Falcons coach Mike Smith, a rookie coach like Jim Zorn last year, talked about why he’s had a lot of early success in Atlanta. It differs from Zorn’s experience in Washington.
Smith said of why he had early success: “I think there are a lot more unsuccessful coaching staffs than there are unsuccessful head coaches. It’s very important to put a staff around you that has the same philosophy that you do and believes in the same things you do schematicaly. And I’ve been very fortunate to assemble a staff. We have over 212 years of NFL experience, guys that have been coordinators and guys that have been head coaches and they’ve been valuable resources for me. That’s been the thing that’s helped me to have those guys around and have the same ideas philosophically that I have.
“And it helps to get an outstanding quarterback in the first round and I thought we did a very good job with our draft last year. When we opened the season we had five rookie starters in 2008 and we’ve continued to start younger players in year two with the guys we drafted this year.”
On the ability to build his roster the way he wanted: It’s very important. Thomas Dmitroff and myself sat down and philosophically had the same ideas in how to build a roster, not only in the skill sets but the type of players we wanted to have on our team. I think it’s very important that you have an agreement in how you want to build your roster. We’re trying to build a roster for sustainability. There’s a lot of players that have ability… The big difference is the good teams are the teams that sustain it from year to year and that’s the thing we’re trying to build here.”
Note: The Redskins entered the season with a coaching staff that had a combined 174 years of experience in the NFL, excluding Zorn’s 24. Add Sherman Lewis’ 22 to the total and they’re in line with Atlanta. But the starting roster in 2008 looked a lot like the starting roster in 2007. In fact, there were only five projected starters entering this season who would have been different from the projected starting lineup in 2008 (entering training camp).
