I want to keep Clay and Aaron. I think they are great players and you don't get rid of great players.
I was about to open a new thread but I think this will do: I'm convinced the problem is coaching and not the players.
Let's start with the easy one: Zook
Our special teams are a disaster, we have not made a trick play in eons, kickoff coverage is poor to horrible, punting is poor.
Zook's decisions are hard to digest, Mason can certainly kick it our of bounds but he is being asked to place his kickoffs at the 1 or 2 yard line. The idea of this is that you force the other team to return the kick and you might get them before they reach the 25.
So your coverage team is horrible and you think that this is a great idea? I'm speechless
Now Capers:
We can't stop anything when we need it, we have seen enough this season to know this is true. The players are constantly in miscommunication errors, there's a pathetic lack of adjustment during the games, there's no energy.
We've made Steffon Diggs a one-game superstar, we made freaking Blake Bortles look good.
You have to stop a long drive by Atlanta, just that and it is the only thing you don't do. Finally when everything is almost lost you put a LB to cover a WR at the endzone. Why is a LB in that formation at all?
Indianapolis was playing with a center at guard, a backup center and one of the worst left tackles in the league, you dial a zillion blitzes and you get to Luck.... twice!
Capers has evaded getting fired by getting very good results against very bad teams from time to time but has never produced a defense that will make good teams afraid.
And Mike:
Disclaimer: I really like MM and I think he is a brilliant playcaller sometimes but...
His decision to transit to a no-huddle vanilla offense was a disaster. We had a great offense and we became Oregon playing against NFL teams. It just doesn't work.
We have plenty of very special players like Cobb and Montgomery and the best idea you have is to make them backup RBs? Just imagine what Belichick could do with a guy like Montgomery.
Then you get it working against Atlanta to completely change it again vs the Colts, does this have any rational explanation?
The WRs were getting better against Atlanta so your next plan is to wipe them off the game to make Richard Rodgers our featured target, the same Richard Rodgers that misses most of his blocks, is slow as a turtle and has an average of epsilon yards after carry.
Mike already had his problems when he had his team together, he was absent-minded in game time decisions and was frequently outcoached but now he has also lost the team.
And together:
The Seattle NFC championship fiasco should have been enough to fire them all. Zook didn't "see" the fake punt when it was a very clear possibility, had his team unprepared and failed horribly in the onside kick.
Capers couldn't defend a series that was impossible to see, Wilson runs for his life, heaves a ball into the endzone and we don't get it? Burnett can score a TD and instead drops to the ground?
Mike got the game handed by Seattle mistakes he went as conservative as you can be only to lose the game.
And they survived that game to reach this?