Ken Norton Jr. Has Been Fired

[toffee]

Look bad between the 20s hurts time of procession, which led to tired legs in 4th quarters.

I get that, but it hurt us so little compared to our offense's TOP problems that it's like, why focus on it? If our defense managed to improve to average in terms of our opponents average drive time, we would have still been near the bottom quarter of the league for TOP.

Meanwhile, if our defense stayed bottom 3 but we improved our offense's drive times to average, we would jump into the top half of the league.

In other words, one side of the ball was dragging us down significantly worse than the other.

I heard that in some bedrooms:
A: Why couldn't you come a bit quicker?
B: Why couldn't you last a bit longer?

 

[BASF]

Now that Matt Nagy is out of work, I would like us to have him come in as the DC.

The improvement of the defense over the past few months is pretty good, but once again not being prepared for the start of the season was unacceptable.

 

[captSE]

I would say something is getting done but it’s not. This is Pete window dressing.

Based on what? You don't know that.

 

[kf3339]

So at least PC is looking at a lot of options instead of just picking a yes man for the job. It may end that way, but certainly hope not. Also, PC must know this job is very near the end for him and he may finally be more interested in the right guy this time, instead of said yes man. At least I hope so.

 

[Chawker]

If I was Pete, I'd hire Zimmer tell him your philosophy about the way you wanted it to be run then get the hell out of Mikes way.

And draft some friggen pass rushers, no whimps !

:229031_cheers:

 

[James in PA]

If I was Pete, I'd hire Zimmer tell him your philosophy about the way you wanted it to be run then get the hell out of Mikes way.

And draft some friggen pass rushers, no whimps !

:229031_cheers:

I'd love to land a guy who not only has previous experience as a DC but was so good at it that he had a HC gig at some point. Unfortunately DQ isn't going to be an option, but hell yes to a guy like Zimmer, Fangio or Lovie Smith.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[flv]

Now that Matt Nagy is out of work, I would like us to have him come in as the DC.

The improvement of the defense over the past few months is pretty good, but once again not being prepared for the start of the season was unacceptable.

Nagy is not a defensive coach. Maybe you are thinking of someone else?

 

[Appyhawk]

I don't understand the comment "we don' have time for a remake" of our defense. I think a scheme change is exactly what we need. Yes, there are things about Pete's scheme that are effective, but taking advantage of player skill is not one of them.
I HATE that we spent so much time playing 'bend but don't break' prevent type defense. We SUCK at that. I want to see us implement an attacking defense that DICTATES to the opposing offense. We already have players that would thrive in that mode. Start with Adams, who is born to be an attacker, not a downfield coverage guy. Same for several guys we have on the edge. We just aren't using our players in ways that capitalize on their real ability. Give the guys a chance to be what they are.
Playing reactionary defense is the same thing as compromising before you even say what it is you are after. You are giving up half of what you want most before actual play even begins. Let's get offensive on defense! It's THE BALL we're after. Let's go get it.

 

[pittpnthrs]

Start with Adams, who is born to be an attacker, not a downfield coverage guy.

This is what drives me insane. Adams is a safety. A safety needs to be able to cover people. If your going to use a safety primarily for attacking the QB, that leaves one less person in coverage. Instead of using a safety for that reason, how about grabbing an effective person who's main job is to do that to begin with. I'll never understand throwing band aids at actual wounds on the defense.

 

[ZagHawk]

I don't understand the comment "we don' have time for a remake" of our defense.

If anything did happen during "the meeting" last week, it was probably an understanding that both JS and PC's asses are on the hot seat this upcoming season. Therefore in their eyes, they don't have time for a remake. PC is also so optimistic he believes every team he has is a SB contender and just needs to execute better, which is a double edged sword because it also discredits the truly talented teams he did have during certain years. It's that whole "if everyone is special, than no one is special" concept.

It would be interesting to hear PC give an honest assessment of whether or not his 2014 team and 2019-2020 teams had the same talent on the field. Because I think 99% of fans would agree the 2014 team was quite a bit more talented than the team on the field these last few seasons, YET that 2014 team needed a miracle to win the NFCCG and lost the SB.

