DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Good Teams vs. Bad Teams

What is the difference between good and bad teams.Pittsburgh allways seems to have a good team,Dallas has built themselves back up,Green Bay is back There are teams that are down and build themselves and there are consistently good teams I'll have to admit I'm jealous.

Whats the difference is it the system,personnel,coaching front office what exactly is it ???Whatever it is we dont seem to have ir.

they all have good lines, and for the most part, good quarterbacks

There is no one answer... for the Steelers it's consistency.. Did they fire Cowher in year 6 when he went from double digit wins every year to 7-9 then 6-10? No.. they went out and got better players and kept the system in place. I do believe that we would have demanded he be fired... that he'd "lost it"... then he had a few more double digit wins seasons, then another 6-10 season.... we are too "knee jerk" to let a coach go through a couple years like that.... but the Steelers have always had a solid base of talent, so let's find a more relevant example.....

The Cowboys were pretty awful after the championship team retired and left in Smith, Aikmen et.al... so they went out and got Parcells, who had immediate success and went 10-6 in his first year, probably just on motivation and respect alone... then he fell off to 6-10, then a couple 9-7s... but they stuck with him and allowed him to build a team without dismantling it every year so the team he turned over to Phillips was a much more talented, disciplined, and cohesive unit than the one he inherited... this is the road we are on. I don't know how long RAC will be here, but if he's gone this year or next year, the new coach that comes in is going to inherit a much more talented team than the one RAC inherited... there is something to be said for brining in somebody who commands immediate respect, like a Cowher or a Schotty...

Thus far we have tried it with unproven NFL coaches and building skill positions first and ignoring the interior.... until now. We still have an unproven NFL head coach, but we have started to build the team the right way, especially on offense, and it is starting to show, if only in flashes.... the defense, on the other hand, continues to struggle because we haven't made the same effort on the defensive interior..... The single biggest thing I personally have against RAC is that he doesn't seem to be able to instill that discipline in his players to avoid the stupid penalty or the stupid mistake.... maybe it's just a factor of time, but that's the single biggest thing I need to see change over the course of this season for me to keep faith in RAC....

Funny thing is, last year there were many many posts about the Saints... why can't we be like the Saints... why can't WE do the worst to first thing... I haven't seen any of those this year....

That depends,, who do you want to blame today?

We are not "knee jerk" fans. We haven't seen a good team in what? A decade? 15 years? How about putting a good team on the field, oh, every 3 years or so? I'm tired of people telling me to be patient. I'm 52. How much longer should I wait? I'd like to see a winner while I can still see.

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We are not "knee jerk" fans.

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Yes we are.

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We haven't seen a good team in what? A decade? 15 years? How about putting a good team on the field, oh, every 3 years or so?

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Ok, stop firing coaches, changing schemes, and turning over the roster every 2 or 3 years...

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I'm tired of people telling me to be patient. I'm 52. How much longer should I wait? I'd like to see a winner while I can still see.

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I'm tired of it too... I'm 41, have over 30 years invested in this team... you probably have more, but once you get up into 30-40 years, who's counting.... I see a solid foundation of a football team on the field now... I see a gm who has made mostly good decisions... not all good, but mostly good... and I see a coaching staff that is working hard... my jury is still out on the coaching staff... but if we pull the plug now, unless we get real lucky in our coaching search... be prepared to be told to be patient for at least 3 more years...

If it were only that simple... if only there AN answer to turning things around.

Success in the NFL is a moving target. The dynamics are constantly changing. There are teams that are awesome 1 year, have very few personnel changes in the offseason, and stink it up on the field the next year.

It is too early to make big proclamations but New Orleans is starting to look like one of those teams right now. They were awesome in 2006. They have been dismal in 2007.

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I'm 52. How much longer should I wait? I'd like to see a winner while I can still see.

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I hear you and see your point....though not as well as I used to.

Sorry but I'm not sure we can call the fans "knee-jerk". Well actually I'd say we are to an extent if there is no sign of life from our team, but I before the move we never really ran a successful coach out of town. That was usually Modell's doing. Marty was not hated in Cleveland in spite of the losing the big game thing. How long did we keep Sam around after we dropped off after he got us to deep in the playoffs?

