John DeFelippo? Cool!

Sixth OC in six years blahblah.  Who tf cares about what happened under Lerner anyway?  What does Lerner have to do with Haslam?  

When Haslam came here, the NFL "helped him out" with Banner and the great Lombardi.  He wasn't satisfied and fired them.  Big freaking deal!  He was taking off his owner training wheels!

He also fired the coaching staff he had inherited.  Big deal!

He hired and fired Chud in one year.  Ok that one bugged even me, because I liked Chud.  However, the late season collapse was irrefutable.

When you fire a head coach, you almost always fire the OC, because the new head coach will want his own people.

I am confiscating the word "dysfunction".  It has three syllables and is hard to spell, so everybody has glommed onto it because they think it makes them sound smart.

I don't see dysfunction.  I see a third year owner establishing an organization.  He kept Farmer and Pettine, despite rampant rumors of Jimmy's itchy trigger finger.  He tried to keep Shanahan as well, and his departure was Kyle's own decision.

There's no dysfunction in that.  I haven't heard anything dysfunctional except for those boneheads texting eachother (not the sidelines) about Kyle's sometimes mystifying playcalling.

Is an owner saying "let's go get him" about a quarterback during the draft dysfunctional?  Check out those words.  It sounds like a suggestion.  It sounds like Ray could have said "I don't think that would be a good idea."

What--Jimmy would fire him for that?  Get a life LaCanfora Barrett.

Anyway, I haven't seen the ignorant boards yet, but I'm sure a lot of people will call DeFellipo a "last choice" and unproven and stuff, but nobody he's ever worked with agrees.

I like that he actually came out with the word "ego" early on in telling us that he wouldn't change everything just to make it his.  He said all the right things.

I liked what he said about the offensive line, specificly it's athleticism.  It sounds to me like he'll leave most elements of the zone blocking scheme in place.  Like I said.

He even said he'd change his own terminology rather than make the players (especially the quarterback) learn a new language.

I love this guy!  He's pragmatic and logical and (most importantly) able to consciously suppress his own ego.  That's the first and most important thing one has to learn in order to think with one's brain.

Here's how that goes:

"Hey, that's not the play I called!  Oh--that's why." (Instead of "Hey that's not the play I called!  What's he doing?  Dammit!  I don't care if it worked who does the think he is running this offense?")

He isn't just saying all the right things like a politician does, but getting specific.  I'll leave the terminology alone.  I'll keep whatever works.  I like the wide recievers (yeah he said that!)  I'll do whatever I can to smooth out the transition.  I don't know who will be under center.

He sounds just like Head Coach Blunt Force Trauma!  I love it!

Some knuckleheads will try blaming him for Jamarcus Russel, or for Terrell Pryor not emerging into a superstar.  That's like blaming Andrew Luck for being beaten by the Patriots or Rodgers for losing to the Seahawks.

This guy coached Marc Sanchez to the AFC championship game as a rookie.

And I watched some of the Seahawks vs. the Packers game.

Russell Wilson loves football, had a boatload of college experience in a pro style offense, and works very hard--all of which separates him from Johnny Manziel.

However, from a purely physical standpoint, Manziel is quite similar.  DeFellipo lacks the training to perform brain transplants, and can't legally use sodium pentathol or hypnosis, but for sure has something to work with.

It just depends on whether or not Johnny can look at Wilson and say "I want to be like that".  If he cooperates with DeFellipo, he can take a step in that direction.  If he doesn't, he's a bust.  I kind of see it going that way, unfortunately.

Not so for Mariota, Hundley, or maybe even Marc Sanchez.

DeFellipo was one of my own three favorites early on.  He's getting too much credit for Derrick Carr in Oakland, as Carr had a lot of games in college with experience under center.  Still, he made a rookie look ok.

One thing he didn't discuss that I believe he'll do is simplify the playcalling.

Kyle Shanahan came here with an established system which was very hard to learn not just for the quarterback, but the receivers.

Experts I respect commented on it.  They didn't think that all that verbage in a playcall was necessary when players know what they're doing.

This could be a symptom of Kyle's apparent condition (controlfreakitis).  That's insecurity, and is ego-related.  The players didn't like it.  Hoyer was able to master it after awhile, but Johnny wasn't ready for it.

How much of that was him trying to remember all the words he had to say to communicate the playcall?

And knowing that if the player doesn't love the game, he will fail--is it wise to make him HATE coming to work?  

If somebody slipped Manziel some truth serum, I'll bet he'd say "That was bullshit.  I thought I was supposed to play football, not get a PHD.  You run a post, you do a ten yard dig I can do.  I used to have so much fun, til they put me in chains."

Not that I'm a big Johnny fan, or am all that confident that the more user-friendly DeFellipo can necessarily salvage him.  But this guy and (I hope) a better quarterback coach will give him his best chance.