So if these current teams aren't even close to as talented to that team (that still couldn't get it done) the only thing that would be a difference maker would be improved coaching and game planning to execute better than the 2014 to make up for the drop in talent (certainly doesn't seem that way either does it?)

 

[ZagHawk]

Start with Adams, who is born to be an attacker, not a downfield coverage guy.

This is what drives me insane. Adams is a safety. A safety needs to be able to cover people. If your going to use a safety primarily for attacking the QB, that leaves one less person in coverage. Instead of using a safety for that reason, how about grabbing an effective person who's main job is to do that to begin with. I'll never understand throwing band aids at actual wounds on the defense.

I'm with you here. While everyone last year was applauding his most sacks for a DB record, I honestly questioned what that meant overall. Stats can often be misleading. i.e. Having the most Running Yards or being a top rushing team by yards alone, yeah it sounds great, but are you also running the ball 30% more than the other teams yet only have 10% more yards? Maybe it's NOT that effective. The same can be done for passing as well, the QBs with a ton of yards and TDs but if they end up with just as many INTs just means they're gun slingers not HOF QBs either. Yards after contact for a RB could be a case of an amazing strong runner, or it could just mean your O-line sucks and you get contacted on yard 1 every down. QB pass completion percentage, has usually been very high for RW, but another huge criticism has been that he holds the ball longer than any other QB so he only throws open passes and it also leads to more pressure on him, more sacks and makes his O-Line look worse than they are.

Anyway Adams is a gimmick player. I didn't know much about him when he first got traded for and i remember hearing criticisms he couldn't cover, even in the season he got all his sacks, and yup those Critics were certainly right.

 

[pittpnthrs]

Start with Adams, who is born to be an attacker, not a downfield coverage guy.

This is what drives me insane. Adams is a safety. A safety needs to be able to cover people. If your going to use a safety primarily for attacking the QB, that leaves one less person in coverage. Instead of using a safety for that reason, how about grabbing an effective person who's main job is to do that to begin with. I'll never understand throwing band aids at actual wounds on the defense.

I'm with you here. While everyone last year was applauding his most sacks for a DB record, I honestly questioned what that meant overall. Stats can often be misleading. i.e. Having the most Running Yards or being a top rushing team by yards alone, yeah it sounds great, but are you also running the ball 30% more than the other teams yet only have 10% more yards? Maybe it's NOT that effective. The same can be done for passing as well, the QBs with a ton of yards and TDs but if they end up with just as many INTs just means they're gun slingers not HOF QBs either. Yards after contact for a RB could be a case of an amazing strong runner, or it could just mean your O-line sucks and you get contacted on yard 1 every down. QB pass completion percentage, has usually been very high for RW, but another huge criticism has been that he holds the ball longer than any other QB so he only throws open passes and it also leads to more pressure on him, more sacks and makes his O-Line look worse than they are.

Anyway Adams is a gimmick player. I didn't know much about him when he first got traded for and i remember hearing criticisms he couldn't cover, even in the season he got all his sacks, and yup those Critics were certainly right.

I hear you. All everybody seems to talk about is the sacks he got his first year here, but what was the benefit of those sacks when the defense couldnt stop anybody and was giving up 500 yards a game through the air? They were practically meaningless.

 

[Fade]

Very odd to see people defend KNJ throughout the year, but now that he's fired now no one wants to stand on the table for him? Where is the anger? Didn't he get a raw deal? C'mon, c'mon, I want to hear the arguments for the 25th ranked Defense via DVOA (by far the lowest ranked unit on the team.) And given their talent at all levels of the defense they shouldn't have ranked so poorly. Which points directly to subpar coaching.

The Seahawks were the best defense at not giving up explosive pass plays of 20+ yards, but they had to sacrifice it all to get that done. Ranking dead last in giving up pass plays of 10-19 yards. Which makes sense as they couldn't get off the field to save their lives.

