{"id":12940,"date":"2012-01-07T00:08:42","date_gmt":"2012-01-07T05:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=12940"},"modified":"2014-05-09T14:34:51","modified_gmt":"2014-05-09T19:34:51","slug":"vikings-fire-only-defensive-coach-whose-unit-did-well-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/01\/07\/vikings-fire-only-defensive-coach-whose-unit-did-well-this-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Vikings fire only defensive coach whose unit did well this year"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Okay, I admit I’m stumped: the Minnesota Vikings had a putrid 2011 season. They lost games they should have won and they barely managed to win the games they should have dominated. I get it that the defence was clearly a problem and that changes were going to have to be made. What I don’t<\/em> understand is that the only coach on the defence whose unit played well is the very first coach to be fired<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

“This is what they wanted,” Dunbar said in a phone interview with the Star Tribune<\/em>. “Coach Frazier told me the ownership wanted to go in a different direction. And for me, that\u2019s fine. As football coaches, we know we\u2019re all migrant workers and we go where the jobs are. Now, my job in Minnesota is over.”<\/p>\n

Dunbar joined the Vikings in 2006 when Brad Childress became coach and helped the defensive line establish a reputation as a sturdy, run-stopping unit. Pat Williams, Kevin Williams and Jared Allen all earned Pro Bowl invitations while playing under Dunbar. And this season, despite the well-documented struggles of the entire defense, the d-line may have had the most solid season of any Vikings’ position group, ranking 11th in the NFL against the run. The Vikings also tallied 50 sacks as a team with defensive end setting a new single-season team record with 22.<\/p>\n

Still, after a 3-13 finish, Frazier has vowed to shake things up and make significant changes to his coaching staff. Dunbar’s exit is likely just the start of the revolving door at Winter Park.<\/p>\n

Dunbar said he wasn’t able to diagnose the root cause of the Vikings’ 3-13 freefall.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m a position coach,” he said. “I\u2019m not a coordinator. I\u2019m not a head coach. When I look at what I did with the Minnesota Vikings, my piece of the puzzle was to make the defensive line play as well as they could. We played well against the run. I think we finished No. 11 against the run. And we finished No. 1 in sacks. And the guy I coached led the league in sacks with 22 on a team that really didn\u2019t have a lead the last eight games of the year. So I thought that was my piece of the puzzle. I can\u2019t worry about running backs, defensive backs, receivers, linebackers. When you do it, you focus on your job, put your piece of the puzzle in and go from there.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If your defence was putrid — and it was, between injuries and legal issues — someone has to be seen to pay, but why is the only guy whose players more than<\/em> earned their salaries the first one to go? I just don’t get it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, I admit I’m stumped: the Minnesota Vikings had a putrid 2011 season. They lost games they should have won and they barely managed to win the games they should have dominated. I get it that the defence was clearly a problem and that changes were going to have to be made. What I don’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[449,126,179],"class_list":["post-12940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football","tag-jaredallen","tag-minnesotavikings","tag-nfl"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-3mI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12940"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25609,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12940\/revisions\/25609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}