Possible New Offensive (Play Caller?) & Defensive Coordinators?

[TheRealMcCoy]

So, let me start out first with a possible new play caller.

Right now Pederson is the play caller and we don't really have an offensive coordinator. Not even one in name like Reich.

We brought in a bunch of offensive consultants to help bridge the gap and provide varying perspectives. Similar to what we did with Reich and DeFilippo.

I highly doubt Doug wants to give up play calling duties and yesterday was an improvement over week 1, but that's not saying a lot as week 1 was one of his worst showings.

The fact he still hasn't been able to figure out the screen game is mind boggling.

How we adapted the offense when Wentz went down to more RPOs and half field reads with Foles was brilliant.

Our play calling was more creative then. Now it just seems kind of vanilla.

The fact that the Eagles offense was much more creative and great at adapting back in like 2016-2017 obviously makes everyone wonder how much had to do with Reich/DeFilippo's presence in game planning. Like they had a big hand in two areas at least that we know of and ones where we thrived in 2017 with Wentz like first drive game scripts (Reich), red zone coordinating/concepts (DeFilippo).

Yes, I know this isn't a new idea/info for any Eagles fan on here. Anybody posting on here is likely a die hard fan that follows the team closely and has heard this talking point before.

But, let's look at this in a little more detail.

2017 First Drive Success:

Any Score % - 10th (Tied w/ 2 teams)

TD Only % - 3rd

2018 First Drive Success:

Any Score % - 18th (Tied w/ 7 teams) ..... Colts/Reich - 6th (Tied w/ 4 other teams)

TD Only % - 17th (Tied w/ 6 teams) ..... Colts/Reich - 2nd (Tied w/ 1 other team)

2019 First Drive Success:

Any Score % - 11th (Tied w/ 4 teams) ..... Colts/Reich - 5th (Tied w/ 1 other team)

TD Only % - 23rd (Tied w/ 3 teams) ..... Colts/Reich - 8th (Tied w/ 1 other team)

Conclusion: You can take what you want from this, but I think there is at least some analytical evidence that Frank Reich had a positive impact on the scripting of plays for opening drives. Obviously Pederson is still the one calling plays in 2017 and we had more injuries and less talent in 2018 & 2019, but look at what Reich did with Indy. He finished basically better or just as good when he was play calling and he had Brissett instead of Luck for 2019. If not for that he might have ranked even higher last year.

2017 Red Zone Success:

TD Only % - 2nd

2018 Red Zone Success:

TD Only % - 17th ..... Colts/Reich - 5th ..... Vikings/DeFilippo (fired after 1 season) - 21st

2019 Red Zone Success:

TD Only % - 8th ..... Colts/Reich - 7th ..... Jaguars/DeFilippo (fired after 1 season) - 31st

***** It's kind of hard to find red zone stats, so I just used the teamranking.com for the Red Zone (TD Only) stats and I'm not sure how accurate they are, but I couldn't find a good search setting on Pro-Football-Reference that allowed me to see efficiency stats for drives in the red zone.

Conclusion: It's a bit harder to make a decisive conclusion here, but I think its fair to say DeFilippo should probably stick to QB coach (where's back at in 2020 with the Bears). He might have helped the 2017 Eagles in what concepts/plays they did when they got down there, but again Pederson is the one calling the plays and that shouldn't be overlooked. Reich however did much better than Pederson in 2018. To be fair Luck started all 16 games for Reich, while Pederson had Wentz for the least amount of starts in his career (11) and also the most injured roster. Pederson got back Wentz in 2019 for 16 full games and was basically just as effective in the red zone as Reich. Colts did it with Brissett instead of Luck which is impressive, but so is the Eagles doing it with the receivers we had last year.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Obviously 2017 was just an awesome season where seemingly everything was going right. I'm sure DeFilippo and especially Reich played a big part in it. It's hard to quantify how much though. Pederson has had to deal with Wentz and a bunch of other players missing time since they left and a decline in weapons. I don't want to overreact to 2 games though. I still fully believe in Pederson as a head coach. I'm not as high on him as a play caller as some of the best in the league, but I still think he's above average and deserves to show what he can do with some more weapons and a version of Carson Wentz that isn't a pumpkin. Pederson did Wentz no favors in week 1, but he adjusted enough in week 2 and Wentz didn't do enough to capitalize. We really need Carson to turn it around before we can fully judge Pederson's offense again. He was highly limited by his weapons last year and now its his QB.

Edited September 22, 2020 by TheRealMcCoy

[TheRealMcCoy]

1.) It's too early to call for Pederson to give up play calling.

