It's amazing (though not surprising) the level of denial folks here have over this issue. The author, LeBron, and Joe Thomas make an incredible amount of sense and all I hear in the comments in this thread and others is about firing Pettine or Farmer or both. Statements like "consistency doesn't work if you have the wrong people." If you'd like more of the same (i.e., losing, disappointment, lack of player development, underperforming to expectations) then please advocate for that path. It may seem like a new and promising path but it's the same old path we've been down many times before.

However, I am not advocating that Farmer and Pettine are perfect, but Joe Thomas voiced my own thoughts in the article better than I ever could. If you're learning a new offense every year, how can there be much chance at success? If you've got a new front office or coaching staff every few years, how can there be any quality player development program?

There is so much more value in consistency than most fans are giving credit. Other teams are fine tuning their QBs in the two minute drill, how to throw a player open, back corner fades, and where receivers will break if a play breaks down and you scramble. When you've worked with the same HC and OC for more than a year or two, you don't have to spend time on the basics of an offensive scheme, you can work on these things that may seem like a luxury, but as Joe Thomas pointed out, these are the things that win you football games in the NFL. Our QBs are struggling to make more than 1 read and having rookie DBs from Cincinnati knowing the plays before we run them. This isn't a personnel problem, as McCown, Manziel, and Davis all have this issue and all 3 have shown us that they have the physical and minimum psychological tools to be an NFL QB. It's not a coaching scheme problem, as watching some film reveals we can get players open but the QB doesn't have the time (due to new blocking schemes and no OL coach) or QB doesn't have the consistency/familiarity with the scheme to know/trust where the receiver will be if he's the second or third read or there's pressure or the play breaks down on a scramble. Drew Brees goes into camp every year not needing to learn the basics, but instead working on the small details of route running if defense is in zone vs man and being on the same page with WR if they both make that read, ball placement on certain routes, emergency reads in the face of pressure and so on and so on. Heck, even Manziel's cohort (Bridgewater, Bottles) all sucked last year but show improvement this year. This is likely equally contributable to on field experience and consistency. I bet, even if Drew Brees came to our training camp and had to learn a new offense, he'd struggle. He'd probably start slow, make some mistakes, but eventually he'd probably figure things out and make it work. Now do that every year to Drew Brees and you've handicapped an all-time great QB for half the year, at least. Now imagine doing that to a young, developing QB. He's not going to figure it out in half the year. And by the time he might figure it out, you've changed coaching staffs again or worse, fans are saying "trade him to Dallas for a 6th, I'm done with him" after less than 10 starts.

There's a post is on this sub today about O'Neill using a simplified version of his defense and everyone replies "lol, I'd like to see the complex version of this dumpster fire, you're toast, get fired bub." Instead, maybe you should consider that no defense is going to succeed if you're 13 weeks into the season and your DC has to admit he can't do all the things he'd like to do. Someone else commented asking why we've let so many quality defensive players go. This should prove that it's not a personnel problem, but a consistency of scheme problem. We have good players and have had them in the past, but if you don't give professionals more than 1-2 years to get comfortable with what the scheme and know what the guy to the left and right of them does on a certain play, how do we expect any level of success and cohesiveness on a defense if in week 13 a DC has to admit he is still trying to make sure we've got the basics down before he gets into the meat of his scheme. Training camp next year should be a quick refresher on the scheme and then building on it in ways that will allow our defense to do what other successful NFL defenses do. Instead, fans clamoring for some change to be made leads the front office to say "someone's head has to roll" and we get to have the growing pains again next year and have a defense that will still be sorting out the basics in week 13.

Consistency really is important. Think about this the next time you clamor for change.