If GB moves on and thats never certain in the bay here our a few names to consider:
History: Foote is a Detroit/ midwest person, a Pershing graduate who named his son Trammell and whose first tattoo was a 313. Before that of course Foote was part of the legendary Michigan recruiting class of 1998 that included Drew Henson, David Terrell, Seth Fisher, Marquise Walker, and Victor Hobson, to name a few, and was the epitome of the tiny linebacker genre before Devin Bush Jr. took the mantle and Khaleke Hudson broke Foote’s single-game TFL record.
Foote finished his NFL career with the Arizona Cardinals in 2014, following former Ravens assistant Chuck Pagano with the offer of stepping into a coaching role after the season. Pagano made good on his promise; Foote was the assistant LBs coach in 2015, then was promoted to linebackers coach under James Bettcher, and stayed on through one year of Al Holcomb. He followed Pagano again to Tampa Bay in 2019, now under DC Todd Bowles (they overlapped in Zona in 2014), and there Foote won his first Super Bowl as a coach after two as a player.
HISTORICAL DEFENSIVE RANKINGS: Tampa Bay was 6th, 5th, and 9th out of 32 teams in Football Outsiders’ comprehensive fancy stat DVOA the last three years. They were 2nd, 2nd, 20th, and 12th in Foote’s four years of coaching in Arizona.
PLAYERS: Probably don’t need to throw all the names at you. Foote’s credited with turning Chandler Jones into a 1st team all-Pro in Arizona, developed Shaquil Barrett into a regular all-pro and Jason Pierre-Paul into a new one at Tampa Bay, and probably had a hand in developing Lavonte David and Devin White into one of the best ILB pairs in the game.
SYSTEM FIT? The Bucs’ system is not that far off from the Ravens, in that there and in Arizona Foote was a part of defenses that really leaned on the secondary. They base out of a two-high and bring a lot of pressure from the OLBs or nickels.
SUMMARY: 63, longtime vagabond NFL defensive coordinator, landed with Harbaugh in Stanford after three years with the Ravens, then was Harbaugh’s DC all three year in San Francisco. Most recently HC of the Broncos after a stint as DC for the Bears.
History: Started as a high school coach in his hometown of Dunmore, PA, around the time I was born. UNC plucked him out of Milford Academy, then he went to the USFL, which was a thing back then, then the NFL as the Saints LBs coach for a long time (1986-1994). After that it was one NFL stint to the next: DC of the Panthers (1995-‘98), DC of the Colts (1999-2001), then the Texans (2002-‘05) and the Ravens as a quasi-associate HC when they got as far as the AFC Championship. Greg Mattison replaced Rex Ryan as DC in 2009 and Fangio was demoted to LBs coach, then landed with Jim Harbaugh at Stanford in 2010. In 2011 they were both back in the NFL with the 49ers, where Fangio was Harbaugh’s DC through 2014. There was some talk of Fangio following Jim to Michigan but it was just that—Fangio got the DC job with the Bears, and in three good seasons earned his first head coaching job with the Broncos. That lasted 3 years; he was fired after the penultimate game of last season, after going 7-10 in 2021, and 19-30 overall.
HISTORICAL DEFENSIVE RANKINGS: That 2010 Stanford defense was 17th in S&P+, a huge leap up from 84th in 2009 and 76th in 2008.
As for his NFL DVOAs, here’s the record, with the season before he arrived in parentheses.
SYSTEM FIT? 3-4 it’s
it’s “Multiple” with a lot of zone coverages and zone blitzes, and probably uses a lot of the same terminology.
Washington has experience as a Defensive Coordinator in Carolina(2018-19) under Head Coach Ron Rivera. Washington was promoted to Defensive Coordinator of the Panthers after Sean McDermott left to take the Head Coaching position in Buffalo. In 2018, Washington led the Panthers' defense from 28th to 12th in interceptions, 32nd to 13th in passes defended, and 18th to 9th in tackles for loss. Washington reunited with McDermott in Buffalo after Rivera was fired from the Panthers.
Washington is not the current Defensive Coordinator in Buffalo, so he would be eligible to interview from his current position. He has spent the last three years with Leslie Frazier, where their base defense is a 4-3 zone but spends much of the time disguising their defenses with different hybrid formations.
Zimmer has had a long and successful career coaching defenses, and his roots go back to Barry Switzer and then Bill Parcells with the Dallas Cowboys in the late 1990s. He got his first Defensive Coordinator job with the Cowboys in 2000 and has since filled that role for the Atlanta Falcons and Cincinnati Bengals before taking on the Head Coaching job with the Vikings in 2014.
