kosartoslaughter wrote: I thought Mangi was a power-run East Coast bully ball coach?
a Bartkowski reference? who were the WRs in that era?
Browns:
Slaughter-X-speedy burner like an Oilers WR (which he did indeed become)
Langhorne-Y-YAC possession guy like 49ers John Taylor
Brennan-Z-Slot-little guy with clutch catches like Joe J
Jerry Rice was basically a bigger Slaughter--and more talented-- but he had a big body with the speed of Webstar.
I do not believe anyone ever accurately recorded Jerry Rice's speed. He was always exactly as fast as he needed to be.
Mangini comes from the Belichick school of Pot Luck schemes. You look at what you have in the fridge, who you have to prepare for, and then you make it. That meant on some weeks he had a power offense. On other weeks it was a finess offense. Some days they'd gameplan a vertical offense and some days they'd never plan on looking 10 yards downfield or outside the hashmarks.
It happens that in Cleveland the only time he had the personell matched with a scheme that worked was when Hillis and Colt were both in the lineup. By that point he was scheming to keep his job rather than because he had any major over-arching philosophical scheme he was implementing so he didn't overthink it. He knew he had to go with it regardless of what the other team was showing because he really didn't have any other options.
When PB implemented his offense the dominant theme of the NFL was to send one or two guys vertically while you run the ball. You occasionally threw to them when you were behind later in the game regardless of whether or not they were open. PB added in the dimension of using those guys in patterns over the field wher you would go to them even on 2nd or 3rd down or even when you had the lead. I'm sure it was inspiring at the time.
Eventually Walsh tweaked the PB offense by going to more 1 back sets and removing the power runs from the scheme and instead using more 3WR sets along with single back sets. Whereas PB's offense typically split the field in half (L/R) the WCO used the full field with more receivers and a focus on the RB as a receiver to allow as many possible short-yardage, high success percent plays as possible.
Walsh's philosphy helped change the concept of running on first and second down, running at the start of the game , running with the lead, and only passing when down or in need of a big play to passing at any time. While vertical passing is still important to provide a big play the offense is built to suprise teams with that deep ball - not to do it so routinely that they didn't pay off. The reason Walsh was considered an offensive genius is because the blocking schems and routes that players had to learn was incredibly difficult because it was completely alien to what other teams, and particularly college teams, were teaching.
Now almost every offense has the same level of compexity. They just differ in emphasis. I doubt there are many plays in the Browns book that aren't in the Jets or vice versa. The ones emphasized and called are just going to be different. According to just about every article written on the Browns scheme last year they had what was labeled WCO v1 in place. In some reports it was considered so vanilla that it didn't even remotely compare to any other WCO in place in the league and was laughably referred to as being an exact version of Bill Walsh's WCO - which is frankly as effective in today's NFL as the wing. Or less so if you remove the element of shock that the wing would bring on a week-to-week basis.
That was hopefully dictated by the short offseason and the lack of faith the coach had in the QB and not a sign of our HC's acumen in offensive scheming. Regardless bringing in a second, experienced offensive mind to coach on the offensive side should allow the Browns to elevate their gameplans even if the QBs' experiences still aren't up to snuff.
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