Mike Zimmer hired by Bengals

[Yachtzee]

I get your point, but I can't recall any 3-4 defenses that Sam Adams ever played on...or at least when he was still a productive player.

Is all this 3-4 talk coming from within the Bengals organization at all? It seems like every year fans get all worked up about switching to the 3-4 like it's some panacea, and the Bengals never do it. I suspect the reason has to do with not having 4 starting LBs rather than who they might have to anchor the middle of the defensive line.

[Boss-Hog]

Is all this 3-4 talk coming from within the Bengals organization at all? It seems like every year fans get all worked up about switching to the 3-4 like it's some panacea, and the Bengals never do it. I suspect the reason has to do with not having 4 starting LBs rather than who they might have to anchor the middle of the defensive line.

If Geoff Hobson is to be believed, it appears we'll be staying with the 4-3. Zimmer has always employed 4-3 defenses with the exception of when Parcells retained him in Dallas. You may find the following information interesting from the latest article on the Bengals' web site:

http://www.bengals.com/news/news.asp?story_id=6598

Lewis, who has known Zimmer since their assistant days in the Big Sky Conference at Idaho State and Weber State, respectively, said that Zimmer has agreed to work with the 4-3 foundation that is already in place.

"Neither one of us wants to reinvent the wheel," Lewis said, leaving open the possibility of a 3-4. "We don't want to have to go back and revisit some things. I think we've been through those points and we're looking forward now."

Zimmer, who has yet to study his new players in-depth, says it won't be entirely his playbook from seven seasons as the coordinator in Dallas and this past year in Atlanta.

I liked the hire fairly well once it became obvious that Rex Ryan was a pipe dream, but I'm in complete agreement with those that said it's the personnel that truly matters and we flat out don't have it on defense right now.

[WMR]

"Neither one of us wants to reinvent the wheel," Lewis said, leaving open the possibility of a 3-4. "We don't want to have to go back and revisit some things. I think we've been through those points and we're looking forward now."

I agree that personnel is the most important aspect, but this comment out of Marvin is just retarded.

[traderumor]

I agree that personnel is the most important aspect, but this comment out of Marvin is just retarded.

Why?

[Bip Roberts]

Zimmer said he wants to do both 3-4 and 4-3. Offseason hopes and dreams already building

[WMR]

Why?

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it seems to me Marvin should be revisiting just about anything and everything within the scope of this football team capable of being revisited.

[blumj]

Is all this 3-4 talk coming from within the Bengals organization at all? It seems like every year fans get all worked up about switching to the 3-4 like it's some panacea, and the Bengals never do it. I suspect the reason has to do with not having 4 starting LBs rather than who they might have to anchor the middle of the defensive line.

It tends to be a pretty ugly transition for a lot of teams. Look at the Jets.

[Mario-Rijo]

From watching the presser and one on one w/ Zimmer on Bengals.com he basically stated that whatever personnell he has to work with will decide what base defense to play, but that it looks to be a 4-3 base currently. He seems to be the proper guy for this particular job IMO. His expertise seems to fall into a category of teacher/motivator. Which is exactly what this defense needs.

As for having to have great personnell, that's usually the rule. But I submit that Zimmer turned around a defense in Dallas that at the time was pretty abysmal in that respect.

A quote from CNNSI.com writer Josh Elliott in his '01 'boys preview.

Even grimmer news for Cowboys fans: The offense will be expected to carry the team this fall. Last year the Dallas defense ranked last in the NFL against the run and had only 25 sacks. Three of that unit's best players -- tackles Chad Hennings and Leon Lett and end Alonzo Spellman -- are gone. The Cowboys' attempts to stop opponents this fall will be recognizable only to fans of NFL teams based in Ohio.

This was the starting unit he had to work with: (The 4th ranked overall defense in '01).

