The only reason that everyone agrees with the pick is because we didn't want to see our defensive success from last season leave with Bates. Had Bates been hired as HC, then it stands to reason that Sanders would have gotten the DC job.
I'm somewhat happy with the decision, but concerned about a repeat of a past failure. A couple years ago when Donatell was fired, Sherman promoted Slowick to DC (a Donatell assistant) so that we could keep the same defensive scheme with supposedly minor changes. Slowick had the same base scheme, but added a lot of complexity that never worked well, leading to an aweful defense in 2004.
I hope that Sanders does not follow the same mistakes that Slowick made and instead truly retains the same defense with minor changes. Of course we will see changes as Sanders puts his mark on the defense, let's just make those changes for the better.
GO PACK GO!!!