Mastery of emerging spread concepts lifted the Eagles to the Super Bowl. Can the Broncos, others follow suit?

[Denver Native (Carol)]

Philadelphia have hummed — with two quarterbacks — behind “college offense”

The Philadelphia Eagles and their fan base aren’t ones to absorb sleights — real or perceived — lying down.

The fans, in the throes of a miserable season in 1968, exercised their frustration by throwing snowballs at a teenager dressed as Santa Claus during a halftime performance. Fifty years later, players donned dog masks after their NFC divisional-round playoff victory over the Atlanta Falcons on Jan. 13, a shot at those labeling the conference’s No. 1 seed as a longshot underdog once its second-year quarterback, Carson Wentz, was lost for the rest of the season in December because of a knee injury.

So it’s no surprise that folks in Philadelphia took umbrage with comments made by Broncos cornerback Chris Harris after the Eagles blasted Denver 51-23 on Nov. 5.

rest - interesting - https://www.denverpost.com/2018/01/28/eagles-ride-spread-offense-super-bowl/

[Cugel]

“In my opinion, we have to take what those guys do best and kind of put it in our plan,” said Denver head coach Vance Joseph. “We can’t watch those guys on tape for four or five months and then draft those guys and ask them to do different things. What they do best, we have to do with those guys. Obviously you want to be under center some, but if they are a spread guy, we have to implement spread concepts for those guys to be successful on our level.”

GMs say this until their $20m QB tries to run, gets hit and tears up his knee like RG III. Then they want him to stay in the pocket. Sometimes he can do learn to do that (Steve Young) and sometimes he can't (RGIII). You take a risk either way.

[Poet]

GMs say this until their $20m QB tries to run, gets hit and tears up his knee like RG III. Then they want him to stay in the pocket. Sometimes he can do learn to do that (Steve Young) and sometimes he can't (RGIII). You take a risk either way.

Variance is a bitch.

[Cugel]

Variance is a bitch.

Dilly, dilly.

[topscribe]

rest - interesting - https://www.denverpost.com/2018/01/28/eagles-ride-spread-offense-super-bowl/
Well, seeing as how the Eagles are in the Super Bowl now, with their 2nd string QB, I don't
feel quite so bad about the pasting we took. Oh, I feel bad, but not nearly so now.

[HORSEPOWER 56]

I don’t think there’s any chance of it. Not with our coaching staff. In 16 games, 0 for 3 in finding a guy who could run the system we installed in training camp. Musgrave doesn’t exactly seem like the “change schemes to fit” kinda guy. He is, and always has been, a west coast offense kinda guy. I sincerely doubt that he’s going to go back to the drawing board at his age and learn the RPO spread.

We don’t exactly have a coaching staff full of pioneers. Unless you count our head coach, who pioneers amazing practices only to be completely out coached and who fields an inept team on Sundays.

[MasterShake]

Eventually teams will just start smashing the QB regardless of what he does with the RPO. Oh you handed it off for a small gain? Great! Good luck calling a play with your jaw dislocated. It is not a sustainable way to play football in the NFL because the QB will be taken out on a stretcher eventually. If it worked Chip Kelley would still have a job with the Eagles and Tim Tebow would have nabbed us 3 Super Bowls. I think it can be a compliment to an offense, not a focus. GET OFF MY LAWN!

Though I am curious to see if the Pats get ripped in the Super Bowl against the Eagles. IF that happens it could change my mind. To me the success of the Eagles has more to do with their depth and talent. They are probably one of the most talent ripe teams I've ever seen.

[Hawgdriver]

Stupid talk radio jock Mark Stinketh had a point--NFL roster size doesn't lend toward massive adoption of RPO, but all teams use some concepts at points in game. Until roster size changes, NFL can't be college.

[Cugel]

Eventually teams will just start smashing the QB regardless of what he does with the RPO. Oh you handed it off for a small gain? Great! Good luck calling a play with your jaw dislocated. It is not a sustainable way to play football in the NFL because the QB will be taken out on a stretcher eventually. If it worked Chip Kelley would still have a job with the Eagles and Tim Tebow would have nabbed us 3 Super Bowls. I think it can be a compliment to an offense, not a focus. GET OFF MY LAWN!

Though I am curious to see if the Pats get ripped in the Super Bowl against the Eagles. IF that happens it could change my mind. To me the success of the Eagles has more to do with their depth and talent. They are probably one of the most talent ripe teams I've ever seen.

It' won't change my mind at all. This is just a fad. Fads come and go in the NFL. I remember having to endure all the crap from idiot fans about how Tim Tebow was going to "revolutionize" the NFL. That was always nonsense for the very obvious reason that you can't have your QB out in space running without him getting hurt.

Tebow was so beaten up and had cracked ribs from the NE game that he could not even have played in the AFC Championship if somehow the Broncos had won. That's what always happens eventually to running QBs.

If the Eagles win it will be because they have superior talent at most positions. After what happened to Wentz this year they do not want him running around out there in space every year. As soon as they can get him to learn to be a pocket passing QB they will do that, just like the Redskins tried to do (unsuccessfully) with RGIII.

If the Patriots win it will probably be in part because they decided (as Mark Schlereth said this AM) to "break their QB's jaw" every time they ran the RPO. If he tosses to a RB who gains 8 yards, we can live with that. We'll just hit your QB as hard as we can. We'll see if he can stand up to that for 4 quarters.

He might be able to do that in 1 game, which means the Eagles win. Whether any QB can do that year after year is a different matter.

The Eagles used the #2 pick of the draft on Wentz. To get that pick they lost a TON of games, and fired their coach and GM. Nobody wants to be the coach & GM who lose 12-14 games, gets fired, and then the team is in position to draft a new Wentz.