I know everybody thinks the Eagles run the pure west coast offense with Michael Vick at the helm, but the truth is they run a deep passing offense using the same terminology as the west coast offense. There Vick run offense has very little in common with the short passing attack which Hall of Fame 49ers head coach Bill Walsh developed for Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana back in the late 70’s.
The Eagles offense has been developed around the strong arm of Vick and the deep speed of DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin. Now this offense has a lot more in common with the passing attacks of Sid Gilman, Ernie Zampese and Don Coryell, which were downfield passing offenses, than it does with the west coast offense run by Montana and Steve Young.
Vick throws the ball down the field like Coryell had Dan Fouts doing, and the way Norv Turner had Troy Aikman doing during their time together with the Cowboys. The San Diego Chargers with Turner as the head coach, run that same downfield attack with Phillip Rivers at the controls.
All of these offense borrow plays from each other. Everybody throws downfield some. Everybody uses plays from the west coast offense, but they try to run plays which fit the talents of their players.
If Mike Kafka starts at quarterback this week, the Birds will emphasize the shorter throws because that’s what his strengths are. He’s very good at throwing the ball early before the receivers come out of their breaks. He’ll doa good job against the blitz because his lack of arm strength has made him learn to throw the ball early, so he will get the ball out of his hands.
When the term west coast offense is used to describe the Eagles offense it doesn’t have the same meaning which it had in the 80’s with Montana and the 49ers.
The good offensive coordinator like Andy Reid and Marty Morhinweg are able to tailor the offense to fit the 
strengths of the players in the offense. Maclin is big enough to run all those short routes and take all of the hits which the pure west coast offense requires. Jackson doesn’t fit that pattern because he doesn’t have the size to take the punishment which comes with catching balls over the middle.
So Reid and Mornhinweg run plays for both of their receivers which fit their talents.
I don’t see Kafka getting the ball to Jackson a great deal if he is the starter. Even though Kafka was able to get the ball deep to Maclin in the Falcons game on that corner route, he can’t put it out for 60 or 70 yards like Vick can when Jackson turns on the turbos.
All of you Fantasy Football guys, need to stay away from Jackson this week if Kafka is the starter. Maclin on the other hand will have a big day and so will LeSean McCoy and Brent Celek.
I think Kafka will do a good job if he plays. He may be ready to be a back up QB in this league. This will be a good test if he plays on Sunday to see if he has what it takes to be the back up next year. I just hope people don’t get too excited if he plays well. Kafka is not likely to ever be a consistent productive starter at the NFL level due to his arm strength. But he may turn out to be a very good back up.
Amazing how coming in for one game is a test for Kafka just like Kolb was getting tested on 2-3 games etc
Most new QBs get a whole season or more before the evaluation makes sense
And the high draft choices usually have a camp as number one with the starters etc
While I’m on here I wanted to get some conversation going about where the Eagles are right now at this early juncture by giving out comparative grades between this year and last year thus far. I will indicate with pluses or minuses and E for the same or even. I’d like to see what other people think as well.
LT (E)
LG (-)
C (+)
RG (+)
RT (++)
TE (E)
QB (-)
RB (E)
WRJax (E)
WRAv (E)
WRMac (E)
LDE (+)
LDT (E)
RDT (++)
RDE (E)
SAM (E)
MLB (-)
WILL (+)
LCB (E)
RCB (+++)
FS (-)
SS (- -)
PK (E)
P (-)
KR (+)
PR (E)
So the bad news is we have six downgrades with one of them being significant. I am considering Chaney to be the MLB which is why I gave only one minus. Chaney has been a disappointment so far this year. The team really thought (and I had to say I agreed) that he was going to be a fairly pretty special player. Instead, he looks very average. I’m sure they would not have let Stew walk if they could have forseen Chaney’s play so far this year. He deserves as much blame as Mathews. He has well under played expectations. We will see what happens with the move but thus far he has regressed since last year. I gave Casey a plus at Will because anyone is better than Ernie Sims and at least you know Casey will try his butt off unlike Sims who was content to suck as long as he got paid. Fokou is not a starter in the NFL but we are stuck with him. SS we went from marginal PBer to career back up so significant downgrade. On special teams, Henry is shanking too many kicks so far. Rocca looks great as usual in September. But wait until the temp goes below fifty and he will be mediocre again. On offense, I rated Mathis a downgrade but think that can come up to even. This guy is very under rated. Vick is not playing at last year’s level yet. Looks the same as late last season and more like Falcon days. It will be essential that he can progress or we have no shot.
