Meeks will prove to be the best acquisition of the offseason

[mantal]

Look at it this way, our defense with Trgo and Peppers last year wasn't really all that great. I think the Meeks hiring not only helped get Pep to want to sign long-term, but also re-energized the rest of our defense. Everyone is excited about it and I personally can't wait to see what they do under his guidance.

Oh don't think I'm not excited about it, but a Meeks defense without Peppers would be a Meeks defense without Peppers. They were made for each other and Peppers eager to now sign a long term deal is awesome to me. Just makes me happier for Meeks being here...

[CRA]

In regards to the upcoming season......Peppers > Meeks. Meeks is a pretty conservative guy and Fox will have him run an "approved" Fox defense. It is Fox's team and has made it obvious by the idiot decisions on both sides. Put down the Panther Kool-aid everyone.......this team will basically be the same on offense and defense every year under Fox.

good thing is Fox finally has the pieces to make his one offensive scheme work. He still doesn't have the front 4 year imo to make his conservative D schemes effective imo.

[CRA]

Look at it this way, our defense with Trgo and Peppers last year wasn't really all that great. I think the Meeks hiring not only helped get Pep to want to sign long-term, but also re-energized the rest of our defense. Everyone is excited about it and I personally can't wait to see what they do under his guidance.

everyone was super excited last year at this time about the defense......and they are actually saying the exact same things. We know what happens under a Fox D. Front 4 rush for the majority of downs, cushion given on the WRs, etc, etc.

[Snake]

Peppers should be very scary with a point to prove and a coach that knows how to use him. With that said Brown makes this team even more frighting.

[CRA]

Peppers should be very scary with a point to prove and a coach that knows how to use him. With that said Brown makes this team even more frighting.

I think we need to see Brown in pads and play some downs before we pencil him in as threat for next season.

[thejimmy]

In regards to the upcoming season......Peppers > Meeks. Meeks is a pretty conservative guy and Fox will have him run an "approved" Fox defense. It is Fox's team and has made it obvious by the idiot decisions on both sides. Put down the Panther Kool-aid everyone.......this team will basically be the same on offense and defense every year under Fox.

good thing is Fox finally has the pieces to make his one offensive scheme work. He still doesn't have the front 4 year imo to make his conservative D schemes effective imo.

I'm afraid I have to agree. This cover 2 is not an attacking D and I have a gut feeling that it will pretty much resemble Turgo's D. I may be wrong (and I hope I am) but I don't think we'll see much difference.

We sound like Saints fans, you know. They are all hyped up about having Williams run their defense. Roughly translated, that means they hated their old D coordinator--same as us.

[mantal]

In regards to the upcoming season......Peppers > Meeks. Meeks is a pretty conservative guy and Fox will have him run an "approved" Fox defense. It is Fox's team and has made it obvious by the idiot decisions on both sides. Put down the Panther Kool-aid everyone.......this team will basically be the same on offense and defense every year under Fox.

good thing is Fox finally has the pieces to make his one offensive scheme work. He still doesn't have the front 4 year imo to make his conservative D schemes effective imo.

Sorry, no offense, but I think you're full of poo. Fox doesn't run this team, he's the head coach, but he doesn't run the gametime decisions on both sides of the ball, contrary to popular belief. Does his offensive and defensive coordinators have the same philosophy, yes of course, Fox is the head coach. But think about how much our offense changed over the last couple of years. Still Fox's philosophy, but with Davidson's tilt. Same will happen with Meeks...

[cookinwithgas]

I'm working in Indy this week and a coworker is a freak of a Colts fan - him and 3 or his buddies spent the day with Peyton Manning last summer, lunch, facility tour, film room...

Anyways he thinks that Meeks is a good coordinator, he just didn't have a lot to work with in Indy as the offense got all the love. He feels that he is going to do a great job with the talent we have so we'll see.

[Pejorative Miscreant]

In regards to the upcoming season......Peppers > Meeks. Meeks is a pretty conservative guy and Fox will have him run an "approved" Fox defense. It is Fox's team and has made it obvious by the idiot decisions on both sides. Put down the Panther Kool-aid everyone.......this team will basically be the same on offense and defense every year under Fox.

good thing is Fox finally has the pieces to make his one offensive scheme work. He still doesn't have the front 4 year imo to make his conservative D schemes effective imo.

