Makes me wonder what went on post LOB years with the coaching. Pete's defense at its core was very simple and straight forward. We didn't do much in the way of blitzing, we didn't disguise what we were doing. Everyone knew that the Seahawks were coming out in Cover-3. Basic football, but it was effective because our players were disciplined. Everyone knew their assignment and stuck with it.
Tackling was always one of the big things that Carroll emphasized during the LOB years. Teams were scrambling to copy his approach to tackling, people were bringing in Rugby players like Carroll did to teach that style of tackling.
After 2017 things were a mess on multiple different fronts. RB's seemed to be able to just walk themselves out of our tackles, no problem. Defenders weren't keeping their assignments. It's as if the team had shifted from everything that made them successful.
I think Pete just overrestimated hiw much of the success they had during the LOB years was due directly to his style of coaching. I think he took it for granted that he could just 'do it like he did it before' and everything would be fine.
He never assigned enough credit to the fact that he assembled a pretty sharp class with the LOB.
His philosophy of keeping it simple and playing with your hair on fire was right for the time and worked with an intelligent group of players who could morph his scheme into something transcendent because of how deeply they owned it, how completely they learned it, and how well, as a group, they executed it.
But when they left, the chemistry was gone. And he never assembled a similar group of intelligent players with the unique bond the first one had. None of the post LOB iterations of players / coaches had the same standard of excellence or maintained accountability the way the OG group did. They played the 'hair on fire' bit, but were rinning in the wrong direction and only ended up burning the house down.
He tried to adapt the scheme, but never adapted his approach.
