Why Spagnuolo & Flajole were fired (1 Viewer)

[pirttihirmu]

This is what I heard: Payton got back and saw Spagnuolo eating his Juicy Fruits. "You gone and stolen my Juicy Fruits!!! Dem are mine Juicy Fruits!! Dem Ain't nobody elses Juicy Fruits!!!", shouted the enraged HC.

Later in the evening spags got a message saying "you're fired, Sincerely coach Payton".

I won't name the source.

 

[CitySaint]

I heard all the other assistant defensive coaches sided against Spags and Flajole.

 

[birdog]

The Saints defense was bad well before Spags got to NOLA. That is quite clear. their rankings reflected that, even though there was a year or 2 when the D played better.

But nowhere as bad as in 2012.......and Spags is to blame for that.

All Sean Payton had to do is to assess the defensive performance in previous years and last year...the difference was startling! I came to this conclusion without any inside info. But truth to be told....the personnel dept. deserves some of the blame for neglecting the Saints D for years!

Spags deserved to get canned, and Sean Payton did the right thing. I just wish that Sean Payton will scrutinize the personnel dept just as vigorously, as he did with Spags.

 

[CitySaint]

The Saints defense was bad well before Spags got to NOLA. That is quite clear. their rankings reflected that, even though there was a year or 2 when the D played better.

But nowhere as bad as in 2012.......and Spags is to blame for that.

All Sean Payton had to do is to assess the defensive performance in previous years and last year...the difference was startling! I came to this conclusion without any inside info. But truth to be told....the personnel dept. deserves some of the blame for neglecting the Saints D for years!

Spags deserved to get canned, and Sean Payton did the right thing. I just wish that Sean Payton will scrutinize the personnel dept just as vigorously, as he did with Spags.

They have done anything but neglect the defense. When your defense is full of high round talent and is barely scratching medicore something is wrong with talent evaluation.

 

[krushing]

Arguement??.....There was enough blame to go around.!!

 

[daponch]

Spags lack of in game adjustments and being too stubborn to adjust his scheme to the personnel had a lot to do with his firing. I'm sure there was other things as well. Especially the Juicy Fruit.

 

[Randy Jones]

They have done anything but neglect the defense. When your defense is full of high round talent and is barely scratching medicore something is wrong with talent evaluation.

You think it was talent evaluation. Even a pig can find a truffle now and then. With all the first round talent on the defense, I would suggest it was poor coaching.

 

[Randy Jones]

The Saints defense was bad well before Spags got to NOLA. That is quite clear. their rankings reflected that, even though there was a year or 2 when the D played better.

There is a conflict in your logic here. Either they were bad before Spags or they played well 2/3 years under Williams. It can't be both though.

 

[bornnraisedwhodat]

The Saints defense was bad well before Spags got to NOLA. That is quite clear. their rankings reflected that, even though there was a year or 2 when the D played better.

But nowhere as bad as in 2012.......and Spags is to blame for that.

All Sean Payton had to do is to assess the defensive performance in previous years and last year...the difference was startling! I came to this conclusion without any inside info. But truth to be told....the personnel dept. deserves some of the blame for neglecting the Saints D for years!

Spags deserved to get canned, and Sean Payton did the right thing. I just wish that Sean Payton will scrutinize the personnel dept just as vigorously, as he did with Spags.

100% agree with everything said here.

The personell dept has not been stellar, particularly on defense. But it's still hard for me to pin point the root of the problem. Are the players our FO just not talented? Or they not coached up and developed properly?

My theory is it is a little bit of both, FO missing of a few defensive prospects, and our inability to develop them properly and get the best out of them.

But at the end of the day, Spags couldnt have felt safe after fieldign that defense. I just felt like he was overrated. Still riding on the wave of his Giants SB defense which had future HOF'er and 3 other young studs on the defensive line. His Rams defense was more telling, he had 3 years to draft and develop players and they just were not very good.

I think the final 2 games did Spags in. Almost blowing that gave vs Dallas, and laying an egg vs the Panthers.

The rumor the OP is stating could have merit tho.

 

[FuzzyDunlop]

They have done anything but neglect the defense. When your defense is full of high round talent and is barely scratching medicore something is wrong with talent evaluation.

Yeah, I think there is enough blame for both sides.

We definitely have a problem with personnel decisions on the defensive side of the ball, especially during the draft. There is no doubt that Spags walked into a very difficult situation, with not a ton of talent to work with, but he somehow managed to make the defense appear even worse than they actually were, which is no small feat.

So I'm glad that Payton decided to not wait around and give Spags another season, especially considering the apparent problems between him and the defensive players. I'm also really happy with the Rex Ryan decision, and think that out of our choices he was our best chance to make the defense over-achieve a bit hopefully back toward the middle of the pack. But we would all be kidding ourselves to think that Spags was the only problem over there, and that all of our issues are gone.

 

[birdog]

There is a conflict in your logic here. Either they were bad before Spags or they played well 2/3 years under Williams. It can't be both though.

No. The exception always strengthens the rule. They might have had 1, or 2 years somewhat a better performance, but in general the Saints D wasn't quite up to par. We complained about the Saints D even in the SB year, when they couldn't really stop their opponents, save the turnovers which bailed them out regularly. But once the teams had a more firm ball security, the deficiencies of the Saints D were in the open.

The Saints were winning games b/c of their offense, the D had little impact.

 

[St. Widge]

They have done anything but neglect the defense. When your defense is full of high round talent and is barely scratching medicore something is wrong with talent evaluation.

Or the coaching. Look at a guy like Dunbar. He went to St. Louis and had a great year. That tells me that he was developed well (Vitt did his job) but he was not being used properly by our team. (or he was just highly limited in what he could do in our system.)

Anyway, the fact is that the last couple years that Gregg Williams was here, the defense was pretty good at least in term of points given up and that's really what matters isn't it. What appears to have killed Williams was that he did not get along with the rest of the staff and he had a penchant for leaving Roman Harper one on one with Vernon Davis.

I'm not saying the talent evaluation has been perfect, it's been far from that. But, there is enough defensive talent on this team to have a decent defense and not the historically terrible defense that was put on the field last year. To be that bad is almost all about coaching.

 

[Bourbon]

Regardless of the talent of his players, a coach should never transfer blame like that. He was the leader of a historically bad defense and he should have taken all blame and then quietly worked on upgrading personnel.

 

[BigSlick]

Thanks km. Spags almost sounds like Rick Venturi with all the complex schemes and theory.

 

[VPCajun]

I just wish that Sean Payton will scrutinize the personnel dept just as vigorously, as he did with Spags.

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Ding! Ding! Ding!

We Have a WINNAH!

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