Pete also came up with a 5-2 front that he started with at the beginning of the season. As a means to try and counter the outside zone running games in the division, it failed. They had the worst run defense in the NFL to go along with the worst pass defense in NFL history. Pete wisely abandoned it and went back to the way they've always done it, and the run defense was outstanding the rest of the year, but too little too late as they had already dug themselves quite the hole to start the year which cost them games early in the season.

Ken Norton was trash from the jump in way over his head at DC. He was a poorman's Gus Bradley at best if you want to be nice. A former LBer's coach who loved himself some soft zone and was always a step behind the opponent. He will never be a DC in the league again. KNJ is a tremendous LBers coach and could stay in the league if he is willing to accept a demotion, but he had no business ever being a DC. I mean what kind of idiot would keep Ken Norton Jr. at DC for 4 years? What a joke. No accountability, and points to much bigger problems within the organization if decisions like this are allowed to go unchecked.

And this is where Pete lost me. He'd rather have a "yes man" than a guy that could've helped him build a championship defense, scared of outside ideas. I used to call Pete a defensive genius, but after the first 2 years of Ken Norton, nope. With Pete's connections throughout the NFL and College, Allen's money, and the way Pete treats his coaches, he could have the very best candidates out there lined up if he wanted them. Like a Zimmer or a Fangio. It would certainly lighten the load for Pete as those guys have built top defenses where ever they've gone as defensive coordinators.

4 years wasted. 4 years of ownership's investment and time, 4 years of the fan's investment and time, 4 years of the players on the roster's time, 4 years of the Franchise QB's prime.

The Ken Norton hire was a disaster and that is why you're seeing no pushback on this firing.

 

[LTH]

Very odd to see people defend KNJ throughout the year, but now that he's fired now no one wants to stand on the table for him? Where is the anger? Didn't he get a raw deal? C'mon, c'mon, I want to hear the arguments for the 25th ranked Defense via DVOA (by far the lowest ranked unit on the team.) And given their talent at all levels of the defense they shouldn't have ranked so poorly. Which points directly to subpar coaching.

The Seahawks were the best defense at not giving up explosive pass plays of 20+ yards, but they had to sacrifice it all to get that done. Ranking dead last in giving up pass plays of 10-19 yards. Which makes sense as they couldn't get off the field to save their lives.

Pete also came up with a 5-2 front that he started with at the beginning of the season. As a means to try and counter the outside zone running games in the division, it failed. They had the worst run defense in the NFL to go along with the worst pass defense in NFL history. Pete wisely abandoned it and went back to the way they've always done it, and the run defense was outstanding the rest of the year, but too little too late as they had already dug themselves quite the hole to start the year which cost them games early in the season.

Ken Norton was trash from the jump in way over his head at DC. He was a poorman's Gus Bradley at best if you want to be nice. A former LBer's coach who loved himself some soft zone and was always a step behind the opponent. He will never be a DC in the league again. KNJ is a tremendous LBers coach and could stay in the league if he is willing to accept a demotion, but he had no business ever being a DC. I mean what kind of idiot would keep Ken Norton Jr. at DC for 4 years? What a joke. No accountability, and points to much bigger problems within the organization if decisions like this are allowed to go unchecked.

And this is where Pete lost me. He'd rather have a "yes man" than a guy that could've helped him build a championship defense, scared of outside ideas. I used to call Pete a defensive genius, but after the first 2 years of Ken Norton, nope. With Pete's connections throughout the NFL and College, Allen's money, and the way Pete treats his coaches, he could have the very best candidates out there lined up if he wanted them. Like a Zimmer or a Fangio. It would certainly lighten the load for Pete as those guys have built top defenses where ever they've gone as defensive coordinators.

4 years wasted. 4 years of ownership's investment and time, 4 years of the fan's investment and time, 4 years of the players on the roster's time, 4 years of the Franchise QB's prime.

The Ken Norton hire was a disaster and that is why you're seeing no pushback on this firing.