By the same every year, I hope you mean the same philosophy. The philosophy will definitely remain the same, however the execution varies greatly. Fox ultimately holds the keys to the car but to discount Meeks entirely is a bit naive. Otherwise, why bother getting a tier 1 DC?

The offensive on the team has evolved partly based on personnel and partly due to the hiring of Davidson. Perhaps the hiring of Meeks will help the defense move in the same direction...

[bleys]

No, the biggest acquisition was in getting Peppers to turn around and want to sign a long term agreement. After that it's Meeks, sure. Some could argue that it was Meeks that got him to want it, but I would argue that it was more that nobody else wanted him at the price in this economy... I'm sure he also didn't mind Meeks being here, but that wasn't his main motivation IMO...

I have to say bringing in Meeks has a lot to do with Pep coming back. Without Meeks, there would be no Pep. But that's just my speculation based on what we've seen/heard.

I'm surprised people are saying Pep > Meeks in this situation. I agree, having Pep on the field is very important, but I don't think he would be here without Meeks being here. Which is why I think Meeks > Pep....

As for those saying "Fox still runs the system".. well, you have to lead the blind or else they walk into trees. Sad, but true.. In this case, they'll just have to walk into the trees.

[Razzy]

The one thing I'm reaally looking for from Meeks is for him to give our guys that attitude theyve been missing for the last couple years. He talks the talk, but let's see if he can get them out there attacking the ball.

[panthers55]

There are only so many schemes and options for defense and offense. The difference between success or failure is often execution. The best scheme run poorly is much worse that a mediocre scheme run well.

Look at Tampa over the past decade. They ran a simple cover 2 variation called the Tampa 2 which is very similar to what Meeks will run. They consistently had a top 10 defense. Why? Because they ran it well and everyone was disciplined and knew where they should be on every play.

That was a primary problem under Trgovac. By making the defense complex and giving them multiple reads on every set, he caused confusion and players over-thought everything rather than read and react. When we simplified everything last year before the bye what happened? We were top 5. After the bye we slowly add more into the mix and we get more complicated and we fall apart. Was it Fox meddling or Trgo adding more into the mix or something else? I don't know and people aren't talking.

What I am hearing is that we are going back to the read and react scheme of early last year. Meeks is also instilling more discipline and working on conditioning and increasing speed across the board. He is also focusing on developing an aggressive mentality of flying to the ball. All things that should help us return to what worked last year when we were top 5.

I am optimistic that we will have an offense like Tampa's under Kiffin for the foreseeable future. They were tough against the pass and tough against the run. I really think we may have the dominant defense in the division which will be a great complement to our offense which looks to be high powered as well. If we can score early and often and force teams to throw the ball to catch up, we should have a bunch of turnovers and give our offense much better field position than the old bend don't break defense which rarely turned over the ball in the opposing team's half of the field.

[Jangler]

I think Fox learned last year, especially with the offense. Is to use the strength of the team you have put together. Instead of trying to force a square peg in a round hole. Let your coordinators run their side of the ball and you coach the team. If he does that, we will have a complete team this year.

[CRA]

Sorry, no offense, but I think you're full of poo. Fox doesn't run this team, he's the head coach, but he doesn't run the gametime decisions on both sides of the ball, contrary to popular belief. Does his offensive and defensive coordinators have the same philosophy, yes of course, Fox is the head coach. But think about how much our offense changed over the last couple of years. Still Fox's philosophy, but with Davidson's tilt. Same will happen with Meeks...

our offense hasn't changed much at all. the players Fox currently has simply have the talent to execute Fox's offense better now. The simple fact is really nothing is going to change under Fox. The years he has been here back that up.

Fox does run the team. His coordinators are running a Fox approved version of offense and defense. AND if it isn't Foxy enough he will step in....like last season. Despite what people want to claim, our offense is just about the same w/ Davidson as the prior ding dong. Davidson has better players to run a Fox offense though......