The build

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by omahacolt

Statistically comparing last years team to this years team isn’t fair. Chuck pagano was arguably the worst coach in the history of the nfl.

With all due respect to Dam and his position, I do believe coaches are important so I think you raise a fair point. Not sure how much Pagano dictated the defense last year as we had a coordinator (Monachino) but, before you say it, I'm not saying Monachino was anything special either.

Regardless, I'll agree that stats shouldn't be the entire picture, and can certainly be influenced by a coach's decision making. But stats are nevertheless concrete information that can help anchor opinions in reality. It's certainly fair and smart to supplement that info from other sources. Generally speaking, I personally prefer objective data to eyeball assessments, unless the person providing the eyeball assessments has a proven track record, or those their assessments are described in some way can be verified (for example, the running series of articles on Stampede Blue which analyze a player's performance through a series of videos isolating the player's role over several plays). Sometimes I even ask you for your thoughts on a particular Colts player, because over time I've read lots of your posts on the site and I think your comments are pretty insightful.

With regard to the issue at hand, I guess I'd point out in response that none of the people who left the team are currently being coached by Pagano, and none are tearing up the league right now (Anderson's done reasonably well I guess). So I'm not convinced that their performance last year was out of character for them, and I still think the stats they generated last year are a reasonably good indicator of their skill level.