Hmm…well here’s the thing, if you are going to do it, you need to do it now, well before the draft to give the next guy a chance to make a pitch to get the players he wants. The other problem is who do you get to replace Campbell? IMO Marcel Bellefeuille is a potential head coach with a proven track record of being able to make a team who is doing poor into a contender, as he did in Hamilton.
Lets do a report card for Campbell, here are the responsibilities a head coach has.
Petitioning for Players - F
Lets get this one right out of the way, because this drastically effects the other items on this report card. A coaches job is to communicate to his GM what players he wants and needs. Now I find it very odd that the RedBlacks, and expansion team loaded with young talent, made to next to no trades this season. I find it odd the team targeted two starting Fullbacks in the expansion draft. If find it odd, they loaded up heavily on national linemen and got one DB though both drafts. I just don’t see the right players having been picked for this team, nor attempts to make exchanges.
Playcalling and Play Design - C
Defensively, the RedBlacks seem to run Pass Rush and Zone. Now that being said, when you don’t have a swath of good DBs and several good D.Linemen, that’s usually your best option and the RedBlacks did throw healthy amounts of blitz into the mix. Offensively, the play calling was Vanilla. No trick plays, no reverses to divert rushers, not a lot of screens, not a lot pulling O.linemen. Now part of this goes back to players. Building a complete National O.Line your first year in the league seems foolhardy to me, and going with speedy backs, vs pass blocking backs isn’t the best choice with a skeptical O.Line.
Identifying Talent & Waste - C+
Campbell did a decent job in figuring out who is jewels were. Marcus Henry, Jeremiah Johnson, Justin Capicciotti. Now some of these were through simply the next guy being hurt, but I think there isn’t fault here. The fault is the waste, I didn’t hear a lot of cuts that you need to make to keep finding the players you need.
Improving Player Performance - D+
So who improved this year? The QBs didn’t as Hank has nowhere to go and no one else got enough meaningful reps. Some of the RBs may have, but hard to say now given how many got hurt. The O.Line didn’t, as Hank was getting sacked from day one. The defense as a whole didn’t seem to, as they continued to struggle with missed tackles and lack of turnovers. Maybe the D.Line did a bit as they seemed to be getting to the QB and stopping the run a bit better near the end of the season.
Challenging Plays - B
This season will be remembered for the first coach who challenged a review, which while certainly sent a message, may have costed the RedBlack a game. Apart from that incident, I thought Campbell did a good job of picking plays to challenge, and while many didn’t go his way, I think he suffered from too close to call more then any other team this year.
Inspiration - C+
Once your out, are your players still playing? Last night, it didn’t seem like they were. Against Hamilton it did though, but perhaps the home crowd had something to do with that. Did like the challenge of the review though, showing his disgust for what the league later confirmed shouldn’t have been overturned.
So all in all, you have a less the stellar record, but keeping in mind the big F here is partially the fault of the GM and not the coach. I’d say there is enough there to give Campbell another season of rope.