We should keep monitoring how he does there, but he needs his QB to play much better and the rookie weapons need more time to settle in and also find what they are good at. Right now the focus needs to be less on being super creative and just executing.

2.) Carson Wentz should be the one under the microscope most, but his QB coach, Press Taylor, who has been with him his whole career is right there too.

Taylor's job security is tied to Wentz. We saw a huge jump from year 1 to year 2 in Carson that had us hopeful he could be a perennial top 5 guy. You can argue Wentz in the years that followed might have improved in certain areas if you look at certain stats, but his progress should be much more clearly stated and weapons/injuries can't just be an excuse. We need to see it this year or Taylor should be on the hot seat. Eagles have constantly turned over DL coaches looking for the right guy. We forced Pederson to move on from coaches he liked that weren't producing results at DB/WR. So, why shouldn't Taylor face the same fate if Wentz keeps devolving? If the problems for all these overthrows are the mechanics that is an awful sign. Why has it got worse in year 5? Taylor is in his 8th season as an Eagles coach as a holdover from Chip Kelly's staff. Pederson obviously sees something in him. There has quite a bit of glowing reviews on him. But, he's been here since Wentz was drafted as an assistant QB coach for 2 years and took over for DeFilippo in 2018 and has been his main coach for going on 3 years now. We need to see better results.

[TheRealMcCoy]

As far as Jim Schwartz goes.... he's been on and off Eagles' fans radar as a guy that could be or should be replaced.

Usually I would point to Schwartz's lack of talent at LB or CB and him still being one of the defensive coordinators that is at least top 10 and definitely top half of the league as reasoning for why we shouldn't just can him, but like a lot of fans I'm starting to lose patience with him.

Ultimately, Schwartz should be a defensive coordinator somewhere, but have we seen our ceiling with him as our DC? 

I just feel like his defense that is an attacking one gap defense and incorporates a lot of wide 9 just makes us very vulnerable as we never have good LBs to make up for it. If we have big gaps between the DE and DT and guys shooting up field its gonna put a lot of pressure on the LBs to be great at shedding blocks and making tackles and we haven't really had that and especially not in 2020. I don't have quantifiable statistics to prove this, but it just feels like he thrives against mediocre to bad QBs and then struggles against better offensive coordinators and quarterbacks. It feels like we just get diced up by QBs and teams that know what they are doing and have their offense down to a science. 

I'll throw this tweet I posted in another thread out since its relevant (read Solak's replay as well as the quoted tweet with the Caplan quote):

Schwartz doesn't really deviate from what he does and that stubbornness leads to the better offensive coaches/QBs dicing us up.

I'd like a defensive coordinator that isn't afraid to shake things up time to time and be able to adjust to who we are facing more effectively.

[TheRealMcCoy]

Just found an interesting article from Bleeding Green Nation with Brandon Lee Gowton interviewing the guy who wrote the Wentz hit piece on PhillyVoice.com with "inside information" about Wentz being 'selfish' and 'uncompromising' and if you don't remember that article here it is. I've got on BLG a lot in the recent past for his negativity and a lot of people got on the writer of that article, but there may be truth behind BLG's opinions (no matter how annoyingly negative) and that guys' sources.

These tidbits related well and gave more insight to a couple things I've touched on in this thread.

30 minutes ago, TheRealMcCoy said:

1.) It's too early to call for Pederson to give up play calling.

We should keep monitoring how he does there, but he needs his QB to play much better and the rookie weapons need more time to settle in and also find what they are good at. Right now the focus needs to be less on being super creative and just executing.

He made it a point to consider when it comes to Pederson's playcalling that Wentz has basically a ton of autonomy over the offense with the ability to audible:

Quote

SANTOLIQUITO: “There’s also something else here. And we’ll just say a little bird very recently whispered into my ear. Who has a lot of intimate knowledge on what goes on in that building and what goes on in that quarterbacks room. Doug Pederson took a lot of blame for that [Week 1] loss and play-calling on Sunday. And he has to accept a certain level, a certain percentage of that. But most of the percentage of that play-calling has to fall on 11. He’s the one that’s calling the plays at the line of scrimmage. He’s the one calling the offense. I don’t know exactly the percentage of what he’s calling, of what Doug’s calling, but [Wentz] is calling a lot of that offense. And Carson’s view of this offense — remember, Doug started to mold the offense what towards Carson likes. And, again, we’re talking five years here. This pretty much Wentz’s offense. This is speculation but strong, strong, strong support that Wentz kind of wants to run this in the sense that, for example, when Peyton Manning was with the Colts and then was with the Broncos, that was Peyton Manning’s offense. And I strongly believe that this is — it’s Doug pederosn’s play design, Doug Pederson is one of the best play designers in the NFL. And Doug, 4th-and-1, that’s Doug’s call. Doug Pederson makes those calls. But in terms of walking up at the line of scrimmage, calling the plays at the line of scrimmages, running some fake cadence … Again, I don’t know the exact percentage. But there’s a hell of a lot of plays being called by Carson Wentz. And that play selection’s being done — well, for example, Doug may call a play. Carson doesn’t like it. And Carson will call his own play. Again, I don’t know the percentage of that, but if you watch that [Washington] game closely on TV, you’ll notice 11 making a lot of calls at the line of scrimmage and they are his calls. So when you turn around and you want to point a finger at Pederson, and play-calling, and things like that, it might be an idea to take that step back and take a broader look at who may actually be at fault here. So, guess what, if Carson throws for eight touchdowns and 555 yards against the Rams? He deserves the credit. But when you throw two interceptions and you struggle …

32 minutes ago, TheRealMcCoy said:

2.) Carson Wentz should be the one under the microscope most, but his QB coach, Press Taylor, who has been with him his whole career is right there too.

Taylor's job security is tied to Wentz. We saw a huge jump from year 1 to year 2 in Carson that had us hopeful he could be a perennial top 5 guy. You can argue Wentz in the years that followed might have improved in certain areas if you look at certain stats, but his progress should be much more clearly stated and weapons/injuries can't just be an excuse. We need to see it this year or Taylor should be on the hot seat. Eagles have constantly turned over DL coaches looking for the right guy. We forced Pederson to move on from coaches he liked that weren't producing results at DB/WR. So, why shouldn't Taylor face the same fate if Wentz keeps devolving? If the problems for all these overthrows are the mechanics that is an awful sign. Why has it got worse in year 5? Taylor is in his 8th season as an Eagles coach as a holdover from Chip Kelly's staff. Pederson obviously sees something in him. There has quite a bit of glowing reviews on him. But, he's been here since Wentz was drafted as an assistant QB coach for 2 years and took over for DeFilippo in 2018 and has been his main coach for going on 3 years now. We need to see better results.

He also pointed out that the Wentz-Taylor marriage may be too buddy-buddy and not enough of a boss-like relationship:

Quote

SANTOLIQUITO: “I don’t know if a good buddy [like Taylor] can also be your coach. There is no secret here. The media knows this, and the fan base knows this. That Press Taylor and Carson Wentz are buddies. They’re pals. And the last time I looked, if I’m running a business, I don’t care if it’s a professional football team or a professional tiddlywinks. If I have a superior over me or I’m the one that’s a superior, I’m going to turn around and say ‘You’re going to do what I say.’ Or we’re going to work as a collaboration, we’re going to work together, and we’re going to collaborate. But you’re going to follow my lead. And if I find you out of line, I’m going to kick you in the tail. I’m going to turn around and make sure you’re on point. And when [Wentz] had not one but two guys kicking him in the tail in that 2017 season, we saw the results. We saw him bend, we saw him become flexible, we saw him accepting — sometimes reluctantly, but still accepting — coaching. And that’s an issue. And it’s a major issue. He’s not going to get any better unless he’s willing to turn around and take hard coaching. Really good story last year, Paul Domowitch does a fantastic job. If you remember that story of hard coaching, can Carson accept hard coaching? And again it goes back to what I wrote back in January of 2019. So far, the history doesn’t show it. The history doesn’t show he’s able to accept hard coaching, that he’s able to accept that harsh criticism.”

This definitely would make a lot of sense as Taylor is pretty close in age with Wentz. Definitely a lot closer than DeFilippo/Reich were.... hell... McCown too!

I like Wentz and don't want to see Taylor lose his job.......

But, if Taylor's eventual departure is what is best for Carson's game/development and the teams future, then it has to be in play.

I don't think Santoliquito wants to see Wentz fail either and he's glad his article had an impact on him and got him to make a change in how he approaches his teammates. 

Quote

SANTOLIQUITO: “Millions saw it, millions read it, but one person definitely saw it, and one person definitely read it, and one person kind of took it to heart. And he deserves credit, he deserves the accolades for that. Now he needs to take another introspective look at himself and see the things that he’s done wrong. And, again, my biggest thing with him is that he needs to accept coaching and he needs to be coached harder than he’s coached.”

