Gaines Adams

What The Hell Is A Megamorph?

November 24, 2009 at 11:09pm by Scott

Under Bates's scheme, he'd still allow 200 yards rushing.
Just something I noticed when I was reading this bit from Raheem Morris on what his hopes in hiring Jim Bates were.

“I learned a lot of football from Jim Bates, there’s no doubt about it. And I learned a lot of football from Monte Kiffin. I thought we could be that super, mega-morph that we could get together and get this thing going and really get it rolling. And we probably still can. And I’m just going to go do it because it’s my responsibility to do it if I can. I’m going to give you my best input…Now, it’s my job to do it and I’m going to go do it.”

I’m going to assume that the “mega-morph” is some kind of hybrid of the Tampa 2 and Bates’s two-gap scheme and not an assembly of several football players into one 30-foot tall Voltron-type defender (although Tanard Jackson with lions for arms would fucking kick ass.) That seems like too much to take in. Even the teams that play both 3-4 or 4-3 play one scheme 95% of the time and only go into the other on certain occasions. He was really thinking of hiring all new coaches, dismissing the veteran leadership, and then making everyone learn two different defenses? No way. Wasn’t going to happen.

And that thing about “And we probably still can” better not mean that he’s still thinking about pursuing this ridiculousness. It didn’t work with Bates, what makes him think it will work without him? Just go with your Tampa 2, add a few little flourishes and twists to it that I’m sure Bates can show you, get the right players for the plan, and coach them to play like hell. The wheel is already there; there’s no need to re-invent it. Every year or so, put some new tires on it, tweak them a little and go. It worked for years before you ever came along. There’s no reason why it won’t work now.

3 Comments to “What The Hell Is A Megamorph?”

christomahon

christomahon (November 25, 2009 at 09:43am) :

I agree. We never should have messed with our Tampa 2. We just needed more talent from the DE and DT positions to get better. I think Cover 2/Tampa 2 works and if you look at our team and the other teams that primarily use it (Minnesota, Chicago, & Indy) So far this decade you have 2 teams that won a super bowl, one team that made it to a Super Bowl and another that is knocking on the door.

Slow Joe

Slow Joe (November 25, 2009 at 12:46pm) :

I think Rah probably was trying to emulate what Mike Tomlin has done with the Steelers. Remember, Tomlin is a Tampa-2 guy who got hired as a head coach of a team that runs a kick-ass 3-4 scheme. Tomlin wisely did not try to change what Dick Lebeau had created, instead only adding some elements here and there.

Of course, it was a bad idea. Rah was a Tampa-2 guy, the players were Tampa-2 people, it was Rah that forced the switch by hiring the wrong coordinator.

I don’t know why, but I still believe Rah can be a good coach, at least in motivating players. But he better get his ability to manage coaches in line, or he’ll be shown the door.

Wordy Sanchez

wordy_sanchez (November 25, 2009 at 01:48pm) :

Maybe injecting lions into his arms is what got Jackson suspended for four weeks. Maybe Flip could use some lion injections so they stop breaking every time someone high-fives him.

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