Has Steve Spagnuolo been hired yet? (1 Viewer)

Yeah it's kind of the untold story. Whatever you think of his competency, obviously he would have had a better chance if Sean Payton had been here and even more pertinent to this thread, Sean Payton's delayed reinstatement meant he had no chance to find employment for 2013. Which can be brutal for a coach's career (out of sight, out of mind).

He had nothing to do with bountygate, and arguably his career took more of a beating than anyone else's outside of Greg Williams because of it.

Yup, you have to feel a little bad for the guy. Spags had no idea what he was walking into. He comes in expecting to work with Sean, and instead he has to do this thing by himself. Having to make decisions without Sean's input and feedback as the leader of this team had to have been tough. Not to make excuses for the guy, because what we saw at times was pathetic, but I truly believe that if Sean would have been coaching in 2012 that the defensive performances would have been significantly better. Absolutely not worst in the league, that's for sure. That's more credit to Sean than it is to Spags, however.

I hope he catches on somewhere next year.
 
I would assume being the defensive coach of THE worst defense in NFL history would damage your reputation a little.

This. It's probably going to be a bit difficult for him for a while. His best bet would probably be going through channels where he's been successful in the past. But he's come off of his second straight coaching failure, he might want to just take a break for a bit as well.
 
Yup, you have to feel a little bad for the guy. Spags had no idea what he was walking into. He comes in expecting to work with Sean, and instead he has to do this thing by himself. Having to make decisions without Sean's input and feedback as the leader of this team had to have been tough. Not to make excuses for the guy, because what we saw at times was pathetic, but I truly believe that if Sean would have been coaching in 2012 that the defensive performances would have been significantly better. Absolutely not worst in the league, that's for sure. That's more credit to Sean than it is to Spags, however.

I hope he catches on somewhere next year.

I don't think Spag's is a bad coach. I think he mucked up the transition from Greg Williams' style to our style real bad.

But there are a lot of things that could play into that. Obviously the players, especially defensive players, couldn't have been focused. There had to be questions about how much personal power did he really have, especially with Loomis gone half the season as well. With Sean Payton gone, how much authority could he really exert on the team? He also may have needed someone who could tell him to dial some things back, smooth the transition over (we did get a little better as the season wore on), Neither Kromer or Vitt could do that, but Sean Payton could have.

It was a really bad time to go through a transformation like that. I'm not absolving Spags of any blame, I'm simply saying maybe it was less "incompetence" and more "just not the right man for the circumstances".

I mean the whisper campaign against him, players going to the papers as "unnamed sources" complaining? That has never happened under Sean Payton. Not once. Not when he ran that stupid play vs Tampa Bay to lose, not in the final days of Gary Gibbs, never. That was some Jim Haslett-team crap right there. When that started showing up mid-season I knew the season was lost.

I don't care what the players say, if they brush off Sean Payton's absence. The lack of control was shocking and you have to tie that directly to Sean Payton's absence. And the defense was affected the most, by far, since it was a new coach and no Drew Brees to hold things together.
 
May have to rebuild his rep after this season going to a team as position coach for a year or 2 or going to the college ranks as a DC. Wish him luck though, seemed like a good guy. Was not completely his fault don't think.
 
I don't think Spag's is a bad coach. I think he mucked up the transition from Greg Williams' style to our style real bad.

But there are a lot of things that could play into that. Obviously the players, especially defensive players, couldn't have been focused. There had to be questions about how much personal power did he really have, especially with Loomis gone half the season as well. With Sean Payton gone, how much authority could he really exert on the team? He also may have needed someone who could tell him to dial some things back, smooth the transition over (we did get a little better as the season wore on), Neither Kromer or Vitt could do that, but Sean Payton could have.

It was a really bad time to go through a transformation like that. I'm not absolving Spags of any blame, I'm simply saying maybe it was less "incompetence" and more "just not the right man for the circumstances".

I mean the whisper campaign against him, players going to the papers as "unnamed sources" complaining? That has never happened under Sean Payton. Not once. Not when he ran that stupid play vs Tampa Bay to lose, not in the final days of Gary Gibbs, never. That was some Jim Haslett-team crap right there. When that started showing up mid-season I knew the season was lost.

I don't care what the players say, if they brush off Sean Payton's absence. The lack of control was shocking and you have to tie that directly to Sean Payton's absence. And the defense was affected the most, by far, since it was a new coach and no Drew Brees to hold things together.

I completely agree. The players on this defense were fresh off of being coached by Gregg, who is very flexible with his schemes, listens to players input, and really had a command of these guys. Even though he had a "no BS" approach", Williams was a true player's coach. That was one of the more blatant things that I noticed about this defense under Spags as opposed to Gregg. Gregg had the guys believing in the system, in the good times and bad. The defense was absolutely a unit under Gregg, and each player seemed to want to go to war for him on every down. I didn't sense that sort of command by Spags.

Given that coming into 2012 Sean wanted to have more control and more input on the defense, I think had he not been suspended, that the command over the unit would have been there by Sean. It reminded me of the substitute teacher effect. What student truly takes a substitute teacher seriously? I almost felt like the way Spags saw it was, "this is what I was brought here to do, so this is what we're going to do". It just didn't work, at all.

Good point about the whisper. It just goes to show how much control that Sean has over this organization. It's pretty remarkable.
 
After Spags left the Rams last year, he was reportedly thinking about taking a year off to do missionary work in Africa before returning to football, which added to the suspense over whether he would accept Payton's offer to join the Saints.

Burwell: Spagnuolo counts his blessings (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 8, 2012)

. . . as a Christian, I believe that pride is a downfall. So I try to back off of those emotions, though I'm not always successful at that. I instead try to concentrate on the blessings I have. I thank God the phone's been ringing. I thank God that I'm healthy. I thank God I have a wonderful wife. And with that, you just look forward.

"Somebody said to me, 'Sometimes rejection is God's protection,'" Spagnuolo said. "So you say, 'OK, God, show me what's next and I'll roll with it.'"

****

When he suggested to Maria that he might take the year off and spend time with her, she started to laugh. "I know Steve, and I told him no way," she said laughing. "There's no way he will be able to sit around for a year doing nothing. … He loves coaching way too much to sit around idly for a year."

But the Spagnuolos are a fiercely religious couple, and because of their faith — and their connection with Joyce Meyer Ministries' Dream Center in north St. Louis — they have contemplated that if he does take a year off, they would do Christian missionary work in Africa.

But deep in his heart, Steve Spagnuolo knows where his passion lies. He loves coaching more than anything, which is why there's a strong likelihood that he will get right back in as soon as possible.

"There are two extremes for what I'd ultimately like to do, and a lot of possibilities in between," he said. "The extremes are (1) sitting out a year, or (2) getting another head coaching job. One is realistic, the other probably isn't very realistic. No one has asked me to be a head coach yet and I'm not saying that is going to happen. But everything in between — like being a coordinator again, or maybe a position coach — yeah, those are both realistic possibilities. Would I think about a college job? No. I love this league too much."

Maybe this year?
 

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