After Cooling Down, The Overarching Question Remains: How Does Shula Keep His Job?

[ZeroZeroSeven]

To me it's simple. If your Dave gettleman you call Shula into the office and say mike ''we had a good season but we know the defence and cam won us those games this year, your schemes and play calling mostly sucked! But as you contributed to a winning season I will go draft you some talent and get you some weapons in free agency to play with on offense, like a tall receiver who can go deep downfield and exploit cams arm and another one who can actually catch the ball and move the dam chains, maybe a Hakeem nicks (Shulas eyes light up) oh and how about a few new hog mollies to give your guy cam time in the pocket! Yes that's right mike I'll help you but if you do not repeat a winning season and go deep into the playoffs then your fired!

Deal or no deal?

Deal

[ZeroZeroSeven]

no....what matters is results.

a shula managed offense has never had them. they have always been ranked poorly.

we won all those games because of the defense and late game heroics from various players.

I see your point. I see both sides of the Shula argument. Like I said, Shula does not have a track record of success, except as a QB coach.

I definitely wouldn't be upset if he was fired or demoted.

[Proudiddy]

Shula deserves some blame but in 2011 Smith was still a legitimate #1 receiver and the read option was new. We also had two receiving threats at tight end.

I think Shula did ok with what we had. Cam could shine in any system if we can find an elite WR and patch the right side of the offensive line.

I can't agree with all of this. I say we were less talented across the board in Cam's rookie year. It does seem like Smitty was slightly more explosive then still, but how about that OL? No Tolbert either. WR corps? Cam lit it up. It's the philosophy.

Shula calls games as though he's scared if he gets too aggressive, he'll lose his job. He doesn't take chances.

Like I said, personnel doesn't dictate a guy going from one of the top downfield passers in his first two years in the league to being dead last in his third... that's playcalling and philosophy. Wasn't Naanee the #2 his rookie year? Lol. Thats the equivalent of McNutt this year.

[CRA]

Shula is here to stay.....he didn't a decent job. Strong ties to Cam and the players like him.

Blame DG if you don't like it. He handicapped this O heading into this year bc he was playing it safe in case he had to axe everyone and start from scratch. THAT IMO put Shula in place with limited talent around Cam. Now we are stick with Shula ball

[CRA]

I can't agree with all of this. I say we were less talented across the board in Cam's rookie year. It does seem like Smitty was slightly more explosive then still, but how about that OL? No Tolbert either. WR corps? Cam lit it up. It's the philosophy.

Shula calls games as though he's scared if he gets too aggressive, he'll lose his job. He doesn't take chances.

Like I said, personnel doesn't dictate a guy going from one of the top downfield passers in his first two years in the league to being dead last in his third... that's playcalling and philosophy. Wasn't Naanee the #2 his rookie year? Lol. Thats the equivalent of McNutt this year.

Shula believes in ball control. He doesn't that overall well even without great talent. He had bad talent in Tampa, middle of the road talent here while trying to do such

[ajax4132]

Shula is here to stay.....he didn't a decent job. Strong ties to Cam and the players like him.

Blame DG if you don't like it. He handicapped this O heading into this year bc he was playing it safe in case he had to axe everyone and start from scratch. THAT IMO put Shula in place with limited talent around Cam. Now we are stick with Shula ball

 

We have to keep Shula, We need to allow Cam to grow into this offense, thats how elite qbs are formed

 

I think weapons could evolve the gameplan

[chknwing]

The main reason shula needs to go is because he does not know what a half time adjustment is.  His philosiphy is, if something is working we must stop using it immediately.

[tiger7_88]

I've sat here and thought about it... You can go back to the offseason and see I defended Shula from even before the decision to promote him to OC. I thought it was a good move because he would bring us back to a little more conventional scheme and he knew what would best work for Cam, because he worked most closely with him in the two years prior.

Another level to this is that I, like most, love redemption/underdog stories. Shula had a bad rep from his time in Tampa and Alabama for his conservative nature. I wanted him to redeem himself from that. And then there's the Shula name. Growing up, watching NFL films, there was a sense of royalty to the name. Don Shula was and has been considered one of the greatest coaches the game has seen. So, you want the guy to win.

