Devil's Advocate:
Look at this from the other way. Gerry wanted to say something that helped explained the team's poor performance so far that year.
Which would have been better for him to say?
- "The players weren't bought in so we need to do better?"
- "We don't think these new coaches know what they're doing?"
Now, how would everyone have reacted had he said the latter, even if it was the truth?
And Riley's firing of Banker more or less said that Riley agreed with the second point of view, at least to some significant extent. So if you looked at it from the other way, perhaps Gerry was trying to take the blame even if he thought it really should be placed everywhere. And I don't really think that's all that far-fetched when they were coming from being one of the best pass defenses in the country to one of the worst. It seems odd to believe that all those players all of the sudden suddenly got worse. Yes, if they weren't doing all they were supposed to that would make the defense worse. But it's not like we were playing against NFL QBs and WRs either. It was a bunch of average-at-best QBs who kept having career days against us. So if you know you should be better but the scheme keeps putting you in poor positions, I don't know how you can help but be frustrated and hesitant. It would suck to keep getting beat like we were.
And the complete change of coverage scheme the next year followed by Banker's firing should really leave no doubt that the 2015 scheme was much more to blame than anything else.