The upgrades. We have eight as compared to six downgrades but we were obviously hoping for better than this. Obviously RCB went from the dumpster to the Penthouse. Jenkins is major upgrade over Bunk and Dixon who are one dimensional players. Babin is upgrade over Parker. He doesn’t run defend as well but he is much better pass rusher with more stamina. Cole may be upgrade over his former self but I’m not going there yet. Lets see at mid-season. He pulled his usual fourth quarter disappearing act this week so we shall see. He has to be more clutch and that has always been the knock for me. Big moments and big games, he’s not there. RT is a major upgrade after just two games, Why did they ever think Justice was a good player? Baffling. At RG anything is upgrade over that turnstyle chump MJG. Those are the kind of things that make me question Castillo being a good coach. Seriously, five years here?? C is upgrade over McGlynn that will be more significant as time goes on. Shady and Maclin might be ready to upgrade as well but like Cole I can’t say yet. I think we will be surprised at how good Lewis returns kicks. The kid can just play. I don’t care how little he is. I will await some feedback.
and the best part will be that he will thrive in this playcalling. Just as garcia, kolb and others have. And then…. vick will return and Andy will get greedy again and back to the gadgits and bombs and everyone will blame Vick. Try this andy….. try this gameplan with the stars on the field.
not bad Jbird. I still think this is a 2 year plan. Most of the FA;s will be gone next year, as well as ASAM. and the eagles will have a TON of money again. I think they finally get a LB worth anything and next year we will be a lot more solid than this year. Thats not to say we cant win this year or wont. I just think this is really a 2 year thing and next year we will have an even better team.
Stevo…..I TOTALLY AGREE. I always said we have too many holes to fill them all this year. We needed RCB and RG help desperatley. We made phenomenal upgrade at RCB but failed to make much progress at RG. We also got excellent depth and nickel back improvement with DRC. I think Watkins will be good player next year though. We also needed pass rush help. Again we did a great job there. We needed RT improvement and although we had to rob Peter a bit to pay Paul, it has been a good move so far. We needed better C and we got one. This kid is going to be very good player next year I believe.
We needed to switch up the kicking game. Akers just wasn’t clutch anymore. I mean seriously, what is he Charlie Manuel? He hasn’t made a big kick in five years and he sucked worse against Arizona in 08 than he did against GB last year. I guess sometimes it does pay to be a good guy because we gave him leniancy for that for quite a while. Rocca can’t kick in cold weather. Now I don’t know if we upgraded yet but Henery kicks off just as far and is 2-2 on makable kicks. Henry has had some shanks, but so did Rocca quite often as the seasons got colder.
We needed to improve at LB and S and we regressed. Chaney was over valued and we still needed another veteran LB from FA. Why do they think Fokou is good enough? He is not a starter on any SB team. And Mathews was a huge gamble just because his brother was good? Have you ever watched Harvey Grant? And he was a f-ing identical twin!! It means nothing! Nate Allen was also over valued. I’m not sure its just a knee as much as they don’t want us to see another 2nd round bust they picked up. And how bad is Jarrett that he can’t even dress? Come on with the OTAs running around in shorts! We are three weeks in now. You gotta show me something kid! I always thought he was tooooo slow to play secondary in NFL.
So the plan. Wait on O line deveopment, hope Vick progresses and let defense get the system down. Next year, Watkins starts at RG. Next year we trade up and draft a MLB/impact OLB early in the first round. And if neither Allen nor Jarrett can show us something this year, we get a FA safety and draft another one in the second round. Then we should be ready to go for real.
Good Stuff JBird,
I still think Nate Allen and J Jarrett will be the starting tandem come 2012 and for many seasons after that.
My Grades on the position versus last Season
QB (+) Sshould be a + if Vick continues to improve (as well as Kafka)
RB (+) McCoy,R Brown and D Lewis is superior to last years RB corps
WR (+) Addition of S Smith and a improved Maclin and hopefully Cooper, I do think D-Jax will make more catches, but will make less big plays as teams scheme better to take him out of the flow/game more often
TE (-) I do not like the Eagles TE situation at all, I think Celek is an average TE at best, and I am not sold that Harbor is a legitimate NFL player and have not seen much of him in his 2 seasons with the Eagles..If Celek were to get hurt, this position would have zippo production at all and it’s not getting much to being with and a real weakness of this offense in my opinion.
LT (+) Jason Peters is in his best shape of his Eagle Career and is kickin butt and taking no prisoners..
LG (-) Evan Mathis is serviceable but not as good as Herremans was
C (+) Kelce is major upgrade over the sluggish Jackson and akward McGlynn of last years squad, I think Kelce has All-Pro potential by 2012
RG (+) Devan or even Watkins would be an updgrade are the carosel door of Nick Cole,MJG or R Wells from last year who again, were too big, too slow and not very well conditioned
RT (+) Herremans is playing very well at RT and a definite upgrade over WJ
FB (E) Schmitt knows the system, plays hard and is serviceable, no real upside and playmaking ability but he’s tough nosed player and good teammate who also contributes on Special Teams
The only players on this team that deserve a plus right now are, Cole, Babin, Jenkins, 3CB’s, McCoy, Maclin & Peters. Everyone else is negative or inconclusive.
