[stupac2]

Another thing to keep in mind is that there's often an adjustment period when bringing in totally new coordinators. I'm sure any niners fan can tell you how many different regimes Alex Smith played under, and how that stifled his development. Other than the hilariously difficult schedule (@UCF! @KSU! ND!), Stanford looks to be pretty well set up for next year, do we really want to switch coordinators and have to basically start over on that side of the ball?

I think the case for coaching change is strongest when you can look at the scheme they're running and say that it's clearly out of date or bad for the players. That was the main criticism of McCarthy, he was running an old-school scheme that required his receivers to be able to get separation, and other than Adams they couldn't. He wasn't looking at what the Rams and Chiefs (or, hell, the Patriots a decade ago!) were doing to create natural rubs and beat coverages with scheme. He also hilariously misjudged the talent on his roster multiple times. I don't think he's the sole problem in GB, but at this point he's clearly part of it and I get wanting to move on.

But what of that is true of Anderson? As far as I can tell we're not being killed on scheme, we just don't have enough talented, healthy players. Perhaps you can fault development/recruiting for that, but development falls more on position coaches and it's not at all obvious to me that our recruiting could be much better (at least in ways that Anderson could fix, the fact that we're routinely under 85 seems more like Shaw's fault and should definitely be fixed).

So I don't really buy the argument that changes are needed, on either side of the ball. I think the whole system is too opaque to outsiders and there are too many variables to assign blame with confidence.

[stupac2]

Another thing to keep in mind is that there's often an adjustment period when bringing in totally new coordinators. I'm sure any niners fan can tell you how many different regimes Alex Smith played under, and how that stifled his development. Other than the hilariously difficult schedule (@UCF! @KSU! ND!), Stanford looks to be pretty well set up for next year, do we really want to switch coordinators and have to basically start over on that side of the ball?

I think the case for coaching change is strongest when you can look at the scheme they're running and say that it's clearly out of date or bad for the players. That was the main criticism of McCarthy, he was running an old-school scheme that required his receivers to be able to get separation, and other than Adams they couldn't. He wasn't looking at what the Rams and Chiefs (or, hell, the Patriots a decade ago!) were doing to create natural rubs and beat coverages with scheme. He also hilariously misjudged the talent on his roster multiple times. I don't think he's the sole problem in GB, but at this point he's clearly part of it and I get wanting to move on.

But what of that is true of Anderson? As far as I can tell we're not being killed on scheme, we just don't have enough talented, healthy players. Perhaps you can fault development/recruiting for that, but development falls more on position coaches and it's not at all obvious to me that our recruiting could be much better (at least in ways that Anderson could fix, the fact that we're routinely under 85 seems more like Shaw's fault and should definitely be fixed).

So I don't really buy the argument that changes are needed, on either side of the ball. I think the whole system is too opaque to outsiders and there are too many variables to assign blame with confidence.