I have not commented much on the firing because I don't know the details of why he was fired. for you they might be obvious as you have a whole set of reasons why you think he should be fired. I would like to hear from Pete why he was fired and the circumstances behind that. but anger? No... not from me.


LTH

 

[DarkVictory23]

Very odd to see people defend KNJ throughout the year, but now that he's fired now no one wants to stand on the table for him? Where is the anger? Didn't he get a raw deal? C'mon, c'mon, I want to hear the arguments for the 25th ranked Defense via DVOA (by far the lowest ranked unit on the team.) And given their talent at all levels of the defense they shouldn't have ranked so poorly. Which points directly to subpar coaching.

Well, I defended our defense throughout the year and I already did so multiple times in this thread, so does that count?

And DVOA is kind of a bad metric to base our team on this year because our problems uniquely defy the DVOA system because it measures things on a per play basis. Your team is ranked higher if they are more likely to 'win' on every play than not. In some ways, this is a good thing (way more unique incidents to create an aggregate score with) but for a team like ours, it vastly overrates our offense and vastly underrates our defense.

We already know that on any given 'play' our defense was likely to 'lose'. They are terrible between the 20s. Nobody has argued this. They give up lots of yards. But those plays don't mean as much to the result of an actual game as things like performance on 4th down or in the red zone. And our team was consistenly VERY good in those situations. And since we also didn't give up many 20+ yards insta-touchdowns, well, the fact that we might 'lose' the average play doesn't lead to the other team, you know... scoring? That's far more important than how many 'yards' or 'plays' we give up.

Our offense is the opposite. We were basically the three and out kings. But a three and out drive might actually have two 'successful' plays (say, a rush and short pass that total like 7 yards) but fail on the third. Well, in that instance we only had 'one' fail play. So great, we 'won' two out of three plays but the other team still gets the ball. Add on the fact that we could be so explosive (touchdown drives that consist of only a handful of plays), their system thinks our offense is actually 'efficient' when in reality it was very boom or bust (usually bust). On top of that, we were so good at not turning the ball over, we typically didn't get 'punished' by their system the way a team that was as bad as our offense was usually would be because teams that can't sustain drives as badly as the Seahawks this year typically also turn the ball over more.

As I already pointed out in this thread, if our average offensive drive had simply increased from bottom of the league (and by a good margin) to tied for bottom third, the number of drives taken away from the other team would have made our team a top 5 scoring defense. Our defense wouldn't have had to do ANYTHING to become a top 5 scoring D besides have Russell Wilson throw just a couple of more first downs.


Our defense was by no means perfect but they been scapegoated for our teams woes this year. I'm hopeful our new DC will be an upgrade over Ken Norton, so I'm not like up-in-arms about his 'raw deal', but I flatly reject any argument that our primary problems this year were on that side of the ball.

 

[Jville]

Angry people divert a lot of threads from their original subject to battles between posters. The machine equivalent of a defective transponder generating noise and drowning out the signal. Drowning out the actual subject is what angry people do.

Any insightful discussion about what can be learned from Norton's time as defensive coordinator will have to take place elsewhere. And we could have been having some good informative discussions ..... from that 1st year where Seattle and San Francisco were the last of the teams using their base defenses most of the time to its experimentation with multiple personnel in search of an effective zone blitz scheme in Norton's final year.

Any follow up review of what lessons can be discerned from Norton's time as defensive coordinator is simply not going to take place here. The forum culture will not allow it.

 

[hawkfan68]

Very odd to see people defend KNJ throughout the year, but now that he's fired now no one wants to stand on the table for him? Where is the anger? Didn't he get a raw deal? C'mon, c'mon, I want to hear the arguments for the 25th ranked Defense via DVOA (by far the lowest ranked unit on the team.) And given their talent at all levels of the defense they shouldn't have ranked so poorly. Which points directly to subpar coaching.

Well, I defended our defense throughout the year and I already did so multiple times in this thread, so does that count?