Defensive Position Grades from this to last Season
DE (+) Addition of Babin,Hunt and better Coaching
DT (+) C Jenkins may end up being he best off-season aquisition made that makes the biggest differrence.. Laws does need to step up
LB (-) I don’t think any of the current LB’s on the Eagles Roster are NFL Starters on any of the other 31 Teams in the NFL.. Chaney has some potential as does Rolle, but I see the this group as of today as strictly back-up types just like Bradley is with the Cardinals and Gaither is with the Panthers.. and believe it or not, Bradley/Gaither are better than the 3 current Eagles Starters they have now..
CB (+) No brainer, Asmo/DCR and Brandon Hughes are tremendous updgrades ove rlast years group.. Did anyoe npick-up the released T LIndley..
Safety (E) Mikell was consistent and rarely out of position, though he was not a big playmaker and would drop easy Int’s almost every game, he was smart and a good leader type.. Page is a decent 1 Year Stop-Gap player, but the key is the development or lack there of of Nate Allen and Jarrett, If Allen can not beat out K Coleman or Page by the Bye week, then I think it may be another miss with a high draft selection which is disappointing to see especially after the good start he had last season but then starting to struggle by mid-season and than of course got injured afterwards.. I think it’s a confidence thing with him.. He appears to be thinking too much out there instead of flying around and making plays instinctively like Coleman does..
Paulman….I like how you broke it down by unit. Definitely an overall upgrade at WR in those terms. Avant has reached his ceiling and so has DJax, but Maclin can still be a top five WR in this league in the very near future and S Smith is very good posession WR. Don’t think that the Eagles aren’t thinking about Smith and Maclin being their duo of the future. DJacx is not their style and they realized his skill set is limited. He is not worth what he wants and won’t progress from here and will only get worse with being paid less than FF Rosenhaus has him thinking he’s worth. Celek is a disappointment and it is time to look elsewhere. I overlooked that myself. You need a quality TE in the NFL and we don’t have one. Maybe TE is a first round pick next year and they pursue LB through FA with the money they save not signing DJax. We have to see how it shakes out. They might go after a top tier SAM LB with great cover skills in FA, settle on Chaney if he is at least solid in the middle. And then stick with Casey or Rolle if one turns out to be more solid than merely serviceable. Clayton is Ike Reese at best. The O line and D line will be very good next year as will the corners with or without Assante and the WRs with or without DJax. Safety is a huge mystery right now but I think Allen and Jarrett are busts. Look, one of them has to be outstanding. They can’t both just be satisfactory. Every SB team has a PB safety if you think about it. Solid is not good enough. Now if either one of them had potential to be outstanding, one we would have seen a glimpse last year and the other would be starting or playing a lot by now. When guys are really good, it doesn’t take long to see it. Sometimes, but very very very rarely. The last guy I saw that just came from nowhere after you were convinced he was trash was Anthony Spencer and he is still suspect at times. It just doesn’t happen in your third or fourth year. True potential is almost always at least partially visible right away. Jarrett was a stupid ass Castillo pick that Andy and Howie went along with. Castillo is like a child. He gets excited and over reacts very quickly. And then like Andy, he will stick with a guy when it is obvious he is done. He saw a guy that could hit and played downhill and failed to see a guy that was too slow for the NFL.
Castillo has a very fan-like way of seeing the game. He makes decisions like we would. I mean seriously. Oh this guy is a Mathews, he is born to succeed in the NFL. Or oh this guy from Temple really hits he reminds me of Dawkins. Or oh Asmougah is very physical on the corner. He can do what Woodson does. Or oh Chaney had 16 tackles last year against the Giants, I’ll put him back in the middle this week. But he is hard working and enthusiastic so Andy likes him. He’s not that talented. Hey it worked for Sheldon Brown and we liked him for it. Above average player that worked hard and played hard and got torched by Burress and TO consistently because he wasn’t good enough.
Freaks like Woodson are so rare. They are like Kobe or Jordan. You only find a couple every ten years. I can list a few. Ronnie Lott was an AP corner and then a HOF safety. LT could have been a HOF LB or DE. Troy Poloamlu could be an AP OLB or SS. Woodson will make the PB this year as FS filling in for Collins after being an AP corner for years. Who wins the Heisman as a corner? Freak! Reggie was a HOF DE who could have been a HOF DT. In fact he played DT quite a bit and his play was just as dominant. One cannot assume that because Nnamdi is physical he can do what Woodson does so well. He is an excellent corner that is physical enough to cover the TE. Thats where it ends. He can’t be a safety. He can’t be a great blitzer. Castillo needs to stop being a fan.