“You Can’t Teach What Morris Claiborne Has”
April 15th, 2012
High-energy former Bucs secondary coach and ex-Jets and Chiefs head coach Herm Edwards got all fired up talking about Morris Claiborne and his crappy Wonderlic score during an interview on WDAE-AM 620 last week.
Edwards essentially said the Wonderlic score is a non-issue for a cornerback, loads of NFL players have been great with single-digit scores, and everyone needs to remember the job description is football player.
“Understand who you are drafting. Understand how he has to be coached,” Edwards said. “And remember this, you’re not drafting to be the substitute teacher. You’re drafting this guy to be a football player. And Morris Claiborne is a heck of a football player. You can’t teach what Morris Claiborne has, as far as a coach. He has talent. He can cover people. He has instincts. Coaches can’t teach that. Coaches teach technique. Now if you want a substitute teacher, I’m sure you can go find and draft a substitute teacher if you’d like. You gotta figure out what kind of football player you want to draft.”
In general, Edwards raved about Claiborne and said he was on broadcasts of SEC games two years ago and has had an opportunity to study him.
Back in the Bucs’ heyday, Edwards said, the draft philosophy was never to draft a cornerback in the first round with the old Tampa-2 defense, but times have changed and nobody knows what Greg Schiano’s defense will really look like.
April 15th, 2012 at 10:31 am
And what better transition for Claiborne than to have his secondary coach at LSU come with him to the Bucs. Months ago when they announced that hire I knew the Bucs would be taking Morris with the fifth pick. If Schiano needed a recommendation on Claiborne who better to give it to him than Ron Cooper.
April 15th, 2012 at 11:20 am
a.b.c. allways be closing get him to sign his name on the line thats dotted. You see this watch you see this watch this watch cost more than your car
April 15th, 2012 at 12:14 pm
It’s true, you can’t teach someone to be an idiot.
April 15th, 2012 at 1:22 pm
What Herm says in his last point is what I’ve been saying all along. If we run as much (or more) man-to-man than Cover 2, then I’m all for drafting MC. If we run C2 more like 60 to 70 percent of the time – what a “Cover 2 Fundamentalist” most likely will do – then a first round CB is a waste, and a better pick would be a guy like Brandon Boykin in the 3rd.
April 15th, 2012 at 2:41 pm
On NFL.com they did a power rankings of head coaches, and they ranked Schiano 31 out of 32, only one behind him was the mess the Taints are in. He ranked Jeff Fisher in the top #10 for Pete’s sake, I would take Schiano over any of the other bums who got hired this year. Jeff Fisher might just be the most over rated coach in recent history, the guy is mediocre at best. Elliot Harrison is a joke. Mike Milarkey was inches away from being fired as the OC in Atlanta and than the idiot Jags hire him as the head coach. Mike Milarkey really? The same Mike Milarkey’ who’s offense scored zero points in a playoff game. That moron ranked him ahead of 7 other head coaches in the NFL. I’ll take the guy with 10 years head coaching experience and has never been fired as a coach, college or not. Schiano has all the traits of a successful coach.
http://www.nfl.com/photoessays/09000d5d82849b56?module=HP11_content_stream#photo=25
April 15th, 2012 at 2:57 pm
Claiborne is the guy. The best fit for Claiborne is clearly the Bucs and vice versa. He will thrive under his former DB coach in college. Trent Richardson is not a need, he would only be a luxury. We need DB’s, so anyone saying we should draft T-Rich over Claiborne need to realize in order to win games we need to get an elite DB. The thought of the possibility of EJ Biggers being a starting DB should make any one in the draft Trent camp vomit in their mouths. We can find a very talented running back in the 2nd or 3rd round, or even trade for one for that matter. Blount with a full off season program for the first time and a coordinator who actually knows how running back are supposed to be used. He should have a comeback year along with Josh. It’s clear with the signing of Eric Wright, that we will be using a lot more man coverages under Schiano, so Claiborne is a no-brainer.