It is easy to see why he is the first name people think of when looking to fill a potential opening as a Defensive Coordinator. Zimmer ran a 3-4 in Dallas when Parcells forced his hand, but primarily Zimmer has coached a 4-3 base. He has been a proponent of split safety coverages like quarters, quarter-quarter-half, and Cover 2 more than most defensive play-callers in today's NFL.
Zimmer won't run a re-created version of Seattle Cover 3, as we have seen from Joe Woods and other Defensive Coordinators around the league. Instead, when he uses single high safety looks, it is to mix up his coverages and ensure the offense remains off-balance in early downs. Although early down run stuffing does not get fans fired up, it has allowed Zimmer's defenses to create second/third and long situations where he can get into his pressure packages.
He has always displayed one of the league's most impressive 3rd down defenses. Over the years, he has depended on exotic pressure designs, disguised coverages, and press techniques from his coverage players. The idea behind this is that by the time the receivers break open from the jam, the pressure should get home. Whether Zimmer would be open to a job in the NFL is unknown at this point. His son, Adam Zimmer sadly passed away at age 38 in late October.
Jim Leonhard
No introduction is needed here, very quickly Leonhard favors a 3-4 scheme that thrives on linebacker play, likes to bring pressure through different gaps and plays mixed coverage on the backside. Risk/reward scheme. Wisconsin consistently ranks among the nation’s best, including last season’s No. 1 finish in yards allowed per play. That defense allowed a measly 1.99 yards per carry, also best in all of FBS.
I'll add to the list as time progress's and if GB makes a move.
LARRY FOOTE, TAMPA BAY
42, brilliant up-and-coming NFL position coach and former star player for Michigan. Current co-DC in Tampa Bay.History: Foote is a Detroit/ midwest person, a Pershing graduate who named his son Trammell and whose first tattoo was a 313. Before that of course Foote was part of the legendary Michigan recruiting class of 1998 that included Drew Henson, David Terrell, Seth Fisher, Marquise Walker, and Victor Hobson, to name a few, and was the epitome of the tiny linebacker genre before Devin Bush Jr. took the mantle and Khaleke Hudson broke Foote’s single-game TFL record.
Foote finished his NFL career with the Arizona Cardinals in 2014, following former Ravens assistant Chuck Pagano with the offer of stepping into a coaching role after the season. Pagano made good on his promise; Foote was the assistant LBs coach in 2015, then was promoted to linebackers coach under James Bettcher, and stayed on through one year of Al Holcomb. He followed Pagano again to Tampa Bay in 2019, now under DC Todd Bowles (they overlapped in Zona in 2014), and there Foote won his first Super Bowl as a coach after two as a player.
HISTORICAL DEFENSIVE RANKINGS: Tampa Bay was 6th, 5th, and 9th out of 32 teams in Football Outsiders’ comprehensive fancy stat DVOA the last three years. They were 2nd, 2nd, 20th, and 12th in Foote’s four years of coaching in Arizona.
PLAYERS: Probably don’t need to throw all the names at you. Foote’s credited with turning Chandler Jones into a 1st team all-Pro in Arizona, developed Shaquil Barrett into a regular all-pro and Jason Pierre-Paul into a new one at Tampa Bay, and probably had a hand in developing Lavonte David and Devin White into one of the best ILB pairs in the game.
SYSTEM FIT? The Bucs’ system is not that far off from the Ravens, in that there and in Arizona Foote was a part of defenses that really leaned on the secondary. They base out of a two-high and bring a lot of pressure from the OLBs or nickels.
VIC FANGIO
CURRENT JOB: Unemployed. Was HC of the Denver Broncos last year.SUMMARY: 63, longtime vagabond NFL defensive coordinator, landed with Harbaugh in Stanford after three years with the Ravens, then was Harbaugh’s DC all three year in San Francisco. Most recently HC of the Broncos after a stint as DC for the Bears.
History: Started as a high school coach in his hometown of Dunmore, PA, around the time I was born. UNC plucked him out of Milford Academy, then he went to the USFL, which was a thing back then, then the NFL as the Saints LBs coach for a long time (1986-1994). After that it was one NFL stint to the next: DC of the Panthers (1995-‘98), DC of the Colts (1999-2001), then the Texans (2002-‘05) and the Ravens as a quasi-associate HC when they got as far as the AFC Championship. Greg Mattison replaced Rex Ryan as DC in 2009 and Fangio was demoted to LBs coach, then landed with Jim Harbaugh at Stanford in 2010. In 2011 they were both back in the NFL with the 49ers, where Fangio was Harbaugh’s DC through 2014. There was some talk of Fangio following Jim to Michigan but it was just that—Fangio got the DC job with the Bears, and in three good seasons earned his first head coaching job with the Broncos. That lasted 3 years; he was fired after the penultimate game of last season, after going 7-10 in 2021, and 19-30 overall.
