Why Was Danny Smith Allowed To Keep A Job? The all things Danny Smith Thread(Merged & M.E.T.)

[HailGreen28]

please correct me with stats if I'm wrong, this is what I believe about special teams.

punt coverage so so.

kickoff coverage bad partly because we have our kicker try 2 directional instead of regular touchback.

punt return bad. the 1 guy we have that can return gets little blocking except for penalties to call back his td's

kick return so so.

field goals bad we have a ridiculous amount of blocks.

field goal defense bad. is sean taylor ( or someone else that play) the last redskin to block 1?

If.... IF the above has been true the past few years, why does danny smith still work here?

[Hitman21ST]

field goal defense bad. is sean taylor ( or someone else that play) the last redskin to block 1?

Sean Taylor didn't block any kicks. It was Troy Vincent who blocked it (I'm assuming you're talking about Hand of God). The most recent blocked kick came from Orakpo in the first Giants game.

[HailGreen28]

Sean Taylor didn't block any kicks. It was Troy Vincent who blocked it (I'm assuming. you're talking about Hand of God). The most recent blocked kick came from Orakpo in the first Giants game.

yes. thanks for the reminders.

[Hitman21ST]

yes. thanks for the reminders.

No worries. You've done it for me plenty of times.

[Bang]

please correct me with stats if I'm wrong, this is what I believe about special teams.

punt coverage so so.

Punt coverage is best seen thru the Net average, and our net average has not been ranked above 16th in 7 yrs. Most of the time it's been down in the 20s,, so I wouldn't say "so-so".. it's less than that.

kickoff coverage bad partly because we have our kicker try 2 directional instead of regular touchback.

Kickoff coverage is actually pretty good. It's the one area that our teams have performed admirably. While it is true we have kicked off among the fewest times in the league over the last seven years, it's also true that we've been very good at covering when they bring one out. Up until this season and the rule change moving the ball to the 35, we had not had a tremendous amount of touchbacks, but this year Gano was just shy of 50% for touchbacks.. that's pretty good in my estimation.

Both of those things show the need to directional kick is way overstated. We should not be doing it.

punt return bad. the 1 guy we have that can return gets little blocking except for penalties to call back his td's

The penalties have called back a lot of longer returns. (and the flipside is,, would they be long returns without the penalties? Impossible to know.) We do have a speedy return man, and he does need better blocking.

kick return so so.

Well, it definitely could be better. I see Banks run into a knot of people a lot. Our blockers are getting bunched and beaten at the point of attack. Overall it's so-so.

field goals bad we have a ridiculous amount of blocks.

Field goals awful. 8 blocked kicks in the last 20 games is more than double what anyone else has over the last four years. It's inexcusable. Field goal percentage is also horrendous, and since Smith arrived, our average NFL ranking for FG% among 4 different kickers is about 27th.

Couple that with the fact that Gano was something like 5th this year in field goals made, and yet somehow is bottom five in %... and it's a trend that has plagued each kicker under Smith, and has not gotten better. this year Gano showed the leg, and other than a few misses that he just straight missed, had a damn fine season. (Of course, the blocked kicks destroy his % and lead to a thread like this one.)

On a team trying to find it's way, missing that many kicks is inexcusable for whatever reason. Teams in our situation just can't afford to leave 30 points on the field every year.

field goal defense bad. is sean taylor ( or someone else that play) the last redskin to block 1?

As someone else pointed out, Orakpo got one this year.. but lets face it,, blocking a kick happens once in a blue moon even on good special teams. Can't hold that against anyone.

If.... IF the above has been true the past few years, why does danny smith still work here?

Most of it is true, and I wish I knew the answer.

~Bang

[Manny555]

Weird, what is Bang doing in here? :ols::pfft:

And with this comment, I AM NOT DEFENDING DANNY.

He seems to be well respected. How much of these errors fall on the players? Just want to hear your thoughts?

[skinsfan1993]

The only REAL problem I have with Danny, is that the punt returns are horrible. (Unless the refs REALLY REALLY like calling block in the back penalties on us.) And of course, the five blocked kicks.

But... At the end of the day, it's the players executing these mistakes, not Danny.

[Saeth29]

When this [blocked kicks] happens as consistently as this, it is one of two things

It is either the coach failing to coach and teach his players properly, or...

it's a sign of the apocalypse because there's nothing else to compare to SIX BLOCKED KICKS in ONE SEASON.

