Darren Perry Joins Raiders Staff

[MasterRaider]

http://www.raiders.com/newsroom/newsroomNewsDetail.jsp?id=30048

Darren Perry, who has coached defensive backs for the Pittsburgh Steelers since 2003, joins The Oakland Raiders in the same capacity.
"Darren's track record speaks for itself in Pittsburgh, first as an outstanding player and then equally as a proven coach," said Raiders Head Coach Lane Kiffin. "His work in the defensive backfield has resulted in championship caliber play from all areas. More specifically, his work with Troy Polamalu, whom I'm very familiar with, has been outstanding and will translate well with the great talent we have here."

The 38-year-old Perry, a standout defensive back for Pittsburgh during the 1990s, returned to the Steelers in 2003 as assistant defensive backs coach. He was promoted to defensive backs coach in 2004, where his secondary ranked fourth in the NFL against the pass. Perry was also a part of the 2005 championship coaching staff that won Super Bowl XL.

Perry spent the 2002 season as the safeties coach for the Cincinnati Bengals, prior to returning to Pittsburgh.

He played seven seasons (1992-98) with the Steelers and started the first 110 games of his career, including the postseason. Perry signed with the San Diego Chargers in 1999 and rounded out his playing career in 2000 with the New Orleans Saints. He played in 139 games total. He started 13 postseason games, including Super Bowl XXX. He had a career total of 35 interceptions.

Perry played college football at Penn State where he established several school records, including 299 interception return yards and three interceptions for touchdowns.

 

[BigTron]

This guy did a nice job with not alot of talent. Troy P is the only stud he had to work with IMO. Its also nice we got an African American coach on the staff also, we had more young white guys than entourage.

 

[Crossbones]

Does that mean Willie Brown is no longer on the staff? Or is he just ""squad development" dude now?

 

[Chris_77]

I wonder how much of this had to do with Huff having a rather average rookie season?

 

[hawaiianboy]

Its also nice we got an African American coach on the staff also, we had more young white guys than entourage.

hehehe.......


We've got a really young staff and a really young roster... We'll see what that means next season I guess...

 

[007]

hehehe.......


We've got a really young staff and a really young roster... We'll see what that means next season I guess...

I think the 10 o'clock curfew is out the window...

 

[Crow]

Eh. That Steelers secondary hasn't been good for a while now. I'd say we've taken a step back with this hire as opposed to Whammy.

 

[Langlier]

i like the play of the steelers safeties...

that said thier CBs have been horrible.

Hopefully we get the saftey play without the decline in our CBs

 

[RaiderIVlife]

I wonder how much of this had to do with Huff having a rather average rookie season?

Excellent question. I guess his most obvious achievment is the progression of Palumalu. Huff might not be the heatseeker that Palumalu is, but he is a bit more athletic and should have more potential for INT's, etc.

 

[RaiderIVlife]

This guy did a nice job with not alot of talent. Troy P is the only stud he had to work with IMO. Its also nice we got an African American coach on the staff also, we had more young white guys than entourage.

I think what's more significant than race, is the fact that he's another young coach added to the roster AND he come's from a winning franchise (USC, Pittsburgh Steelers, Atlanta Falcons) and I think that attitude, confidence & credibility will pay dividends with these players.

If nothing else, the players have NO MORE excuses to lob out there. They are going to get an aggressive, "modern" scheme, coached by guys that can "relate" to them.

This is starting to get exciting though. Any word on cable?

I'm not the first to say it, but our O-line hire is in some ways every bit as important as our HC hire. No kidding.

 

[Seraph24]

His job will be technique. I doubt he has a say in the coverages. Meaning Rob ryan will Probably stick to Huff in the box. I do think the guy can help play the box more effectively like he did T.P...

 

[Turo]

I don't think Huff gets enough credit for his play last year. The dude was FLYING all over the field, forcing plays back inside to our backers and whatnot. Without him on the field last year, we would have given up a ton of huge plays (see: Pope, Gibson, Dorsett)

While he didn't show up on the stat sheet, the guy was taking care of business.

I'm with R4L entirely.. I'm actually fairly pleased with this offseason so far.. I think we all have some real reason to be hopeful again about this franchise. Let's hope this is a dawn of a new era and we're on the right track.

Man, so short on time these days. Sigh.. late!

 

[BigTron]

I don't think Huff gets enough credit for his play last year. The dude was FLYING all over the field, forcing plays back inside to our backers and whatnot. Without him on the field last year, we would have given up a ton of huge plays (see: Pope, Gibson, Dorsett)

While he didn't show up on the stat sheet, the guy was taking care of business.

I'm with R4L entirely.. I'm actually fairly pleased with this offseason so far.. I think we all have some real reason to be hopeful again about this franchise. Let's hope this is a dawn of a new era and we're on the right track.

Man, so short on time these days. Sigh.. late!

Yeah i also thought Huff played really well. It has been a long time since our safety position was something to be excited about.

 

[Chris_77]

I don't think Huff gets enough credit for his play last year. The dude was FLYING all over the field, forcing plays back inside to our backers and whatnot. Without him on the field last year, we would have given up a ton of huge plays (see: Pope, Gibson, Dorsett)

While he didn't show up on the stat sheet, the guy was taking care of business.

I'm with R4L entirely.. I'm actually fairly pleased with this offseason so far.. I think we all have some real reason to be hopeful again about this franchise. Let's hope this is a dawn of a new era and we're on the right track.

Man, so short on time these days. Sigh.. late!

I guess what I meant was the "big play" factor. I think people, myself included, were expecting more of that from him. Maybe it was the scheme or role he was asked to play in the defense. I'm not down on him by any means though. Even as a rookie, he was still the best Safety we've had since Rod Woodson.