HISTORICAL DEFENSIVE RANKINGS: That 2010 Stanford defense was 17th in S&P+, a huge leap up from 84th in 2009 and 76th in 2008.
As for his NFL DVOAs, here’s the record, with the season before he arrived in parentheses.
- Carolina, 1995-‘98: (expansion), 7th, 4th, 22nd, 23rd
- Indianapolis, 1999-‘01: (28th), 27th, 22nd, 22nd
- Houston, 2002-‘05: (expansion), 18th, 26th, 19th, 32nd
- San Francisco, 2011-‘14: (17th), 2nd, 7th, 11th, 5th
- Chicago, 2015-‘18: (29th), 31st, 22nd, 14th, 1st
- Denver (as HC): (6th), 13th, 14th, 20th
SYSTEM FIT? 3-4 it’s
it’s “Multiple” with a lot of zone coverages and zone blitzes, and probably uses a lot of the same terminology.
ERIC WASHINGTON – SENIOR DEFENSIVE ASSISTANT/DEFENSIVE LINE, BUFFALO BILLS
Eric Washington joined the Bills in 2020 as the team's defensive line coach and was promoted to senior defensive assistant/defensive line coach before the start of the 2022 season. In Washington's first season with the Bills, they went to the AFC Championship game, and in his second season, he helped lead a defense that ranked first in the NFL in the fewest points allowed per game (17.0) for the first time in franchise history.Washington has experience as a Defensive Coordinator in Carolina(2018-19) under Head Coach Ron Rivera. Washington was promoted to Defensive Coordinator of the Panthers after Sean McDermott left to take the Head Coaching position in Buffalo. In 2018, Washington led the Panthers' defense from 28th to 12th in interceptions, 32nd to 13th in passes defended, and 18th to 9th in tackles for loss. Washington reunited with McDermott in Buffalo after Rivera was fired from the Panthers.
Washington is not the current Defensive Coordinator in Buffalo, so he would be eligible to interview from his current position. He has spent the last three years with Leslie Frazier, where their base defense is a 4-3 zone but spends much of the time disguising their defenses with different hybrid formations.
JOE WHITT JR. - SECONDARY COACH, DALLAS COWBOYS
The Dallas Cowboys secondary coach has his unit ranked 4th in Pass DVOA, and the defense is ranked second in overall DVOA.MIKE ZIMMER – ANALYST AT JACKSON STATE UNIVERSITY
Mike Zimmer was Head Coach of the Minnesota Vikings from 2014-2021Zimmer has had a long and successful career coaching defenses, and his roots go back to Barry Switzer and then Bill Parcells with the Dallas Cowboys in the late 1990s. He got his first Defensive Coordinator job with the Cowboys in 2000 and has since filled that role for the Atlanta Falcons and Cincinnati Bengals before taking on the Head Coaching job with the Vikings in 2014.
It is easy to see why he is the first name people think of when looking to fill a potential opening as a Defensive Coordinator. Zimmer ran a 3-4 in Dallas when Parcells forced his hand, but primarily Zimmer has coached a 4-3 base. He has been a proponent of split safety coverages like quarters, quarter-quarter-half, and Cover 2 more than most defensive play-callers in today's NFL.
Zimmer won't run a re-created version of Seattle Cover 3, as we have seen from Joe Woods and other Defensive Coordinators around the league. Instead, when he uses single high safety looks, it is to mix up his coverages and ensure the offense remains off-balance in early downs. Although early down run stuffing does not get fans fired up, it has allowed Zimmer's defenses to create second/third and long situations where he can get into his pressure packages.
He has always displayed one of the league's most impressive 3rd down defenses. Over the years, he has depended on exotic pressure designs, disguised coverages, and press techniques from his coverage players. The idea behind this is that by the time the receivers break open from the jam, the pressure should get home. Whether Zimmer would be open to a job in the NFL is unknown at this point. His son, Adam Zimmer sadly passed away at age 38 in late October.
Jim Leonhard
No introduction is needed here, very quickly Leonhard favors a 3-4 scheme that thrives on linebacker play, likes to bring pressure through different gaps and plays mixed coverage on the backside. Risk/reward scheme. Wisconsin consistently ranks among the nation’s best, including last season’s No. 1 finish in yards allowed per play. That defense allowed a measly 1.99 yards per carry, also best in all of FBS.
I'll add to the list as time progress's and if GB makes a move.
