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TNF: DEN vs. ARI at 8:20 PM ET on NFLN, FOX, and Amazon Prime Video - OC Mike McCoy Fired in the Aftermath; Byron Leftwich Takes Over


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Cardinals Fire Offensive Coordinator Mike McCoy

 

Mike McCoy's short tenure as offensive coordinator of the Arizona Cardinals is over.
 
Less than a day after the Cardinals suffered a 45-10 loss to the Denver Broncos on Thursday Night Football, Arizona fired McCoy following his seven-game stint with the team, NFL Network's Tom Pelissero reported, per a source. The team later made the news official.
 
Quarterbacks coach Byron Leftwich is the new coordinator and play-caller, a source told NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport.
 
McCoy has been fired three times over the last 22 months by three different NFL teams. The Chargersfired him as their head coach after the 2016 season and he was lost his job as the Broncos OC in November 2017. McCoy is the second coordinator to be fired in less than a week -- the Tampa Bay Buccaneers parted ways with defensive coordinator Mike Smith on Tuesday.
 
Whether McCoy's dismissal will change the Cardinals' fortunes remain to be seen. Rosen remains very much a work in progress, and head coach Steve Wilks bears the bulk of the responsibility for the team's poor start. With only one win through seven games, there's a good chance Wilks could be one and done in the desert.
 
Around The NFL will have more on McCoy's firing soon.
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  • 26CornerBlitz changed the title to TNF: DEN vs. ARI at 8:20 PM ET on NFLN, FOX, and Amazon Prime Video - OC Mike McCoy Fired in the Aftermath; Byron Leftwich Takes Over
6 hours ago, joesixpack said:

 

Right josh lol. He vomited all over himself 

 

Dude......relax. It's 1 game.  We won't know anything about these QBs until year 3.  You can't evaluate these guys on a game by game basis because they are all rookies and are going to have severe highs and lows.  All of these QBs have had them this season and it will be a long time before we know which ones are good and bad when it's all said and done.

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27 minutes ago, K-9 said:

If it takes Leftwich less time to get a good play in than it did for him to wind up and throw a football, the Cards just may have something. 

 

My word that looping delivery!  But I'll tell you what: being on the field for the warm-ups of the Miami (OH)-Marshall games when I covered the MAC, the sound that the ball made when either Lord Byron or Big Ben let go a spiral was incredible.

 

Worth noting that the sound the ball makes when Allen spins one in there is, unbelievably, even more impressive.

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1 minute ago, thebandit27 said:

 

My word that looping delivery!  But I'll tell you what: being on the field for the warm-ups of the Miami (OH)-Marshall games when I covered the MAC, the sound that the ball made when either Lord Byron or Big Ben let go a spiral was incredible.

 

Worth noting that the sound the ball makes when Allen spins one in there is, unbelievably, even more impressive.

I will never forget the game where Byron was being carried to the next play by his lineman.

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3 minutes ago, thebandit27 said:

 

My word that looping delivery!  But I'll tell you what: being on the field for the warm-ups of the Miami (OH)-Marshall games when I covered the MAC, the sound that the ball made when either Lord Byron or Big Ben let go a spiral was incredible.

 

Worth noting that the sound the ball makes when Allen spins one in there is, unbelievably, even more impressive.

Awesome that you had that experience. Thanks for sharing that. 

 

No doubt Leftwich could sling it, but that advantage is lost with a long delivery time. 

 

Back in the day, down on the sidelines at practices, etc, I remember James Harris's ball making that noise. Strongest arm I've ever witnessed personally. It's even more impressive to a wide-eyed kid, too. So I'm sure my memory tends to embellish. 

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Byron Leftwich Gets First Chance as Offensive Coordinator

 

By ANDY BENOIT  October 19, 2018
 
Cardinals first-year head coach Steve Wilks made an unsurprising decision Friday, firing offensive coordinator Mike McCoy and promoting quarterbacks coach Byron Leftwich to that post.
Two things I've heard whispered around the NFL:
 
1. McCoy's system is strung together by miscellaneous tactics and concepts that worked when he coached great field general quarterbacks like Philip Rivers and Peyton Manning, but were not user-friendly to your typical QB.
 
