IS GETTING ITS DRAFT BOARD READY
LET'S START with some numbers.
Three years ago, the Giants hired Steve Spagnuolo as their defensive coordinator. Yes, he was 12 years older than Sean McDermott is right now (47 compared to 35), but his NFL resume was pretty similar to the one McDermott is bringing to his new job as Eagles defensive coordinator.
Spagnuolo spent 3 years coaching the Eagles' linebackers. Three years coaching the secondary. Two years as an entry-level defensive assistant.
At the time, nobody questioned whether Spags was "ready" to be an NFL coordinator. Nobody wondered whether he was in over his head. He graduated summa cum laude from the Jim Johnson School of Defense, and that's all Giants coach Tom Coughlin needed to know when he hired him to replace Tim Lewis.
Spagnuolo took everything he had learned from Johnson to the Meadowlands and turned a Giants defense that had been ranked 25th in total defense the year before he got there into one that finished seventh in 2007. It registered a league-best 53 sacks (up from 32 in '06). It improved from 28th against the pass to 11th, from 14th against the run to eighth.
Perhaps most significantly, Spagnuolo's defense totally dominated Andy Reid's offense in their two '07 meetings, holding the Eagles to a total of 16 points and Donovan McNabb to a puny 5.2 yards per attempt.
The point?
The point is that we shouldn't assume McDermott is doomed to failure just because he's younger than most of my ties and is trying to fill the enormous shoes of one of the best defensive coaches of our time. He's a smart guy who has worked his butt off to get this opportunity and deserves to be judged on his own merits.
"There is one thing I know, and that is that this system, it works," McDermott said at the weekend news conference to officially announce his promotion. "Jim has spent a considerable amount of time in his coaching career researching and finding things that work and finding things that didn't work, quite frankly, and I'm going to respect that and we're going to build on that. From there we'll add wrinkles."
McDermott has one very important thing going for him as he replaces Johnson: He is taking over one of the very best defenses in the league. This ain't "F Troop." He's inheriting a unit that finished in the top four in just about every significant defensive category last season - points allowed (fourth), yards allowed (third), passing yards allowed (third), opponent completion percentage (second), rushing yards allowed (fourth), sacks per pass play (third), third-down efficiency (second) and first downs allowed (third).
To be honest, I don't envy McDermott. All eyes are going to be on him this season. He is constantly going to be compared to Johnson, particularly when things don't go as planned. Every time there is a coverage breakdown, every time a blitz backfires, every time he is slow to counter something the opposing offense is doing, somebody will suggest that that wouldn't have happened if Johnson still were around.
"I'm sure that there are people out there that see the [lack of] experience factor, and I'll acknowledge that, especially with the shoes that I'm looking to fill, being Jim's," McDermott said. "I don't think I have to win anybody over necessarily. I think that I just have to continue being who I am. That's gotten me to where I am today, and that should serve me well moving forward."
McDermott can't replace Johnson, nor should anyone expect him to. He can't replace the world of experience Jim brought to the table. He can't suddenly acquire the knowledge Johnson got from years and years of gridiron battles, both the ones he won and the ones he lost. He can only take what the old man taught him and try to make the most of it as he gains his own experience and establishes his own reputation.
"The thing that made Jim so special is, there's no Jim Johnson playbook," said NFL TV analyst Brian Baldinger. "His ideas about how to get to the quarterback, how to disguise defenses, it evolved every week. His playbook was in his mind, much like it was with Bill Walsh.
"Sean may understand the principles [of Johnson's defense]. Spags and all of the guys who have coached under Jim understand the principles. But they can't keep it fresh and stay ahead of the curve.
"If you play the Giants twice a year, [Johnson] wouldn't show you the same thing in the second game that he showed you in the first game. I don't know if Sean can do that. I don't know if anybody can do that."
Johnson was a brilliant counterpuncher. He had an incredible knack for quickly figuring out what an offense was trying to do to his defense and plugging the leak.
"He's been around the game an awful long time," said ESPN "Monday Night Football" analyst Ron Jaworski. "Football is a game of adjustments. Diagnosing, anticipating what the offense is going to do. Jim could get in your head. He was smart enough to know what the offense was trying to do.
"He probably was the best I've ever seen at breaking down protections. He didn't blitz the quarterback. He blitzed your protections. He anticipated your slides, your scheme, what you were going to do. And he broke down your protections.
"As good as Sean may be at understanding the X's-and-O's, it's those adjustments [that Johnson was able to make]. He's not going to be as quick to diagnose and react as Jim was. Jim has seen it all. He could watch three series of a game and say, 'OK, this is what this guy is trying to do to me. I've got his protections. Now I'm going to counter them with this.' "
When asked over the weekend what was the most important advice the student had received from the professor, McDermott smiled and said, "Blitz, and blitz again."
McDermott will blitz. Whether he'll be as innovative as Johnson was, only time will tell. A peach-fuzz-faced lieutenant just out of West Point might be a little less willing to dial up an all-out assault on the enemy than a grizzled veteran who has done it a hundred times.
"You lose some real fiber with Jim Johnson not being there, whether you want to admit it or not," said former NFL coach Jon Gruden, who will work with Jaworski in the "Monday Night Football" booth this season. "He's been on the cutting edge [of defense] for a long time. He was a little different. More aggressive than most. He thought outside the box.
"I never saw anybody blitz five guys through a side before I met Jim. The double-A [gap] package. The nickel-jam package. All the different things he's been able to do. You just don't replace people like that. People like that don't come across your path very often." *
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