~Bang

OMG!! This says everything that I feel. Danny Smith Must GO!!!!

[Bang]

Weird, what is Bang doing in here? :ols::pfft:

And with this comment, I AM NOT DEFENDING DANNY.

He seems to be well respected. How much of these errors fall on the players? Just want to hear your thoughts?

My thought on that is he obviously is respected, but why is what I want to know.

his players must be held accountable for execution, but when they consistently fail to execute over such a long period of time... well...

I'd be much more inclined to do that if these problems happened occasionally,, but they happen all the time, for a long time. Players who consistently cannot execute do not reflect anything but the coach.

And whattaya mean what am I doing here? this is home! I live to hate on Danny Smith!

~Bang

[HailGreen28]

Appreciate the corrections. guys. Now I have a better idea what to be depressed about.

[Dirt]

My thought on that is he obviously is respected, but why is what I want to know.

his players must be held accountable for execution, but when they consistently fail to execute over such a long period of time... well...

I'd be much more inclined to do that if these problems happened occasionally,, but they happen all the time, for a long time. Players who consistently cannot execute do not reflect anything but the coach.

And whattaya mean what am I doing here? this is home! I live to hate on Danny Smith!

~Bang

That must be WHY players like him because he takes it easy on them. I mean what does he say after each embarrassment on teams every week? "We'll get 'em next time"?

[Bang]

That must be WHY players like him because he takes it easy on them. I mean what does he say after each embarrassment on teams every week? "We'll get 'em next time"?

Well, i don't take much on the players say so.. let's face it,, as everyone has pointed out,, they are backups.

Danny might be why they have a job at all.Some of them could end up out of the league if they can't make it on special teams, just as anywhere. Who's going to bite that hand?

~Bang

[wildbill1952]

I'm guessing that the final determinaton on joining your petition is whether you believe or not that a good coach can make players with little talent "good enough". A coach can emphasize what a block in the back is. He can tell his players the stats on how this has adversely affected the team. He can point out the correct blocking technique to avoid the penalty (i.e put your head in front of his shoulder pads). He can call out players who made the stupid penalties. He can recommend cutting the offending player to "send a message" to the rest of the team.

On kicks he can keep drilling the kicker on the average time he has to get the ball airborne and he can emphasize technique for the interior linemen to aoid penetration (since no kick is successful if the interior of the OLine collapses).

Not being in practice and not seeing the coaching that's going on, the fans are left with the results to judge the former. Shanahan, Danny's boss, get to see both the results and the coaching efforts during the week. Shanahan has made the decision, so far, to keep Danny Smith. I will acquiesce to the person who sees the complete picture every time.

Blocked kicks are not the only criterior to judging a special teams coach, as many have pointed out, especially when the Oline play is suspect already. But in that aspect alone, when I see an interior offensive lineman fall over backward and the opposing DL come up the middle, then I tend to blame the personnel and the talent level, not the coach. I am not one who believes you can take inferior personnel and "coach them up" to be good. To me that's the crux of the matter. In the area of blocked kicks alone, if you believe a coach can make that awful amalgamaton of castoffs and 7th round picks into a good enough offensive line, then you should sign the petition. Respectfully, I disagree and do not think any coach can. I leave the decision to Shanahan and hope he upgrades the personnel before he fires the coach.

[KingGibbs]

I'm guessing that the final determinaton on joining your petition is whether you believe or not that a good coach can make players with little talent "good enough". A coach can emphasize what a block in the back is. He can tell his players the stats on how this has adversely affected the team. He can point out the correct blocking technique to avoid the penalty (i.e put your head in front of his shoulder pads). He can call out players who made the stupid penalties. He can recommend cutting the offending player to "send a message" to the rest of the team.

On kicks he can keep drilling the kicker on the average time he has to get the ball airborne and he can emphasize technique for the interior linemen to aoid penetration (since no kick is successful if the interior of the OLine collapses).

Not being in practice and not seeing the coaching that's going on, the fans are left with the results to judge the former. Shanahan, Danny's boss, get to see both the results and the coaching efforts during the week. Shanahan has made the decision, so far, to keep Danny Smith. I will acquiesce to the person who sees the complete picture every time.