2. Leftwich, the former seventh overall pick out of Marshall who started 50 games in nine NFL seasons, is one of the league's great young quarterback minds.
 
I heard this enough times that this past offseason I made a special trip to Phoenix to meet Leftwich and talk football. He was a joy to visit with, but to be perfectly honest, our conversation revealed very little. Leftwich is guarded with his—to borrow a Marc Trestman term—"football intellectual property." (To Leftwich's credit, he's unabashed about this. "I don't like to talk publicly about specific plays," he told me, "because I've heard too many coaches accidentally reveal things with what they thought were innocent, general comments.")
 
What was apparent from our conversation is Leftwich believes that everything an offense does must tie not to a certain philosophy, but rather to your quarterback's perspective. You must understand how your QB sees things and build your plays and verbiage accordingly. That may seem obvious, but it's not something every offensive architect acts on.
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4 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

The offense with Tebow was good? Really?

It was better than the current Bills offense. In fact, it wasn’t even close to as bad as the Bills offense has been. McCoy really did something ingenious when Fox made the call to ditch Orton and ride the Timmy T. train the rest of the way: he installed an old school college option offense, and it worked. Not well enough to stick with it the next year (although what would have happened if Peyton didn’t agree to come to Denver?), but better than the Broncs attempts to run a standard offense with Orton. I’m not sure McCoy ever got enough credit for that. 

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40 minutes ago, The Frankish Reich said:

It was better than the current Bills offense. In fact, it wasn’t even close to as bad as the Bills offense has been. McCoy really did something ingenious when Fox made the call to ditch Orton and ride the Timmy T. train the rest of the way: he installed an old school college option offense, and it worked. Not well enough to stick with it the next year (although what would have happened if Peyton didn’t agree to come to Denver?), but better than the Broncs attempts to run a standard offense with Orton. I’m not sure McCoy ever got enough credit for that. 

 

He turned it into an ill deserved Head Coaching job that he failed in. 

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33 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

He turned it into an ill deserved Head Coaching job that he failed in. 

Yes, he failed. But why was it ill deserved? It's pretty standard issue for Offensive/Defensive Coordinators whose units perform well to be given head coaching jobs. Sean McDermott, anyone? Rex Ryan (a DC before his first HC job)? Doug Marrone (ostensibly the Saints OC before his stint at Syracuse)? Chan Gailey? Dick Jauron? Mike Mularkey? Gregg Williams? Wade Phillips? Marv Levy never officially held a "coordinator" job before his Bills gig, but he was a special teams coach. In other words, McCoy's primary qualification for the HC job was exactly the same as every other NFL coach's.

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7 hours ago, The Frankish Reich said:

Yes, he failed. But why was it ill deserved? It's pretty standard issue for Offensive/Defensive Coordinators whose units perform well to be given head coaching jobs. Sean McDermott, anyone? Rex Ryan (a DC before his first HC job)? Doug Marrone (ostensibly the Saints OC before his stint at Syracuse)? Chan Gailey? Dick Jauron? Mike Mularkey? Gregg Williams? Wade Phillips? Marv Levy never officially held a "coordinator" job before his Bills gig, but he was a special teams coach. In other words, McCoy's primary qualification for the HC job was exactly the same as every other NFL coach's.

 

Because McCoy only ran a successful offense one year - the year Peyton Manning was his Quarterback when the true offensive coordinator was Peyton Manning. That was the only year his unit performed well. 

 

The offense the Tebow year was horrible. It ranked 23rd in the league. They won games that year with brilliant defense and then Tebow making one or two clutch plays in the 4th Quarter. It was absolute fluke on the offensive side. All this "he ran a clever option offense" is revisionist history. The Tebow season was a fluke, Mike McCoy is a fraud and hence has now been fired as OC after less than half a season two years in a row. 

 

Sometimes good coordinators get Head Coaching jobs and fail. That happens it is the NFL. McCoy was a bad coordinator who got any NFL job and failed. That was kinda predictable. Vance Joseph is smack bang in that territory too. 

Edited by GunnerBill
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