 

[BigTron]

I guess what I meant was the "big play" factor. I think people, myself included, were expecting more of that from him. Maybe it was the scheme or role he was asked to play in the defense. I'm not down on him by any means though. Even as a rookie, he was still the best Safety we've had since Rod Woodson.

He might have just been trying not to gamble and give up a big play. Maybe once he is more comfortable he will risk it and jump some more routes. Honeslty if any of you guys watched the KC game i sawe him create 2 forced fumbles, but they werent on the statline. At least one of those was definelty a strip/fumble. I wonder if anyone else saw that?

 

[007]

I don't think Huff gets enough credit for his play last year. The dude was FLYING all over the field, forcing plays back inside to our backers and whatnot. Without him on the field last year, we would have given up a ton of huge plays (see: Pope, Gibson, Dorsett)

While he didn't show up on the stat sheet, the guy was taking care of business.

While I agree somewhat that he was flying around and making plays on the run game, lets not forget he averaged roughly 1-2 whiffed tackles a game. Not acceptable.

Lucky for us, we can teach tackle technique and he has a wicked group of DB's to motivate him. I look forward to the next 5-10 years of seeing Fabs/Routt/Schweig/Huff and Aso making big time plays for us. Imagine if we signed a hammer like Hamlin to come in and play SS or big nickel?

I'm with R4L entirely.. I'm actually fairly pleased with this offseason so far.. I think we all have some real reason to be hopeful again about this franchise. Let's hope this is a dawn of a new era and we're on the right track.

100% agreed.

If we can trade Moss for a first day pick and score a solid comp. pick for Woodson, we'd head into the draft with a hot young group of coaches and 5 first day picks in a deep draft...

 

[hawaiianboy]

I would rate Huff's play as 'average' as far as safeties go, above average as far as rookie safeties go....

While Huff has been far being a playmaker, it is somewhat more encouraging that he is making correct reads and putting himself into position to make plays... A lot of the missed tackles and missed pass defense chances seem to happen because he is a split second late on things, probably because he still understandably is in "read-think-react" mode... once he is comfortable with the speed/understanding of the game and the 'think' part of the equation is removed, we should start seeing more from him... We saw similar near misses from Nnamdi in the 05-06 season as a first year starter when he seemed to be in position but couldn't get his head turned around in time etc...


I know opinions on this vary, but I still believe Huff is miscast as an in the box safety... I know the target use was supposed to be akin to the way the Steelers use Polamalu, but I'd prefer he be used in man free coverage ala Ed Reed where he can keep the play in front of him and use his great speed/reaction time to make over the top plays on the ball in the air... As well as our corners preformed, we didn't get a single INT from our safeties this past year... Not a one... That our defense played as well as it did with no sacks from our starting RE and no turnovers from our starting safeties is pretty remarkable...

Stuart Schweigert is an average player IMO, and while I believe we'll give the Huff/Stu tandom one more year, if we find ourselves in the position to upgrade Stu, we certainly should and relagate Schweig to nickle packages... If it were up to me, I'm use Huff over the top more ala Reed and Brian Dawkins and man up the speedy Thomas Howard on difficult TE's...

 

[BigTron]

I would rate Huff's play as 'average' as far as safeties go, above average as far as rookie safeties go....

While Huff has been far being a playmaker, it is somewhat more encouraging that he is making correct reads and putting himself into position to make plays... A lot of the missed tackles and missed pass defense chances seem to happen because he is a split second late on things, probably because he still understandably is in "read-think-react" mode... once he is comfortable with the speed/understanding of the game and the 'think' part of the equation is removed, we should start seeing more from him... We saw similar near misses from Nnamdi in the 05-06 season as a first year starter when he seemed to be in position but couldn't get his head turned around in time etc...


I know opinions on this vary, but I still believe Huff is miscast as an in the box safety... I know the target use was supposed to be akin to the way the Steelers use Polamalu, but I'd prefer he be used in man free coverage ala Ed Reed where he can keep the play in front of him and use his great speed/reaction time to make over the top plays on the ball in the air... As well as our corners preformed, we didn't get a single INT from our safeties this past year... Not a one... That our defense played as well as it did with no sacks from our starting RE and no turnovers from our starting safeties is pretty remarkable...

Stuart Schweigert is an average player IMO, and while I believe we'll give the Huff/Stu tandom one more year, if we find ourselves in the position to upgrade Stu, we certainly should and relagate Schweig to nickle packages... If it were up to me, I'm use Huff over the top more ala Reed and Brian Dawkins and man up the speedy Thomas Howard on difficult TE's...

Great post. I couldnt agre more about Huff and Stu. We could stand pat becasue Stu is decent but i want Huff to play FS. The guy is lightning fast and should be roaming around the secondary not the lOS. We could always sign Michael Lewis who can hit like a man and plays the run well, but he cant cover WR's. If we packaged all three correctly it would be sweet but Michael Lewis might make more than he is worth this offseason. Either way Huff should be at FS making plays and we need a run jamming intimidating hitter SS to round out the secondary for the future.

 

[Banter]

It wouldn't surprise me to see Howard at SAM and Huff as FS this year. It would be similar to how they broke in Morrison. They put him at WILL and just asked him to make tackles then the next year moved him to MIKE and gave him more responsibilities. Al said something about not using Howard like they envisioned so you know something is in the works for him.

 

[BigTron]

It wouldn't surprise me to see Howard at SAM and Huff as FS this year. It would be similar to how they broke in Morrison. They put him at WILL and just asked him to make tackles then the next year moved him to MIKE and gave him more responsibilities. Al said something about not using Howard like they envisioned so you know something is in the works for him.

They should pass rush more with Howard. If he has the speed to get after the QB then lets get him rolling.