DE: Peppi Zellner
DT: Michael Myers
DT: Brandon Noble
DE: Greg Ellis

OLB: Darren Hambrick
MLB: Dat Nguyen
OLB: Dexter Coakley

CB: Izell Reese (an ok Safety playing CB)
FS: George Teague
SS: Darren Woodson
CB: Mario Edwards

And if you think that's bad you ought to see the back-ups!


This was the talk at the time about Zimmer.

After helping shape the Cowboys pass defense into one of the NFL's best in the second half of the 1990s, Mike Zimmer was handed the responsibility of coordinating the Cowboys defense on Feb. 1, 2000. During his nine seasons in Dallas, Zimmer has been a part of four NFC Eastern Division titles and the Cowboys Super Bowl XXX win over Pittsburgh. Five times in those nine seasons, the Dallas defense has finished the year ranked in the top 10 in total defense, and six times the club has ranked in the top 10 in pass defense. In three seasons directing the Dallas defense, Zimmer has earned respect and recognition from around the NFL as he oversaw the retooling of his unit into a younger, quicker, faster and better squad in a very short period of time.

Despite playing with the youngest secondary in the NFL in 2002, Zimmer's squad finished the year 18th in the NFL in total defense, 15th against the run and 19th against the pass. On a play-by-play basis, the Cowboys were sixth in the league in yards-per-play, third in rushing yards-per-attempt and 13th in passing yards-per-attempt. Only six teams allowed fewer touchdowns than the 32 given up by Dallas, and the 10 rushing touchdowns given up by Dallas was the fifth best total in the league. Five times during the year, the Dallas defense allowed 13 points-or-less. Setting the pace with young players, Zimmer had two rookies, safety Roy Williams and cornerback Derek Ross, tie for fourth in the NFC with five interceptions each.

In 2001, the Cowboys allowed 1,710 rushing yards, a figure that was 927 yards less than the club allowed during the 2000 season. That figure represented the largest turnaround in the NFL in 2001. The club's overall defense showed a 730-yard improvement when compared to the previous season, jumping the club from an overall NFL ranking of 19th in 2000 to fourth in 2001. The Dallas defense jumped from 31st against the run in 2000 to 13th, allowing an average of 106.9 yards-per-game on the ground. The Cowboys were third in the NFL (second in the NFC) in pass defense, giving up an average of 180.6 yards-per-game. The unit gave up fewer than 200 passing yards in seven of its last nine games, while allowing only one opposing quarterback to throw for more than 300 yards in 16 regular season games

http://www.dallascowboys.com/team_coach_mike_zimmer.cfm


Certainly it's just an exception to the rule but Zimmer did alot more with a lot less than he will have to work with here. Why you say, good technique and a can do attitude!

[Screwball]

I know this makes 2 plugs in 2 threads, but I found this to be very pertinent to the discussion. From Josh Kirkendall at cincyjungle.com :

UPDATE: I asked Blogging the Boys senior blogger, Grizz, his thoughts on Zimmer. Good stuff.

Mike Zimmer was a very good defensive coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys for a number of years. Even in the dark days earlier in this decade when we had some pretty crappy teams, there were years were the defense was actually good. And Zimmer didn't lose his job in Dallas from lack of production out of his charges but he ran into a philosophical factor that hastened his departure.

Zimmer runs a 4-3 defense that usually played it safe in Dallas. He wasn't an attacking, blitz-machine coordinator like Jim Johnson in Philadelphia or other high-risk/high-reward coordinators. He believes in guys being in position and making the play. A lot of the time we just didn't have the horses to blitz effectively and cover-up the weaknesses in our secondary so he probably played it more cautious than he might have wanted. During his time here we used a fast, undersized defense - that's pre-Parcells. Our linebackers were some of the smallest in the league before Parcells arrived, but they could run sideline-to-sideline and they could tackle.

