Meet Gary Etcheverry

[Atomic]

Etcheverry's first comments since being hired. Interesting gentleman...

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/football/bombers/new-defensive-guru-looks-only-at-future-255124031.html

BRADENTON, Fla. -- If you were thinking getting fired from his last job after just five games had humbled Gary Etcheverry, well, think again.

The new defensive co-ordinator of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers was defiant here Sunday when asked about his brief -- and winless -- stint in 2012 as head coach of the University of Ottawa Gee Gees football team.

Asked how the Ottawa experience -- in which he was abruptly fired after opening the 2012 season at 0-5 -- had changed him as a coach, Etcheverry invoked the memory of one of the world's most famous firings. "Kind of the way maybe getting fired by the company he founded changed Steve Jobs 11 years later when he went back to save Apple," Etcheverry said Sunday on Day 1 of the Bombers' first-ever spring mini-camp in Florida.

"They weren't ready for me, and I wasn't ready for them."

Well then.

It was one of just two Apple references Etcheverry invoked Sunday in what were his first public comments to the Winnipeg media since he was hired as the Bombers' new DC in February. "People always talk about a playbook. We don't have a playbook," Etcheverry said in reference to his unique -- and famously confusing -- defence.

"Well, when you used to have a VCR you had a playbook like this," Etcheverry continued, holding his hands several inches apart, "and you still couldn't set the damn clock. And nowadays if you have an Apple product, what's the playbook? What's the user manual?

"But they say we're behind the times because we don't have a playbook? S , we're so far behind the times we're ahead of the times."

Confidence

What emerged here Sunday is that the Bombers have secured for themselves a new defensive co-ordinator who, if nothing else, is certainly not lacking in confidence.

But then why would he be? Now in his 35th year in coaching, the 57-year-old Etcheverry has coached everywhere from college to Europe to the NFL to 10 years in the CFL, which included a brief stint as head coach of the Toronto Argonauts in 2002.

A Grey Cup winner in 1997 with the Argos and more recently the architect of stingy defences in Saskatchewan from 2008-10, Etcheverry is considered a master of a defence that can best be described as organized chaos, with defenders expected to play all over the field and in strangely named positions such as rover.

"I believe he's thought more about football than a lot of people and he's thought about it in a lot of different ways," says Bombers head coach Mike O'Shea, who played under Etcheverry in Toronto. "He's very thorough in his thought process on how defensive football should be played and how offensive football should be played."

The admiration is mutual. "I've told people that there's nobody that I've worked with at any point in time that I've had more respect for," Etcheverry said of O'Shea. "It's very exciting. Certainly he's elated and I am for him. Our job now is to get us to where we need to be."

So how will he do that? With fleet and finely tuned athletes, instead of the physical behemoths so commonly associated with CFL defences, Etcheverry says. "We do a lot of things that require interchangeability among our players, so we can't have a bunch of 300-pounders out there, because they can't run on this big-ass field...

"We cause confusion, there's no question about it," Etcheverry continued. "We want to be multiple, and to be multiple you gotta have interchangeable athletes... Multiple everything. Multiple alignments, multiple movements, multiple coverages, multiple, multiple, multiple...

"If we're gonna err, we're gonna err on the side of speed."

[Super Duper Negatron]

His comments scare the crap out of me.

[gbill2004]

Does he seriously not have a playbook?

[The Unknown Poster]

This is either going to be really really good.  Or really really bad.

[Mike]

What a lunatic.

[Noeller]

In MOS We Trust, I suppose...

[robynjt]

Sounds greeeeeeeat

[voodoochylde]

My first reaction on reading this article was (and I appologize if I offend) .. Oh  ... My .... F***ING ... God ... this is going to be a long season.

[Jpan85]

Really like he is trying to say not that he does not have a playbook but its so different that you not recognize it as a playbook. I'll say this usually the first person to do something different in football is often given the crazy. Tom Landry and Bill Walsh were look down upon when they came up with systems that changed football forever.

[Stickem]

Well we knew we were getting someone 'unorthodox' in his game planning. Just how unorthodox will it get, is the question?? Jury is out.

