Former Eagles Great Seth Joyner Would Like To Coach The Birds’ Linebackers

I just got off the phone with a former teammate of mine, Seth Joyner, and he told me he would love to coach the linebackers for Andy Reid and the Philadelphia Eagles.  The reason I had called him was because of an article I had read on the internet which had been written by a contributor to GCobb.com, Bob Cunningham.

In the article, Joyner tells Cunningham that he would like to coach the Eagles linebackers.  He repeated those comments to me.

“I would love to coach the Eagles linebackers if I was given the chance”, Joyner said. He talked to me from his Arizona home.

Seth and I talked about some of the problems with the Eagles defense and the fact that they haven’t had a big play linebacker here since Willie Thomas played for the Birds in the late 1990’s. We talked about Ernie Sims and his tremendous athletic gifts but they lack the understanding of offensive play concepts and defense strategies.

I played with Seth for a couple of years and loved the way he listened as a young player, then worked at his game.  Seth was a talented but very smart football player.  He studied opponents and developed his game.  He was never satisfied and that’s the key.

Much of the problem centers on the fact that the Eagles linebackers don’t know the intricacies of reading formations, reading the alignment and stances of running backs, offensive linemen and wide receivers.  Plus they don’t know how to study an offense on tape and learn the habits they have and what plays they like to run out of specific formations in specific downs and distances.

You can study and learn an offense and the tendencies of their offensive coordinator and key players to the point where you can know the play they’re about run 60% to 70% of the time before the ball is snapped.  That’s a big advantage if you’re a good athlete.

You can force fumbles, pick off passes and make big plays by being able to anticipate what the offense is getting ready to do.  Most of the time the offense gives away the play, if you are willing to look at enough tape of them and study hard enough to figure out what they’re trying to do.

One simple rule of playing defense is that you don’t let a team run the same play two times in a game and have success with it both times.  Any time a team runs a play that gains yardage, you know they’re going to run again, so you make it a point to catalogue that formation and that play.

All offensive coordinators have tendencies.  They like to go to certain plays and certain players in specific situations.  Most of the time if they get into a situation where it’s a extremely important play, they’re either going to rely on a certain play or a certain player.

If I were a head coach, one of the first things I would do is have my offensive players sit in a defensive meeting and have my defensive players sit in an offensive meeting.  Too many players on the NFL level don’t understand what the opposing team is trying to do to them.