Blocked kicks are not the only criterior to judging a special teams coach, as many have pointed out, especially when the Oline play is suspect already. But in that aspect alone, when I see an interior offensive lineman fall over backward and the opposing DL come up the middle, then I tend to blame the personnel and the talent level, not the coach. I am not one who believes you can take inferior personnel and "coach them up" to be good. To me that's the crux of the matter. In the area of blocked kicks alone, if you believe a coach can make that awful amalgamaton of castoffs and 7th round picks into a good enough offensive line, then you should sign the petition. Respectfully, I disagree and do not think any coach can. I leave the decision to Shanahan and hope he upgrades the personnel before he fires the coach.

Ladies and Gentlemen?! I give you the Voice of Reason! Nice job buddy. I appreciate fans that step back and look at the big picture. You know your stuff.

[Bang]

I would appreciate all of that if in fact you could osmehow show me that we have such inferior talent as to not be able to do even the most rudimentary things properly for the past seven years.

As i pointed out above, a lot of the guys on our special teams have been playing on those teams for YEARS. If after so long Danny can't coach them up to not commit stupid penalties game after game after game year after year then you have to begin to look for the root reason why.

the consistency in which our special teams underperform is the reason why this thread exists.

And "underperform" is exactly what they do.

we don't have great players, but we don't havfe players who don't belong in the NFL either, and yet our special teams perform as if they are players who simply cannot play this game at this level.

Again, 8 blocked kicks in 20 games is not something that anyone has ever seen before, and there are teams with a lot less talent than what we have, and they don't have nearly these problems.

Consistently being among the bottom in field goal percentage indicates a coach who cannot 'coach em up''.

Yes, we can say that he can show the kicker what to do a million times, or tell him how to elevate the ball a million times, ... etc etc..

but the fact is the problem exists with every kicker he brings in. Every kicker we've had in the last seven seasons has had an absolutely abysmal field goal percentage.

(and then they go one elsewhere and become effective kickers. Such is the case of Suisham and with Novack.)

Smith has been here through Gibbs,k when we made our last real concerted effort to upgrade the talent on the team, and the results are the same. Now again, we're upgrading talent, same results.

And there is absolutely nothing that Danny Smith has ever shown on the field to ever believe this trend will change. Regardless of the players he has. the mistakes continue.

Is poor talent at fault for us kicking the ball out of bounds six times this year?

Someone is calling that play.. is it the talent that is good enough to be a top five kickoff coverage unit telling Gano to try and kick it to the corner?

Who is ignoring the strength of his unit to get cute and risk huge mistakes? (180 yards in penalties on six kicks out of bounds.)

It is interesting, this lack of talent excuse. As Danny's supporters love to point out, we're one of the best in kickoff coverage. And yet we're among the worst in every single other special teams category. Literally neaer the bottom. The BOTTOM. If we were middle of the pack, OK, I can be forgiving, But in practically every special teams stat you can imagine, other than kickoff coverage, we have ranked on average right near the bottom of the NFL.

So is Danny a genius for being able to get this pathetic band of barely-NFL-level wretches to consistently be one of the league's better kicoff coverage units... or is he a bad coach because he has players capable of doing that, yet are completely incapable of doing anything else on special teams to a level that would at least rank them in the top half of the league occasionally?

Consistent underperformance. This is what damns Danny Smith.

~Bang

[adam@section118]

Both sides make good arguments.

However, in my opinion, coaches here in Washington have been fired for a lot less then what Danny has managed to produce.

I will gladly eat crow if we come out with a top 10 ST unit next year, but I truly think we need a new coach and a bunch of new players.

Also, I never understood the logic that any person who can be titled "TPTB" cannot do any wrong. The mods created/run this site, yet I am sure they can make mistakes. Joe Gibbs/Mike S have won SuperBowls, yet it is possible for them to make mistakes as well. One of the most recent ones was trading for McNabb (which I openly supported, and while not fully understanding it, endorsed the move and still like it, minus the fact it didnt work out)

[Wyvern]

I'm not a fan of Danny Smith either -- but he's not the worst Special Teams Coach out there. So, if you fire him, who do you replace him with?

Dave Toub re-signed with Bears, Westhoff the same with the Jets, Bobby April is still in place with the Eagles, And other well-regarded candidates like Tabor (Browns), Seely (49'ers) Hoffman (Chiefs), and DeCamillis (Cowboys) are fairly well entrenched, and not likely to move.