[Mr Dee]

I don't mind the idea and the concept behind the idea about organized chaos, in shifting players around to heighten their effectiveness.

It is definitely thinking outside the box and can lead to thrilling rewards.

It's intriguing to think you can run a defence that will be difficult to read from the offensive point of view.

 

Then there's the other side, where it there is going to have to be an understanding by the players in their roles inside this new scheme.

I'm sure the players will initially embrace this system if it lets them make plays.

But there's going to be a lot of questions to be asked and hopefully our new DC can provide the answers.

 

But the staff have confidence in each other and that's never a bad thing.

I think back to last year and our defensive staff and although I wanted to believe in them, I had a bad-in-the-back-of-my-mind feeling about them and that was with a guy like Burke supposedly over-seeing them.

 

Sounds like we're getting athletic players and leaders to lean on for this D, so buckle up the chin straps, 'cause it looks like we're in for a ride.

 

[Floyd]

"We cause confusion, there's no question about it," Etcheverry continued. "We want to be multiple, and to be multiple you gotta have interchangeable athletes... Multiple everything. Multiple alignments, multiple movements, multiple coverages, multiple, multiple, multiple..."

 

I hope this isn't how he explains it to the players.

[bearpants]

Does he seriously not have a playbook?

 

Yeah reading that definitely worried me... Does he mean there is literally no playbook or that guys will not be required to stick to the exact scheme, allowing them to make plays where they see fit.... that latter I can live with, give the players a little bit of autonomy... 

[Blueandgold]

Kavis ain't looking so bad...

[Mr. Perfect]

Oey vey....

[17to85]

If Etcheverry was some new guy coming in I'd give it more credibility than I do now, but we've seen him do this schtick multiple times before and the same problems are always there. I am not a fan of coaches who stubbornly stick to a philosophy that doesn't work in the long run. It has the making of Mike Kelly all over again. 

[Logan007]

Maybe he means he uses his iPad as his playbook and doesn't have a normal paper one?

 

Is it really confidence...or is it ego?

 

Is he really comparing himself to Steve Jobs?

 

[Jpan85]

Did Tad Kornegay play the rover roll in Saskatchewan

[NotoriousBIG]

We're going to "surprise and confuse" opposing teams for a week or two, then slowly regress into the usual bickering and nonsense. 

 

Methinks he'll be Osh's first firing, likely before Labour Day. 

[gbill2004]

Why on earth did we hire this guy? This has disaster written all over it.

[JuranBoldenRules]

I think what Etcheverry is describing in a not so clear way is that his defence relies on developing the instinct of the players within a few core concepts rather than being very rigid, which is what the "playbook" is in his philosophy.  Some players will love that, some players will be completely stressed out by that.

[Noeller]

Yikes...not even through mini camp and we are tossing the first coach under the bus for not being good enough. Typically Winnipeg reaction

[TBieber]

Given his philosophy of athletes, you can essentially guess where his defensive schemes failed the last time he was a CFL DC in Saskatchewan from 2008-2010.

 

Rushing game, pass rush, turnovers - ranked in the bottom 3 of the league in each category.

 

On the flip side of that, his defences were very good in the passing game, ranking first over the average of the three seasons.

[Armchair GM]

Boy, I'm just not sure how to react to Etch.  I am all about patience and proving ground, but the "no playbook" comment scares the crap out of me.  Teaching concepts isn't new to football, but in a defence of "organized chaos," who should be where and doing what is paramount importance.

 

There was a part of me that hoped his recent failings (Ottawa, being in Sask between the GC wins) might humble him enough to change some things about his clearly fallible defenses.  That clearly hasn't happened...

 

I sure hope we have a lot of talented athletes that can learn quickly...

[M.O.A.B.]

if he utilize a balance amount of his 'unorthodox D' and a 'conventional D' i think it will work to our advantage.

as they say his 'unothodox D' creates confusion on the QB

if they can keep the QB guessing when will the D use the conventional and unorthodox, i think will be an added advantage.

 

..just like im confuse of what im saying now...