April 15th, 2012 at 4:10 pm
@Lion: Do not be such a big homer, you will cry every time articles such as those come out. What has Schiano done in NFL really? Nothing, apart from being a positional coach with the Bears for a short time. Even as the head coach for Rutgers he never was able to win the weakest conference, even when he had top NFL talent such as Ray Rice, Kenny Britt, Brian Leonard and other receiver whose name I cannot remember. This is a league that the best college coaches such as Saban, Holtz, Spurrier, Carrol etc have struggled in. No analyst is going to crown Schiano as a halfway decent coach until he proves to be one. I think 31st rank is fair.
April 15th, 2012 at 5:29 pm
@Johnny
If you realize I wasn’t just talking about the Bucs, I was talking about how poorly he did rating coaches altogether moron. Just because I said I believe Schiano is a better higher than any of the other teams head coaching hiring’s doesn’t make me a homer. I wasn’t impressed with any of the head coaching hires this year, Philbin was not a bad hire though. It’s not like I was saying Schiano belonged in the top 10 jeeze. Do you realize how bad Rutgers was before Schiano took over? He turned one of the worst 1-A teams in college football history to respectable team. Rutgers never had strong recruiting so what do you expect them to be. It doesn’t take a genius coach to win at USC, Alabama, Florida, take a look at Lane Kiffin he was a terrible coach everywhere he has been then he goes to a school like USC and wins 12 games. Does that make him a great coach? I don’t think it does. If you realized my comment was about how poorly he ranked the coaches not about where I felt Schiano should belong.
April 15th, 2012 at 5:45 pm
Look at the college coaches you mentioned Spurrier, Saban, and Carrol and see what school they coached before going to the NFL. They all coached schools that have the best recruiting class year and and year out, that’s not how things work in the NFL. When they got to the NFL they couldn’t adapt to the game because talent is just given to them as it is in college. That is my opinion. Of course we have no idea how Schiano will pan out, but I truly believe he is the right guy for the job. Look how many NFL offense and defensive coordinators fail when they become head coaches, it happens every year over and over. So just because you have NFL experience it doesn’t automatically make you a better coach.
April 15th, 2012 at 6:49 pm
RE:31. Greg Schiano, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Harsh, I know. But Schiano has never coached at the NFL level. Making his gig harder was the struggle to assemble a staff. Rookie head coaches need a quality cabinet, and Schiano had to mix and match in order to get a decent group to turn around a 4-12 ballclub. Good luck.
My problem is that He justifies his raking on a false point by saying he has never coached at the NFL level, that statement is clearly false. Not to mention the guy He thinks is the best NFL coach indorsed him. Also Schiano appeared to put together a pretty solid staff even if it took awhile.
April 15th, 2012 at 9:14 pm
IMHO, Schiano will go down as the best thing to happen to Tampa in ages.
April 16th, 2012 at 12:46 am
Man, I want the guy to be the best head coach in history- not just Buccaneer.
But I said when he was hired- that’s a huge leap from Rutgers to The NFL. And he only has two years total experience- years ago, as the Beats secondary coach.
And he was fired
His offensive staff looks good.other that WR coach PJ Fleck( what is anyone thinking on that one?????)
His defensive staff is really suspect. Sheridan was a major flop his only chance as a DC. Butch Davis isn’t hands on- and that’s really too bad.
None of this means Schiano can’t be the best coach ever.
But it ain’t gonna be easy
And if Dom plays dumb about our back 7 defensive players( liabilities) AGAIN, then The Coach will have a hard time stopping anybody on Defense. Its about talented players first- then coaching ’em
April 16th, 2012 at 6:43 am
The Bucs draft Team Captains and players with good character. Throw all the BS you want. I do not think it will happen.
April 16th, 2012 at 8:35 am
Claiborne!!!
April 16th, 2012 at 8:51 am
Don’t think what will happen? The defense giving up 40 points a game.
Guess you missed last season.
And Raheem has way more NFL Experience than Schiano.
The fact that Minnesota offered Raheem the DC job, tells you the league blames player talent- not coaching- for last years disaster.
If we don’t get some LBers, CBs,and Safeties- just replay last years tape.
Einstein said that -” the definition of insanity is to continue to do the same action, and expect a different reaction!”
Ladies and Gentleman- I gve “Crazy Dom and the Bac back 7!”
April 16th, 2012 at 3:37 pm
@J 2.0 Says….
“It’s true, you can’t teach someone to be an idiot.”
Well, I don’t know….you learned.