No. I propose Pete relinqueshes X's and O's power on defense. He is the CEO that runs it.
He gives a couple of directives, "we don't give up anything deep." "We will be the best tackling team in the league." Things of that nature, but the DC is in full control of how to achieve these things. Not Pete.
Pete is currently fully involved in the scheming. It's not working.
Pete did relinquish X’s and O’s control last season and it was an utter disaster with the current DC of Philly having major influence on the scheme.
Schematically, Pete has fixed the run defense from 2 high. Listen to people that know scheme, and they will say that using Pete’s historic principles combined with Fangio 2-High coverage shells, his influence has made 2-4-5 work.
This has been, and will continue to be, a talent issue first and foremost. Dallas has an elite pass rush, SF has an elite pass rush, Philly has an elite pass rush, and on and on and on.
Seattle is trying to get an elite pass rush by drafting Mafe, Hall, and Taylor, and signing Nwosu and Jones. We can argue Carter all day, but I find it hard to believe that it would’ve worked when there is documented reporting that Jordan Davis keeps Carter in check and focused, and Seattle doesn’t have a Jordan Davis.
I find the “Pete wasted Russ” argument to be exhausted. Sean Payton is running the same run heavy offense that Pete did.
At its core, the team is still coming out of the cap hell of trying to sustain that window opened by having a “HoF” QB. Seasons upon seasons of 1 year deals. Seasons upon seasons of spending draft capital on vets to be competitive in that season.
We finally have multiple defensive players on rookie deals/long term deals. So much of defense is communication and cohesion, just like OL. And that takes time to gel. And you can’t do that if you’re recycling 30-60% of your defensive starters between seasons.
And I actually see flaws in Hurtt’s game. I think his play to play decisions, plus how he game plans, overestimates what his players can do, which gets this team into trouble. So, by all means, criticize Hurtt. But don’t warp the facts and spin the narrative that Pete hired Hurtt so he wouldn’t actually have to run Fangio scheme. As if he wanted to manipulate the scheme from the shadows. If that was true, we’d still be running wide 9, 4 down cover-3. And we haven’t since 2018. Pete has shown time and time again, that he will adapt the scheme to fit the league and the players. He’s not dogmatic in that way.
There are reasons to fire Pete and Hurtt. But much like the Russ vs. Pete narrative, I feel its absolutely wild how detached this conversation is from reality. Matty Brown literally had to delete a tweet last training camp because he had a screenshot of Hurtt’s call sheet that showed entirely new verbiage. All Fangio, no Pete.