I think that if we get a coach that was showing some actual team improvement that people wouldn't freak out as much. I'm sure there are some that would regardless, but in general I'd say we are probably pretty average fans that are just sick of losing.

I mean honestly people liked Butch Davis up until the Holcomb/Couch debacle and the crash following the playoff season. I remember thinking it was pretty amazing the wins he got out of a low talent team the first year he was here. But then he started making dumb moves and wanted more power and shot himself down. In retrospect most dislike him, but at the time he wasn't unpopular initially.

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I agree...there is nothing "knee jerk" about my opinion....

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I have no problem with individuals taking exception to my comment, in fact I pretty much expected it... but sit back and look at the collective...

If some fans had their way, Eric Wedge would have been fired a month ago and Blake and Peralta well.... their AA season would already be over...

Grantham was God going into the season, 3 games later they want him fired..... Wimbley was a stud, now he's not progressing and underachieving.... Jackson would be solid for a long time, now he's slow and underachieving also.... Savage was on the right track, now they're counting his mistakes... the list goes on and on and on and on... God help us the first time a DE gets 2 sacks in a game coming off the left side, Thomas might as well just pack his bags... After the Steelers game all was lost, after the Bengals game most was fixed, after the Raiders game, most don't know what to think.....

So while some of you, especially the older fellers, may be firm in your convictions, if you step back and look at the bigger picture... if you can't see the "knee-jerk" then I guess we'll just have to disagree.....

From what I've seen of Whisenhunt and staff here in Arizona it looks like they'll turn this system around. OL coach Russ Grimm has taken an bunch of average guys and turned them into a productive unit. One guy goes down and an undrafted free agent comes in and the line barely misses a beat. All of the coaches have players motivated and held accountable. There's direction and dedication. It is obvious the payers have bought into the system. The change in attitude between this year and the past 20 is like night and day.

To me it seems that the recipe for winning is mostly having coaches that know what they're doing in having players of ordinary skills step up and perform to a level where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

I think DC is right in some aspects.

The old time fans are more patient, have the knowledge and understanding, but the stands at the game are filled these days with the "new" fans, those fans tend to want everything now, and lack patience.

Many of them either are too young to remember, or didn't pay attention to football back when we had good teams. But the truth is, we never had a good team. Regardless of what the record book says, we are an 8 year old team.

If you notice the Saints, last year their Oline did great, and everyone was questioning the Faine deal, this year, Brees look like Tim Couch, and isn't getting much time back there, and 1 TD 7 Int show that.

Savage and RAC have methodically retooled this team. 3 years ago, our defense was holding it's own well enough to survive, so we focused on the offense, and now we have that Oline that everyone screamed for for the last 8 years. We have good talent at WR, great talent at TE, RB looks good this year, but is a ?? for the future, and possibly a future QB(we haven't seen him yet)

The offense is now to the point were we can plug in a piece here and there as change happens. Now it's time for Savage to go to work on the defense, sad thing is that defense that held it's own 3 years ago seems lethargic this year, much worse than anyone imagined. We knew the Dline was poor, but is the Dline so bad, that it makes the rest of the D look bad? Much like our bad Oline in passed years, made the entire offense bad?

What separates good teams from bad teams is that the good teams took the time to build a nucleus of players at key positions, and as those players leave or retire, they plug in another, but you have enough talents and system experience around those plugged in players that the bumps are hardly noticed.

They occasionally have off years when a major piece is replaced, but are usually right back into it once that replacement gets comfortable by year 2.

This all comes to continuity. NE is great at this concept the last few years. They have talent, not alot of superstar talent, but adequate talent, and they know the system better than most of them know their way home. This allows them to plug in new players almost seamlessly.

When you change out 50% of your starters, 50% of your coaching staff, install a new offensive system, and shuffle QB's faster than a Vegas blackjack dealer, you will suffer badly.

We have talent on offense, we have a little talent on defense, we have decent systems, what we lack is continuity amongst the talent at the key positions, and that will come. I think it's about there on offense. Once we fix a few pieces on defense, we will be back into the race.

What we lack is Brady Quinn,we need a spark on this team that only he can provide.The sooner he plays the Better.

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What is the difference between good and bad teams.

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Good teams can stop people on 3rd and 25.....Bad teams can not.