Giants Reportedly Hire James Bettcher As Defensive Coordinator
ESPN- It is a whole new world for the New York Giants. Out with the old and in with the new. Out under head coach Pat Shurmur? Defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo and special teams coach Tom Quinn. In? Former Arizona Cardinals defensive coordinator James Bettcher and likely Carolina Panthers special teams coach Thomas McGaughey.
Bettcher ran an aggressive 3-4 defense with the Cardinals and did so with tremendous success. In his three seasons as defensive coordinator, the Cardinals never finished lower than sixth in the NFL in team defense. They had the second-highest blitz rate in the NFL over the last three seasons, while the Giants were 17th.
Looks like we have a coaching staff forming! Even though I still don’t know what the hell we are getting in Pat Shurmur, I’m still excited for how everything is coming together. All I heard about after the Eagles tabbed Doug Pederson as head coach was how bad of a hire it was. Now it’s that Pederson has assembled an All-Star cast of assistants around him that has led the team all the way to the Super Bowl. So if that’s what it takes for the Pat Shurmur Era to be a success in New York, I will take it. Granted, I was down for any defensive coordinator outside of Steve Spagnuolo and ANY special teams coach outside of Tom Quinn. These numbers are especially daunting for the shit we dealt with.
I’ll admit that I was more than a little excited when I heard that Jack Del Rio was in the running for D Coordinator.
But the appeal of Del Rio went away when I found out Bettcher is a REAL LIFE FUCKING HERO.
Being a hero >>>>>> wearing a leather jacket (unless you do both like Indiana Jones, who would probably be an incredible defensive coordinator)
Everything I have read about Bettcher has been extremely positive. Like over the moon, future head coach, you may lose him to another team kind of shit. I mean if you look at his defense’s stats the three years he was defensive coordinator, the proof is in the pudding.
The Cardinals obviously had playmakers on their defense. But bringing the coach that had those types of numbers to a team with Snacks, Lando Commando, JPP, Olivier Vernon, and Jack Rabbit has me swooning over a guy I already liked because he’s a big fella just like me. In fact, I need to get Bettcher a Snacks shirt ASAP.
Oh yeah, Bettcher also loves to bring the fucking house, which any fanbase can appreciate.
h/t matty c
I’ll admit that changing up to a 3-4 defense on the fly gives me some pause. It seems like there is always an adjustment period in personnel and execution for teams that change schemes and the Giants made their bones for years with a devastating front 4. But the Giants also unleashed chaos on the NFL back in the 80s when The Two Bills were running 3-4 trains on teams that visited East Rutherford. Plus having a GM that may actually draft a linebacker in the first couple of rounds every so often will help get the necessary talent for that defense. To be honest, the biggest negative in all this is that I will have to manually change my defense in Madden from a 3-4 to 4-3 whenever I play as the Giants. I think I’m too old to change back to a 3-4 player.
In the end though, I’ll be happy if we can have a D coordinator that can make the unit actually good again or at the very least doesn’t have to suspend a different starting cornerback every couple of months because they got upset or didn’t want to practice. Baby steps, people.
And if by some tiny chances Bettcher stinks, Giants already have “Bitcher” in their back pocket for angry chants or tweets. If you don’t think that will motivate Bettcher to be great every day, you have never been picked on in your life.