So does Shanahan really try reaching into the college ranks for a Special Teams coach? Rather, I think he sticks with Smith to see if Danny can develop a better ST, after the old Cerrato talent has been replaced with players picked by Shanahan/Allen.

The 2012 season is probably when Danny Smith has to show definite progress, because I suspect Shanahan and Allen are checking out the ST-Assistant Coaches of the above-mentioned teams v-e-r-y carefully.

[CoolHandLuke]

Danny Smith is simply mediocre & has had plenty of time to prove us otherwise. It's time to bring in someone that can take it to the next level. Super Bowl caliber teams have OCs, DCs, and STs coaches that are all qualified to be a HC elsewhere. We have great positions coaches and unfortunately STs isn't one of them. I don't know why that sounds outrageous to some of you in here. Fire Danny, trade him to the Cowboys for all I care

[HailGreen28]

I'm guessing that the final determinaton on joining your petition is whether you believe or not that a good coach can make players with little talent "good enough". A coach can emphasize what a block in the back is. He can tell his players the stats on how this has adversely affected the team. He can point out the correct blocking technique to avoid the penalty (i.e put your head in front of his shoulder pads). He can call out players who made the stupid penalties. He can recommend cutting the offending player to "send a message" to the rest of the team.

On kicks he can keep drilling the kicker on the average time he has to get the ball airborne and he can emphasize technique for the interior linemen to aoid penetration (since no kick is successful if the interior of the OLine collapses).

And over multiple seasons, with different players, when our results are still less than average, you remove the common denominator: ST coach. Because he isn't effective in what you outline above.

Not being in practice and not seeing the coaching that's going on, the fans are left with the results to judge the former. Shanahan, Danny's boss, get to see both the results and the coaching efforts during the week. Shanahan has made the decision, so far, to keep Danny Smith. I will acquiesce to the person who sees the complete picture every time.

Shanny's been wrong before. Re: McNabb.

Blocked kicks are not the only criterior to judging a special teams coach, as many have pointed out, especially when the Oline play is suspect already. But in that aspect alone, when I see an interior offensive lineman fall over backward and the opposing DL come up the middle, then I tend to blame the personnel and the talent level, not the coach. I am not one who believes you can take inferior personnel and "coach them up" to be good. To me that's the crux of the matter. In the area of blocked kicks alone, if you believe a coach can make that awful amalgamaton of castoffs and 7th round picks into a good enough offensive line, then you should sign the petition. Respectfully, I disagree and do not think any coach can. I leave the decision to Shanahan and hope he upgrades the personnel before he fires the coach.

Half a dozen blocked kicks. It's more than one OL getting pancaked. And if the OL in question is a recurring thing, he wasn't taught right technique or shouldn't have been put there in the first place. That's on the coach.

Everybody uses castoffs on special teams. You aren't the only one to say it, I just think it's the lamest excuse possible for *our* ST coach.

[Missouri_Skins_Fan]

oops...

posted in wrong thread, by accident

sorry

[pjfootballer]

I know it was just a college all-star game, but again, the special teams by the South squad sucked, coached by non other than Danny Smith.

Wildbill suggested someone watch practice, but that is not possible. I would like someone who is planning to go to training camp and watch the STs practice and not the offense and defense to see what is going on.

[scruffylookin]

I don't really care one way or the other about Danny Smith. Bottom line, he'll be the coach again in 2012 so whining about it isn't going to change anything.

But just for the hell of it I went to NFL.com and got the special teams rankings under Smith.

Kick Off coverage rankings

2004: 14th

2005: 5th

2006: 4th

2007: 4th

2008: 3rd

2009: 3rd

2010: 2nd

2011: 2nd

Punt coverage rankings

2004: 7th

2005: 31st[

2006: 25th

2007: 27th

2008: 6th

2009: 27th

2010: 4th

2011: 23rd

Punting avg rankings

2004: 3rd

2005: 29th

2006: 20th

2007: 28th

2008: 29th

2009: 31st

2010: 31st

2011: 25th

FG percentage (this includes blocks)

2004: 29th

2005: 16th

2006: 27th

2007: 21st

2008: 32nd

2009: 8th

2010: 32nd

2011: 29th

Kickoff Return avg

2004: 12th

2005: 11th

2006: 19th

2007: 8th

2008: 4th

2009: 24th

2010: 14th

2011: 27th

Punt Return avg

2004: 20th

2005: 28th

2006: 14th

2007: 26th

2008: 22nd

2009: 30th

2010: 10th

2011: 21st

So while Smith's Special Teams have finished in the top 5 in kick off coverage for 7 straight years, the rest of his units have finished in the top 10 in their catagory only 8 out of 40 times while finishing in the bottom 10 21 of 40 times.

