New Db Coach- Mike Gillhamer

[CashMoney]

Found this on footballscoop.com

Indianapolis Colts: We learned tonight that Mike Gillhamer will be named defensive backs coach for the Colts. Gillhamer coached the defensive backs at Illinois this past season under Ron Zook and coached the safeties for the Carolina Panters for seven seasons prior to that.

[Smitto]

Colts sure did clean house... never seen anything like it

[Thewholefnshow28]

As long as he is not there reinforcing the playing off the WR 10 yards then it is a great move.

If there is one thing I have been looking forward with this new staff is to see what they do with our corners. Nothing is more frustrating to watch a WR half free reign off the line and make an easy catch because our corners were playing 10 yards off the line of scrimmage.

Look I get giving guys like DeSean Jackson or Randy Moss in his prime a cushion, but when every WR was getting then there was something wrong.

I just never understood it because it plays right into the hands of the offense when they want to protect their QB against our pass rush. You do quick short routes and get the ball out fast to negate our pass rush. To me one would think you would want more aggressive corners jamming WRs at the line and disrupting the timing of the routes which forces the QB to hold onto the ball longer so Frathis can go smash him.

We have always had our corners playing soft. To me it just never made sense to team up that style with our pass rush.

[chad72]

Found this on footballscoop.com

Indianapolis Colts: We learned tonight that Mike Gillhamer will be named defensive backs coach for the Colts. Gillhamer coached the defensive backs at Illinois this past season under Ron Zook and coached the safeties for the Carolina Panters for seven seasons prior to that.

I love that bolded part. The Panthers' secondary, prior to this year, was pretty good at least in 2010 and 2009 when this guy was part of the secondary coaching. They were No.11 in 2010 and No.4 in 2009 in pass defense.

[Superman]

We have always had our corners playing soft. To me it just never made sense to team up that style with our pass rush.

I agree with most of your post. It's the most infuriating part of our defense since the Super Bowl.

However, we haven't always done this. We were never a bump-and-run style defense on the outside; we weren't jamming receivers. But in the Marlin Jackson, Nick Harper, Kelvin Hayden days, we weren't giving huge cushions on the outside. That didn't really start until Tim Jennings. Matter of fact, our secondary in 2007 was perfectly suited to a shell defense, because Jackson and Hayden were practically built to play zone coverage in the short third, and Sanders and Bethea were rangy and physical. If not for Freeney and Mathis getting hurt that season, I think we would have beat the Chargers and given the Pats a really good game. With the exception of the 2006 Super Bowl run, that's the best I've ever seen our defense play, and the numbers bear that out.

Don't know why we decided to start playing so far off the receivers in the Super Bowl in 2009 (conventional wisdom would suggest it was because Freeney and Powers were hurt, but that doesn't hold water to me). I think that was the single biggest factor -- from a gameplan standpoint -- that hurt our chances in that game. Forget the onside kick, giving Drew Brees a soft zone look was a disastrous idea, and the game against the Saints this year showed even further how bad a good quarterback will make a soft zone defense look.

[chad72]

I agree with most of your post. It's the most infuriating part of our defense since the Super Bowl.

However, we haven't always done this. We were never a bump-and-run style defense on the outside; we weren't jamming receivers. But in the Marlin Jackson, Nick Harper, Kelvin Hayden days, we weren't giving huge cushions on the outside. That didn't really start until Tim Jennings. Matter of fact, our secondary in 2007 was perfectly suited to a shell defense, because Jackson and Hayden were practically built to play zone coverage in the short third, and Sanders and Bethea were rangy and physical. If not for Freeney and Mathis getting hurt that season, I think we would have beat the Chargers and given the Pats a really good game. With the exception of the 2006 Super Bowl run, that's the best I've ever seen our defense play, and the numbers bear that out.

Don't know why we decided to start playing so far off the receivers in the Super Bowl in 2009 (conventional wisdom would suggest it was because Freeney and Powers were hurt, but that doesn't hold water to me). I think that was the single biggest factor -- from a gameplan standpoint -- that hurt our chances in that game. Forget the onside kick, giving Drew Brees a soft zone look was a disastrous idea, and the game against the Saints this year showed even further how bad a good quarterback will make a soft zone defense look.

Yep, I agree.

The reason we played the soft shell in the 2nd half of the Saints SB was for 2 reasons:

1) Hayden got banged up at half time and Powers was injured, so we were down to Jennings and Lacey for starters in our secondary to handle Brees and the Saints offense. Explains Lacey on Shockey on that TD pass, Jennings on Colston for those completions etc.

2) Brees was the kind who had gotten impatient in the past vs the Tampa 2 since the Saints liked to go deep more often (Larry Coyer was D-line coach of the Bucs before he coached us, so he had seen that from the sidelines whenever the Bucs played the Saints in the division, plus the 2007 game Brees made mistakes that hurt the Saints in our opening game as SB champs because the Saints could not stay patient, plus Brees had lost to the Bucs that year showing some impatience as well)

Unfortunately for us, Brees and Sean Payton surprisingly stayed patient. It was almost like they said "we are not going to lose this game and we dont think the Colts' pass rush or secondary can make plays if we don't beat ourselves" and thus played a close to perfect game, from the Saints point of view, contrary to our expectations.

It was also a case of our D and defensive coaches not making adjustments to adjust to the lack of presence of a healthy Freeney. They played the second half like Freeney was going at it 100% and could get to the QB. A foreboding and microcosm of things to come when they kept playing Curtis Painter as though they thought he could pull it off like a Peyton and by the time they made adjustments, it was too late.

[wordofmouth]

I love that bolded part. The Panthers' secondary, prior to this year, was pretty good at least in 2010 and 2009 when this guy was part of the secondary coaching. They were No.11 in 2010 and No.4 in 2009 in pass defense.

Was that under Ron Meeks?

[chad72]

Was that under Ron Meeks?

2009 and 2010 was under Ron Meeks, you are correct. Ron Meeks can coach good secondary schemes, that is why I felt the Chargers got a good secondary coach which is where Meeks went. The zone rotation/help for Meeks' secondary schemes were much better than what I saw with Coyer. When Meeks got the 2 DTs in the middle in Pitcock and Ed Johnson, our run D was respectable too in 2007 along with our secondary. With Meeks, it was more personnel than scheme and with Coyer, I think it was more scheme than personnel. Dungy had a bigger say in Meeks' scheme because Dungy was a defensive coach than Caldwell had with Coyer's schemes, IMO.

Ron Meeks blitzed more with the Panthers than he did with the Colts, so it had to be a product of Dungy's conservatism, IMO. Plus, once Ron Rivera came in, he had to have his own coaches, so Meeks was shown the door.

[Malakai432]

Hopefully this guy does away with the whole 10 yard cushion on 3rd and 3 mumbo jumbo.