He has a fiery style in practice and will get on players when they aren't preforming. His departure was the result of Parcells wanting to implement the 3-4 defense and that turned out to be an issue. In the transition year when we played a lot of 3-4 mixed with some 4-3, Zimmer seemed to struggle with the 3-4 concepts and it was probably a poor match between him and Parcells, who obviously knew what he wanted out of the defense. After that, they parted ways.

Overall, I think Zimmer is a solid coordinator. He's not the flashiest guy in public and his defense is more meat-and-potatoes than sizzle. But I would expect that he'll improve your defense.

[cincrazy]

I have a hard time believing this team can shift to a 3-4 when it has no good interior lineman to plug in the middle of a 3-4 line. Also, this team has a hard enough time finding 3 capable linebacker's to be on the field at one time, I can hardly imagine them being able to field 4 linebacker's at once.

[traderumor]

After reading that blog article, assuming accuracy, it sounds like the same kind of passive D that Bresnahan was playing. "Get in position, make plays." The only possible bright spot I see is that Zimmer has apparently had success getting guys in position to make plays and then making them (which the Bengals have been notorious poor tacklers during the Marvin era). Perhaps he actually knows how to teach this type of D, whereas Bresnahan was trying the same method, but clearly did not know how.

[Screwball]

After reading that blog article, assuming accuracy, it sounds like the same kind of passive D that Bresnahan was playing. "Get in position, make plays." The only possible bright spot I see is that Zimmer has apparently had success getting guys in position to make plays and then making them (which the Bengals have been notorious poor tacklers during the Marvin era). Perhaps he actually knows how to teach this type of D, whereas Bresnahan was trying the same method, but clearly did not know how.

Yeah that's the vibe I kinda got from it too. Although the blogger makes a very cogent point when he says,

A lot of the time we just didn't have the horses to blitz effectively and cover-up the weaknesses in our secondary so he probably played it more cautious than he might have wanted.

That really describes the Bengals defense. When you don't have guys like Pollack, Thurman, Brooks - i.e. athletic beasts that can effectively get to the QB on a blitz - then bringing guys actually only hurts you. Caleb Miller, Dhani Jones, Anthony Schlegel, Madieu, etc. are all guys that are easily nullified by protection sets. The easiest way to give up an explosive play to the opposing offense is to have your blitz get picked up.

At any rate, I sure hope Zimmer brings some sort of How to Tackle for Dummies book with him. The Bengals' tackling, from an angle of pursuit and technique standpoint, looked worse to me than when I watched St. X. I'm not exaggerating either.

[Bip Roberts]

All zimmer needs to do is make a disciplined D and we should be fine.

He needs some veteran leadership on that side of the ball besides the cry babies like Delta of course still though.

[BuckeyeRedleg]

With the addition of Brooks and others (Pollack?, Thurmond?) and the continued maturity of the secondary, as long as the Bengals draft defense (front 7) with their first two picks, my opinion is that Zimmer will be looking like a genius/savior in 2008.

I'm thinking the O continues to be top 10 and the D moves up into the 15-20 range. Definitely a recipe for 11-5 and maybe a little better with some long overdue luck.

I think in the long run, 2007 will be looked at as a good thing. The team needed a gut check and now we know who should stay and who should go. Let's move on.

[Yachtzee]

With the addition of Brooks and others (Pollack?, Thurmond?) and the continued maturity of the secondary, as long as the Bengals draft defense (front 7) with their first two picks, my opinion is that Zimmer will be looking like a genius/savior in 2008.

I'm thinking the O continues to be top 10 and the D moves up into the 15-20 range. Definitely a recipe for 11-5 and maybe a little better with some long overdue luck.

I think in the long run, 2007 will be looked at as a good thing. The team needed a gut check and now we know who should stay and who should go. Let's move on.

I think the Bengals should pretty much go on the assumption that Pollack and Thurman will never play for them again. If one of them makes it back, it's a bonus. Just don't neglect to pick up some help at LB just because you think one of these guys might be able to join the team next year.