So he has fielded a top shelf Kickoff coverage unit however the rest of his units have been closer to bottom tier. One would think we could upgrade but for whatever reason Shanahan decided that keeping Smith was the way to go.

[Wyvern]

So while Smith's Special Teams have finished in the top 5 in kick off coverage for 7 straight years, the rest of his units have finished in the top 10 in their catagory only 8 out of 40 times while finishing in the bottom 10 21 of 40 times.

So he has fielded a top shelf Kickoff coverage unit however the rest of his units have been closer to bottom tier. One would think we could upgrade but for whatever reason Shanahan decided that keeping Smith was the way to go.

That is what I noticed. If you look through the league, there are a lot teams whose special teams rankings yo-yo up and down over the seasons. Only a few ST coaches keep their teams consistently in the top 10, and most of those are not available to the Skins. (I listed a few names in post 213 of this thread). There are a few teams whose teams have been mainly in the bottom 10 'overall' for years now, but the Skins are not one of those. Frankly, we seem to live and die by the health of our kicker and punter, and tend to be decent on kickoff coverage.

I don't think Danny Smith is the worst ST's coach out there -- but there are better ones out there than him. There are worse ones too, so if we let him go -- he'd be picked up quickly.

I suspect Shanahan/Allen are still checking Smith out -- because the punter and kicker (?) situations seem to have stabilized. There are a few decent return specialists in the fold -- and team depth is improving. I think 2012 is Smith's 'qualifying audition' season -- because I think Shanahan and Allen are looking for alternatives.

[gaskinsfan]

With all that's up with the team we really need to get rid of our special teams coach?

The games I watched the special teams were not the problem... Gano was OK, not great, not terrible, needs to get the ball up faster. Rocca was an absolute beast, probably the best player at his position on the team. Not saying he was the best player period but for what you expect out of a punter he was very good.

Coverage all in all was OK, return game was less than stellar, it seems that Banks got hit too hard a few times and then he ran much more tentatively the rest of the season. That's the only place I can really see we need to improve is to get a better return man that runs with more abandon.

But fire Danny Smith? Give me a break...

[Peregrine]

Signed, by a better special teams coach than Danny Smith.

I think for once Redskins fans should be able to expect a FG to be made, and a kickoff to not go out of bounds. Anybody who would defend him I have serious serious questions about. Except for his mom.

---------- Post added January-31st-2012 at 06:07 PM ----------

With all that's up with the team we really need to get rid of our special teams coach?...

Coverage all in all was OK, return game was less than stellar, it seems that Banks got hit too hard a few times and then he ran much more tentatively the rest of the season. That's the only place I can really see we need to improve is to get a better return man that runs with more abandon.

But fire Danny Smith? Give me a break...

Lets pretend Danny Smith was average...How many teams make the playoffs on average? How has that worked out for us?

"Give me a break" Give me a break...The Redskins kicking game in the past 6-7 years:

Field goals

2011: 29th, only team to miss 2 XP's.

2010: 32nd

2009: 8th, missed an XP

2008: 32nd

2007: 20th, missed an XP

2006: 27th

So in 6 years, they finished, 32nd, 32nd, 29th, 27th, 20th, and 8th and missed 4 XPs. Thats beyond terrible. The average NFL team misses an extra point once every 4 years.

Punting:

2011:26th

2010:30th

2009:21st

2008:29th

2007:28th

2006:20th

2005:29th

So that has us ranking 30th, 29th, 29th, 28th, 26th, 21st, and 20th in 7 years. An average rank of 26, and a median of 28. Our field goal kicking averages 25th with a median of 28. So with a large sample size, we can say as conclusively as possible that with Danny Smith as our special teams coach, in any given season we are most likely to have a field goal unit that is 28th or worse in the NFL, and a punting unit that is 28th or worse in the NFL.

How does that help us make the playoffs?