Dornado

Bill Belichick and the Pats seemed to do alright with a defensive minded coach and a franchise QB as their best player.

Honestly, I don't think Lovie Smith is a perfect coach (he certainly is no Bill Belichick) but I don't think he's a terrible coach either. I don't buy into the "the league has figured out his defense" thing because it is usually parroted by folks operating under some illusion that we are constantly running the Cover 2... and it sort of ignores the fact that we've allowed the 3rd fewest points in the league (and have been top 5 in that category 5 times in Smith's tenure... including two of the last three seasons). Our faults relate more directly to a lack of offensive talent, with the obvious glaring weaknesses on the offensive line and in the receiving corps. Angelo left the cupboard bare in those areas (and in some others, like young depth on defense). If it is the case that Lovie Smith is responsible for those personnel decisions, or, as some have mentioned, if he's overruling the better judgement of Phil Emery then I would agree that problem needs to be addressed (either through Smith's removal or shift in organizational philosophy) but I haven't heard much concrete evidence to that effect beyond "I heard it on the score", so I'm not quite sure what to do with that one. To me, the "Fire Lovie" conversation is entirely contingent on who the replacement is.

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Hoodey

Well yeah, Belichick is a far superior coach to a Lovie Smith or Sean Payton. He is going to be able to do things that other defensive coaches wouldn't do with Cutler.

The Patriots have never been an offensive team.. They got Brady with a very late pick, but you look at the teams that have won for New England, and they were centered around very good defenses. While Brady is a talent, he's perhaps the best game-manager of any QB ever. I'm not saying he is a "game manager" the way you'd say it about Orton, where he's that first and foremost. He's a talented guy who also happens to be a great game manager. So it makes sense to put him on one side and defensive assets on the other. And Moss, Gronkowski, and all of these other guys are irrelevant. When they were winning SUPER BOWLS this was the approach.

You don't need the kind of commitment to offense with Brady and Belichick that you do with Cutler.

I'm not saying Smith is a bad coach. I'm saying that I think he's so-so to pretty good, but that we just need an offensive guy of around the same caliber. Let the defense be the weak side of the ball in terms of asset disbursement, and my argument is that you want the head coach to be on the strong side of the ball in that sense.

That's if you have a GOOD QB who is hardly great like Cutler AND it's something you can do with a pretty good NOT GREAT coach like Sean Payton.

Give me an example like Brady and Belichick and all you are arguing is that a great QB and great coach can do things that a coach and QB who are merely GOOD cannot.

B&B mentioned Sean Payton tonight. I'd agree. I would have loved to have had Jim Harbaugh when he was available. Just a GOOD offensive coach. You don't need Bill Walsh.

I'm not so much against Lovie as I feel that the Lovie thing has run it's course and it's time to have an offensive coach.

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I'm just here to talk about basketball. Feel free to exchange ideas with me, disagree or debate. I'm not interested in what you think of me as a person and/or large posts about this. Debate the ideas, or don't. If you have something about me like a really weird post of a link of me on the radio, just PM me.