About midway through the article...
Putting 2 and 2 together, John Fox began paying more attention to the defense around mid-season.The name that has garnered the most attention -- at least from an angry fanbase -- is defensive coordinator Mike Trgovac.
His job has been under scrutiny the last two years. The Herald reported in 2007 that coach John Fox had effectively taken over Trgovac's defense meetings early in the season (specifically after a Week 4 loss to Tampa Bay), though Fox denied at the time he was undercutting Trgovac's authority.
"No. Mike knows. He's the defensive coordinator," Fox said then. "He calls them on game day. No different than any coordinator I've had thus far in any phase. I think all our coordinators understand (the input). When you're the head coach, you're allowed to do that."
Several members of the organization (both players and from outside the locker room) confirmed that Fox did a similar thing this year, though it was closer to midseason when he began to exert his influence again.
Considering the defense's second-half collapse (against some of the league's top offenses), Trgovac's future has to be far from secure.
And when did the defense start to decline?
Around the latter part of mid-season :confused5:
Thus, you can take two possible conclusions from this.
A) Fox's input wasn't helpful. Perhaps it was just "too many cooks spoil the broth" or maybe their ideas just didn't mesh well. For whatever reason, it didn't help and may, in fact, have hurt.
or
Trgovac was annoyed, resentful, nervous or some other adverse emotion because Fox was sticking his nose in for the second year in a row. These bad feelings affected his job performance in the latter half of the year.Which of these sounds more plausible?
Edited by Mr Scot, 18 January 2009 - 02:07 AM.
