Underrated - Dennis Allen (1 Viewer)

[LSSpam]

http://www.neworleanssaints.com/Team/Coaches/People/Dennis Allen.aspx

Promoted to Defensive Backs coach in 2008.

The 2008 year was a bad year. But if you remember, the secondary was decimated by injuries and hamstrung by zero pass rush and Gary Gibbs.

Nonetheless, in 2008 the secondary still improved to 221 yards from 245 yards in 2007, despite significantly less health back there and less pressure up front. He also has to be given some credit for getting Tracy Porter ready to play as a 2nd round rookie for opening day, who looked great until he was injured for the season. By and large though, considering we spent almost the entire season with only 3 or 4 healthy CBs and at one point in a game were down to only 2 healthy CBs, he was trying to make stone soup, except he didn't even have the stone to get it started with.

This season though, combined with Greg Williams and vastly improved personal to work with, he's done an amazing job. In particular he's shined with these injuries.

Granted Greer and Sharper came in pretty good or even great players in their own right, but Dennis Allen has really shined since the St. Louis game.

In that game it looked like we were headed for another 2008 situation. Injuries had decimated the secondary and we just didn't have any bullets back there to fight back with.`St. Louis' "offensive explosion" (for them) that week was embarrassing and seemed pretty foreboding with Greer, Sharper, and Porter out.


That we just dominated Tom Brady, Randy Moss, and Wes Welker without Greer and Porter is nothing short of remarkable.

This has to be directly attributed to
-Getting rookie Malcolm Jenkins ready to play
-Getting veterans McKenzie and McAlister up to speed on a brand new defense in a ridiculously short amount of time
-Shuffling those guys around in the secondary into different roles that they could excel at.

The preparation by a short-stringed/short-noticed secondary for the New England game was incredible. Give Greg Williams his due, of course, but the preparation for the secondary, the film study, the meetings, Dennis Allen deserves a ton of credit for turning 2 street veterans and a rookie into a secondary that relatively speaking shut Tom Brady down.

 

[Domeination]

We may now have the deepest and best secondary in the NFL, and I'm sure Allen has something to do with it. No less than Pat Kirwin was saying last week that Brady would smoke our secondary b/c we were relying on "street players" to stop Randy Moss and Welker. Well, Allen sure coached those street players up, albeit in actuality both have been top-flight NFL corners, which obviously made the job a lot easier. But how many staffs could have gotten McC and MM up to speed so quickly? I also have to give major props to our receivers coach, who has developed Devery and Meachem into scary good receivers.

 

[LSSpam]

We may now have the deepest and best secondary in the NFL, and I'm sure Allen has something to do with it. No less than Pat Kirwin was saying last week that Brady would smoke our secondary b/c we were relying on "street players" to stop Randy Moss and Welker. Well, Allen sure coached those street players up, albeit in actuality both have been top-flight NFL corners, which obviously made the job a lot easier. But how many staffs could have gotten McC and MM up to speed so quickly? I also have to give major props to our receivers coach, who has developed Devery and Meachem into scary good receivers.

Yeah I don't want to take anything away from the individual players. Mike McKenzie in particular seemed to be riding an emotional high the entire game.

But still, while being veterans made it easier (and playing on defense, there are only so many coverages to know no matter what "scheme" you run, and at their age they've played them all), to get guys off the street up to speed and then, this was also critical, to be able to use them correctly and in a fashion they could succeed in immediately, was a tremendous coaching job.

Greg Williams deserves all the accolades he's getting, but there's a lower tier of coaching preparation that deserves mention, and that was Allen's work as the position coach.

 

[BigSlick]

The number of passes defended this year is unreal. It seems like we used to see a swatted/tipped ball once a month the last few years but now it's fairly commonplace. Between the strong play of the secondary, Brees' unreal ball placement, and WRs that will go get footballs the full speed practice sessions must be absolutely epic.

 

[St. Stebe]

This recognition is long overdue. This guy has been a concimate professional and deserves the credit for preparing these guys. And yes it helps the players have talent now, unlike JD, Craft, et al...but like the destiguished gentleman, LSSPam said, getting the new guys ready to play off the street in 2 weeks or less is just incredible