The Rams will bring back Green Bay assistant coach/linebackers coach Winston Moss - also the only defensive coach not to get canned by the Packers this morning - for a second interview, according to Adam Schefter of NFL.com. It's conspicuous that Green Bay cleaned house among their defensive coaching staff, except for Moss; seems like they would have fired him too if they didn't have a promotion in mind.
The fellas at SBN's Packers blog, Acme Packing Company, seem to think the same thing. Though they did say this about Moss last week:
I've never understood the love for Moss, or why he was promoted to assistant head coach before the 2007 season. The linebackers he's coached have never been outstanding. They've never been bad either. There must be something about meeting the man in person.
That's tough to judge, especially for someone who doesn't watch many Packers games, and if there are problems elsewhere on the defense or with the coaching staff, that rubs off on the other parts...as we Rams fans know all too well. The Packers have a good group of young linebackers led by MLB A.J. Hawk and including former Ram Brandon Chillar. Injuries also had a big effect on the Packers defense; Hawk dealt with a groin injury all year and still managed to lead the team with 86 tackles...off his 105 from the season before. He's also helped convert Brady Poppinga from a college DE to an OLB in the NFL. Here's a run down on the Packers run defense from this season.
I kind of wonder if Moss wouldn't be a candidate for defensive coordinator in St. Louis too.
A couple toughts on some of the other possibilities named today. I don't know much about Arizona's offensive coordinator Russ Grimm, but for a team determined to make Steven Jackson and the running game the center of their offense he seems like an odd fit. If the Rams interest in Titans offensive line coach Mike Munchak turns into a job it might help Jacob Bell morph into the player we're paying him to be...so he's got that going for him, which is nice.
The bottom line on coaches for the Rams... Brand name or no name, more than anything else, they need a guy who can squeeze every last win out of the players, break the culture of losing that's developed at the Dome and everywhere else the Rams play. They need a guy who not only knows his Xs and Os, but doesn't let players lineup in the wrong gap and make the kind of mistakes that continually plagued the Rams all season.