New broke mid-day Tuesday that the St. Louis Rams hired Rutgers offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti for the team's quarterbacks coaching job. Jim Thomas of the PD echoed initial reports later in the day, while most Rams fans, keeping a close eye on the hire after Sam Bradford's terrible second season, scratched their heads.
The Rams had been linked to two candidates for the QB coaching job prior to Cignetti's surprise hiring, Alex Van Pelt, who had the same job in Tampa Bay, and Bart Andrus, who had worked with Fisher on two separate occasions. That made the Cignetti hiring especially curious.
We looked into Cignetti a little more yesterday. Jon from SBNation's Rutgers blog On The Banks provided me even more context on Cignetti.
I think he is a good hire. At least in the college game, he was a fairly good offensive coordinator who seemed to run a normal NFL offense. Considering that this was a year after the worst offensive coordinator in the country destroyed the offense, you won't find too many complaints about Cignetti. As a coach he definitely believes in a ball control offense and taking shots down the field; maybe getting a bit too aggressive with the latter, to the detriment of keeping drives alive. That should not be an issue as a QB coach though.
He is a good hire. Cignetti has NFL experience, so there isn't much reason to be unhappy.
Kevin Weidl, one of ESPN's NFL Draft experts, also commented on Cignetti's hiring.
Good hire by the Rams naming Frank Cignetti QB coach. One of the more underrated developers of QBs and should help Bradford immensely.
I think it might be even more telling that this guy got the job over a known associate of Fisher's. That's a good sign that he's hiring the best candidates rather than prioritizing pals for the coaching ranks. Then again, that sounds almost hopelessly naive.