And DVOA is kind of a bad metric to base our team on this year because our problems uniquely defy the DVOA system because it measures things on a per play basis. Your team is ranked higher if they are more likely to 'win' on every play than not. In some ways, this is a good thing (way more unique incidents to create an aggregate score with) but for a team like ours, it vastly overrates our offense and vastly underrates our defense.

We already know that on any given 'play' our defense was likely to 'lose'. They are terrible between the 20s. Nobody has argued this. They give up lots of yards. But those plays don't mean as much to the result of an actual game as things like performance on 4th down or in the red zone. And our team was consistenly VERY good in those situations. And since we also didn't give up many 20+ yards insta-touchdowns, well, the fact that we might 'lose' the average play doesn't lead to the other team, you know... scoring? That's far more important than how many 'yards' or 'plays' we give up.

Our offense is the opposite. We were basically the three and out kings. But a three and out drive might actually have two 'successful' plays (say, a rush and short pass that total like 7 yards) but fail on the third. Well, in that instance we only had 'one' fail play. So great, we 'won' two out of three plays but the other team still gets the ball. Add on the fact that we could be so explosive (touchdown drives that consist of only a handful of plays), their system thinks our offense is actually 'efficient' when in reality it was very boom or bust (usually bust). On top of that, we were so good at not turning the ball over, we typically didn't get 'punished' by their system the way a team that was as bad as our offense was usually would be because teams that can't sustain drives as badly as the Seahawks this year typically also turn the ball over more.

As I already pointed out in this thread, if our average offensive drive had simply increased from bottom of the league (and by a good margin) to tied for bottom third, the number of drives taken away from the other team would have made our team a top 5 scoring defense. Our defense wouldn't have had to do ANYTHING to become a top 5 scoring D besides have Russell Wilson throw just a couple of more first downs.


Our defense was by no means perfect but they been scapegoated for our teams woes this year. I'm hopeful our new DC will be an upgrade over Ken Norton, so I'm not like up-in-arms about his 'raw deal', but I flatly reject any argument that our primary problems this year were on that side of the ball.

Excellent post. :2thumbs:

 

[RolandDeschain]

What about bringing Gus back?

The Raider's are firing everyone, so what about bringing Bradley back? Hard to argue his track record here.

Uh, it's actually not hard to argue. Say no to bringing back the Gus Bus.

 

[scutterhawk]

I have not commented much on the firing because I don't know the details of why he was fired. for you they might be obvious as you have a whole set of reasons why you think he should be fired. I would like to hear from Pete why he was fired and the circumstances behind that. but anger? No... not from me.
LTH

I believe Pete wanted to see if KNJ's acumen at LB Coaching would grow to include being a good DC fit.
After his second season with no signs of improvement, Pete should have demoted him and brought in a REAL DC mind.

 

[chris98251]

Angry people divert a lot of threads from their original subject to battles between posters. The machine equivalent of a defective transponder generating noise and drowning out the signal. Drowning out the actual subject is what angry people do.

Any insightful discussion about what can be learned from Norton's time as defensive coordinator will have to take place elsewhere. And we could have been having some good informative discussions ..... from that 1st year where Seattle and San Francisco were the last of the teams using their base defenses most of the time to its experimentation with multiple personnel in search of an effective zone blitz scheme in Norton's final year.

Any follow up review of what lessons can be discerned from Norton's time as defensive coordinator is simply not going to take place here. The forum culture will not allow it.

I would say that if the discussion doesn't follow your personal doctrine you say it is worthless, I see it as lots of versions of what people see and argue, it's a forum and difference of views and opinions is what make it work, if you have issues maybe it is better for you to look for things somewhere else like a Blog of your favorite Mediot that doesn't allow dissenting comments.

This place has always been about different views and arguments, kind of what makes it work, yes some go to far, but you can choose to respond or move on.

Be pretty boring if everyone was agreeing Wilson is Elite and can do no wrong.

Pete is a godsend to Seattle we should never doubt him.

Get rid of all players that don't join in pre and post-game prayers, they are not the types we want representing the Seahawks.

All reporter access that doesn't support the Seahawks should be curtailed because they say mean things and so forth.

Time to leave the Bubble.