them. LaFleur was miles better. I was against firing him when the Jets did. Engstrand isn't as good as LaFleur, but they're similar in how their offenses were at least functional when someone was at QB who was just minimally competent, although quite a bit more in the case of LaFleur. Tyrod had a couple of OK games over the course of the season (Tampa, Atlanta, Baltimore). He never lit it up the way that Josh Johnson did against Indy (27/41 317 yards, 3 TDs, 1 INT), but it was enough for the team to at least pretend to be competitive in those games before the defense did its usual thing. Where the two are really similar, though, is in that they were fired to bring in someone who is way past their prime and would actually be a downgrade.
I’d argue with Justin Fields and Brady Cook taking 78% of your snaps at QB, John Metchie taking the most snaps at WR with Arian Smith and AD Mitchell taking as many snaps as Garrett Wilson… there’s a significant talent issue with your passing game.
I agree the talent could have been better too, I just think with the OL we had, Breece, GW, good TEs, and even QBs were not viewed as poorly prior to the season as they ended up playing, finishing 29th total, there is plenty of blame on all sides. But at this point, the bottom line is, we all agree we should kept him, he did enough not to be fired, especially compared to others. Just wondering though, if you guys had to give Tanner a letter grade, what grade would you give? I landed on C+, but with the caveat that there is more to see to complete the grade, which is what I wanted to do. What say you?
The WRs were absolutely viewed as bad as they ended up being. And that’s even after we added talent to the room halfway through the season. I think a rookie TE and a bad backup performed exactly as most thought, and Ruckert ended up going from cuttable to extended after a good season. OL/RB played well but that furthers my point that he knew what he was doing considering the units were good coming into the season and were top 10 coming out of it. There’s not a single thing I can take away from the pass game the way it unfolded. The tape says one thing the results say another and thanks without question because of talent. How else do you explain WRs open on tape yet the worst passing game in the league? Tanner is an incomplete and we were too stupid to let it play out.