I say all of that to make it clear, I DON'T WANT TO advocate his firing. Perhaps he can learn like Ron did, but the problem with that was Ron wasted at least a year of our lives that we could've been in the playoffs, had he made those adjustments earlier. But, after looking back at what transpired yesterday, I just don't see how we don't make a move there if we're looking at it objectively.

Yes, there has to be a loser in every game, but the thing that bothers me a day later is - we didn't have to be the loser. The opportunities were there, and Shula's decisions are what lost us the game. There's no other way to slice it. We did NOT have to lose, but we did because of his playcalls.

Sure, the refs were making some extremely skewed calls in favor of the Niners and thus, the odds were against us. But, you gotta play through that. And so, it comes down to two different drives that died on the goal line because of his ineptitude in the playcalls. We anyway you slice it, if we score a TD on either of those drives and then a FG at the very least on the other, if the game plays out as it did, we're either winning on in the game til the clock hits zero. Odds are though, if we score a TD on either drive, we win walking away because the game wouldn't have played out the way it did...

It just leaves an extremely bitter taste in my mouth when I see "23-10," flash across the screen, knowing we just wasted a golden opportunity to make a run at the Superbowl. It's embarrassing. Why? Because with a weaker supporting cast, Cam put up biggest numbers as a rookie. There is absolutely no way that a team with Cam Newton as your QB should be scoring less than 20 points per game. He should not be struggling to get 200 yards per game passing. But, Shula dimmed his light with his plodding, excruciatingly slow-paced philosophy, each and every game.

It was an issue all season, and it came front and center yesterday and cost us our postseason, unduly. If Cam is your QB, you don't treat him like Trent Dilfer. You don't have to put it on your defense to win games. You score more points than the other team and expect your defense to prop you up if you arent having your best day. Just because you have an outstanding defense, it doesn't mean you have to play your QB like Trent Dilfer. This guy has the ability to take over and dominate games and you're reducing him to a far lesser role out of your own fears? Garbage. Use him to his strengths. This guy was one of the top downfield passers for two years and in one year under Shula, he becomes the worst - not because he's missing them, because they won't let him. That is disgusting.

This "Trent Dilfer" comparison sounds very familiar.... hmmmmm. ;) :P

[AceBoogie]

I think Rivera is far to loyal a coach to fire Shula. It would need to come from Gettleman... and none of us really know whats going on in his head.

Exactly what I was thinking. You could hear it in his press conference. Shula deserves his blame, but we played the 3rd quarter like we were sitting on a lead. Part of that is on Ron

[pstall]

Yeah, so we got beat by the Bucs. Yeah, Jake sucks. Yeah, Davis sucks. Yeah, our coaches suck. Big deal. We'll learn from this and bounce back by beating NO next week.

I guarantee it. :icon_smil

I think you and I might be the only ones concerned about the audibles.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using CarolinaHuddle mobile app

[pstall]

I meant to quote catfang. Not sure what hap here.

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[d-dave]

I do think this will be the biggest decision made for the entire off season.

 

I think a previous poster is correct, give him some tools this off season.  If get the same results with more talent, time to go.  I'm not sure how a fast fire and change will affect the team...

[Guest]

I think you and I might be the only ones concerned about the audibles.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using CarolinaHuddle mobile app

 

Well, yes the audible was a joke on that play, but I still don't understand why the O wasn't hurrying to try and win the game. Playoffs, win or go home, stuff like that.

[fieryprophet]

Rivera's not going to fire Shula, and Gettleman is far more likely to prefer Shula's style of offense to someone like Chud's given his background with the Giants and the way their offense is run. I seriously think anyone looking for Gettleman to push Shula out will be severely disappointed.

 

So, you can either choose to look at the film and see some playcalling failings mixed in with some poor player execution and accept both can stand to grow and improve but neither are hopeless, and in fact have done a better than expected job given a dearth of offensive talent outside of our lone elite talent, or. . .

 

You can make a million fire Shula threads all offseason and choose to be pessimistic over a 12-4 season that was a few poor flags, defensive gaffes and offensive miscues from continuing.

 

I'll stick with the former, since it's the only viable option.