The news of Bill Musgrave's taking over the QB coach job as Bill Lazor moves on to Miami was at first underwhelming for me. But the more I looked into it, the better I feel about it.
Whenever I used to think about Musgrave, all I thought about was his last 3 years as offensive coordinator for the Vikings. He had some great players on offense, but seemed to produce middle-of-the-pack numbers in yards and points. Then of course there was the Christian Ponder project. Ponder threw well on the move and converted a lot of key 3rd downs, but struggled with decision-making late in games. Musgrave tried to get Ponder to learn when to have confidence in his strong arm, and when to be conservative.
Musgrave also worked with Sage Rosenfels and Joe Webb, and of course took on the Josh Freeman project this past season, too. Looking at those QB's careers today, I guess I was wondering just how much Musgrave could bring to the Eagles QB's he inherits to make them any better.
Then I realized I had forgotten that Musgrave used to be a pretty fair country QB himself back in the days when he played for Oregon, got drafted by Dallas in 1991 (4th round) and then landed with the San Francisco 49ers playing for George Seifert and Mike Shanahan. He followed Shanahan to Denver and was John Elway's backup.
Intense West Coast offense education right there…lots of runs and short passes…lots of big chunk plays…time of possession…be smart with the ball…but take your shot downfield when the timing is right.
Now Musgrave had my attention. And free from the everyday routine of OC responsibilities, maybe he has a greater opportunity to work with the Eagles youngest QB's one-on-one.
Musgrave is still young at 46. He's got a chance to build up his reputation as a guy who helped Chip Kelly's NFL offense take the next step. That's even bigger than his old reputation as a Quarterback "Guru". He's had stints in many NFL cities tutoring young QB's like Mike Vick at Atlanta, and later Matt Ryan, just to mention a few.
He's coached QB's in Philly before, too, back on the Ray Rhodes-Dana Bible swan song team of 1998. But I will not hold that against him.
The Chippah has inside knowledge of Musgrave's knowledge and his methodology, so I realized what Kelly is up to — he's hoping to hand the keys to the car over to his quarterbacks in a more expanded and versatile offense with a little more freedom to change plays—or even improvise.
As Phil Sheridan reiterated yesterday, Kelly is not a West Coast offense guy. He dubbed the Eagles' offense the “See Coast” offense, because he and his staff borrow from things they see and like. Kelly stressed that the Eagles' offense is the product of his entire staff, not an attempt to replicate what he ran at Oregon.
And when you hire West Coast offense guys lke Pat Shurmur, Bill Lazor, and then Bill Musgrave, it's more clear than ever that Kelly has an evolving vision of adding WCO elements to his quarterbacks' role in running a consistent offense. Most of the stereotypes about Kelly's "college-style" offense are rapidly dissolving.
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POSITIONAL RANKINGS FOR 2014 DRAFT… It's time to start looking at these things which are everywhere right before The Senior Bowl is played. ESPN's NFL Player ratings page just came out with its "Top 32 Players in the Draft"…. This ranking is hear-say based more than anything, so don't put a ton of credence into this list. It's just a template to get started. I generally don't pay too much attention to any kind of positional ranking until Mike Mayock releases his list at the Combine.
We'll look at each position group separately in future days. But just to get started, here are the top-ranked overall players entering the 2014 Draft according to ESPN's panel, based on a rating of 90-to-100 being "a rare prospect", all the way down to a 0-to-10 rating being "not a genuine prospect".
The fun really begins when you get solid data and comparative competition observations after the Senior Bowl and the Combine drills. But for now, I go with what I've got.
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