I think that is a fair conclusion. Wentz has obviously learned to start adapt as a teammate and leader in the locker room with his teammates.

We saw him speak on social injustice and admit to still learning and growing when it comes to those issues which is something we never would've seen from him in the past.

Now, we need to see him adapt to his coaching again. He can't just think he knows it all. He can't ignore his mechanics and other play-style downfalls.

[TheRealMcCoy]

[EagleBlueDon]

Thought this was news. Got real excited. Nice work though.

[EaglesPeteC]

I think we just need to add a couple more senior offensive assistants. If we can hit a dozen people having input in the game plan then that’ll really turn things around 

[Broadway Joe]

The lack of talent on Defense it is to a very large extent Schwartz´s fault and a big reason to have him canned. He has a lot of say for a DC of what players we draft/bring in and the ones we let walk away. He seems to be married to low talent/high energy players and the defense has gotten progressively worse since 2017 as we haven´t replaced any of the players that we have let go. 

My problem with Doug is that while he has demonstrated to be good in certain areas, he does´t seem to be capable of running a team. The offensive hires have been terrible since DiFilippo and Reich were poached.The fiasco of the OC hire this year is another example, and the constant injury problem very well may be related the way he runs this team/practices. People don´t seem to remember but we were hit hard with injuries in 2016 too. We can no longer chalk that up to bad luck.

[TheRealMcCoy]

 

[Danger]

21 hours ago, TheRealMcCoy said:

 

He looks like he's trying not to tear up TBH.

[TheRealMcCoy]

5 hours ago, Danger said:

He looks like he's trying not to tear up TBH.

He's seemed more angry/frustrated than sad in his press conferences I've watched..... and boy they've been painful to watch.

[rocky_rams]

On 9/21/2020 at 10:28 PM, TheRealMcCoy said:

Just found an interesting article from Bleeding Green Nation with Brandon Lee Gowton interviewing the guy who wrote the Wentz hit piece on PhillyVoice.com with "inside information" about Wentz being 'selfish' and 'uncompromising' and if you don't remember that article here it is. I've got on BLG a lot in the recent past for his negativity and a lot of people got on the writer of that article, but there may be truth behind BLG's opinions (no matter how annoyingly negative) and that guys' sources.

These tidbits related well and gave more insight to a couple things I've touched on in this thread.

He made it a point to consider when it comes to Pederson's playcalling that Wentz has basically a ton of autonomy over the offense with the ability to audible:

He also pointed out that the Wentz-Taylor marriage may be too buddy-buddy and not enough of a boss-like relationship:

This definitely would make a lot of sense as Taylor is pretty close in age with Wentz. Definitely a lot closer than DeFilippo/Reich were.... hell... McCown too!

I like Wentz and don't want to see Taylor lose his job.......

But, if Taylor's eventual departure is what is best for Carson's game/development and the teams future, then it has to be in play.

I don't think Santoliquito wants to see Wentz fail either and he's glad his article had an impact on him and got him to make a change in how he approaches his teammates. 

I think that is a fair conclusion. Wentz has obviously learned to start adapt as a teammate and leader in the locker room with his teammates.

We saw him speak on social injustice and admit to still learning and growing when it comes to those issues which is something we never would've seen from him in the past.

Now, we need to see him adapt to his coaching again. He can't just think he knows it all. He can't ignore his mechanics and other play-style downfalls.

Trade Carson Wentz to the Bucs after Brady retires this year. 

Arians will put him in line. But also watch him ball out and win 3 mvps in a row 

[Daimonas]

8 hours ago, rocky_rams said:

Trade Carson Wentz to the Bucs after Brady retires this year. 

Arians will put him in line. But also watch him ball out and win 3 mvps in a row 

2019 carson would be disgusting in TB with those weapons, probably would make 2017 carson look amateur. 

 

[AZ_Eaglesfan]

Doug just won’t do himself any favors in these press conferences. 

[Jroc04]

14 minutes ago, AZ_Eaglesfan said:

Doug just won’t do himself any favors in these press conferences. 

Even if we were 3-0 it’d be a pretty dull press conference if no one critiqued or asked questions. The Philly media can be tough and sometimes idiotic but what does Doug think media does? They aren’t fans. They ask questions, at least good reporters, that fans would like answered. Instead of snark, just answer the question as vaguely as you’d like, ala Belichick, and move on. It shows weakness when simple questions agitate you. Simply say, I believe in the guys in that locker room and we’re going to right the ship and accomplish what we set out to do. And then walk away. Easy.