Marty Mornhinweg's Offenses in Philly

At this point we all know Marty runs a West Coast Offense, and was the offensive coordinator in Philly for a while, but how successful were those offenses? Andy Reid is an offensive head coach, so it's difficult to differentiate who was more responsible for success or failure, but Marty's stint as OC stretched for 7 years from 2006-2012.

In 2006 Marty had Donovan McNabb, Brian Westbrook, Donte Stallworth, and Reggie Brown. After a mid season slump, McNabb went down in week 11 and the Eagles were sitting at 5-6. Jeff Garcia came in and the team promptly won it's last 5 straight to go 10-6 and win the NFC East. They finished the season as the #2 offense, largely on the back of Brian Westbrook. They lost their first playoff game in the Divisional round to the Saints.

In 2007, the offense returned most of the key players but Stallworth was swapped out for Kevin Curtis. The team was 5-5 but in McNabb got hurt again. With AJ Feely as the replacement for the next 2 games, the Eagles dropped to 5-7, and couldn't win to stop the streak when McNabb returned the following week to go 5-8. This knocked them out of playoff contention, although they did manage to win the last 3 games and finish 8-8. They finished as the # 6 offense, again in large part thanks to Brian Westbrook.

In 2008 the Eagles struggled early, sitting at 5-4-1. In the next game McNabb played very poorly, resulting in getting benched for Kevin Kolb in a loss that sent the team to 5-5-1. McNabb was named the starter again the following week, and the team finished up winning 4 of their last 5, including a week 17 make-or-break game vs the Cowboys to get into the playoffs as a wild card. The Eagles won two playoff games before a demise at the hands of the Cardinals in the NFC Champ game. The offensive skill players were largely the same, although injuries at WR caused rookie DeSean Jackson to start. The Eagles were the #9 offense that year.

2009 was a solid season for the Eagles who were 11-4 going into week 17 at Dallas, with an opportunity to clinch a 1st round bye. They ended up getting blown out by Dallas, leaving them 11-5 as a wildcard team. The following week, they played Dallas again, but were effectively blown out again. Due to injuries, the offense was largely in the hands of the young crew of playmakers including 2nd year DeSean Jackson, rookie Jeremy Maclin, and rookie LeSean McCoy. Even with this changing of the guard in process, the offense finished the season at #11.

In 2010, McNabb was traded to the Redskins, with Kevin Kolb in line to start. Kolb was injured in week 1, and although he tried to return early in the season, Michael Vick permanently sidelined him with a stellar season. The Eagles finished 10-6 to win the NFC East, but were knocked out of the playoffs by the visiting Packers in the WC round. The Eagles finished the season as the #2 offense.

2011 featured the so called "Dream Team" filled with expectations, but the season ultimately did not go well. The Eagles came out of the gate lame, going 4-8 over the first 12 games. The poor play despite the amount of talent on the team caused many to speculate that Reid may be fired, but the Eagles rallied to win their last 4 (including a particularly painful Jets loss) which went a long way to help Reid's job security. At 8-8 they missed the playoffs for only the second time since Mornhinweg started as OC. The primary issue with the "Dream Team" was the defense, as the offense finished with another high ranking at #4.

2012 was the worst season under Reid, and coming off a dysfunctional 2011 campaign his seat was considered hot around the league. Despite going 3-1 to start the season, the Eagles went 1-11 over the remaining games, losing any semblance of fight long before the season ended. The entire coaching staff was fired, thus Mornhinweg's availability to become our OC. The Eagles had their worst offensive showing under MM in 2012, ranking #15. This season likely ruined Mornhinweg's opportunity to take a head coaching job, which he was considered and excellent candidate for after his 2010 and 2011 seasons.


So who gets more credit for these offenses over the years, Reid, or Mornhinweg? Based on wikipedia, which could be inaccurate, Mornhinweg called the plays in 2006 and 2007, 2 of the more successful years. The good news is Mornhinweg's offenses did particularly well with speed players, such Kevin Curtis and DeSean Jackson, and we finally have a player like this in Harvin. Maclin may have the slight edge on Decker as far as speed and elusiveness with the ball, but both do their damage as highly consistent route runners. I don't see why people are so sure Harvin will play from the slot, I'm sure he will have his share of snaps in the slot, but he has played outside plenty in his career and at 5'11" 184 he is bigger than DeSean Jackson.

Here's some interesting (at least I think) information about Percy Harvin. In 2009, Harvin was drafted by the Vikings who ran a WCO under Brad Childress (HC) and Derrell Bevell (OC). He played under these coaches for 2 years, but neither returned in 2011. Derrell Bevell joined on as OC in Seattle for 2011, a position he has retained to this day. Now here's my question: If Percy Harvin was so notoriously hard to work with, don't you think his offensive coordinator for 2 years would be like "Hey John Schneider, maybe we shouldn't spend a bunch of draft picks on this guy and sign him to a massive contract"? Not to mention people keep saying Bevell couldn't figure out how to properly use Harvin's skills in his offense... Except that he was the OC when Harvin was drafted in Minnesota. This reeks of a money driven move to me.

On another interesting note, all of these guys (Reid, Mornhinweg, Childress, Bevell) stem from the Bill Walsh/Mike Holmgren coaching tree.

 

I definitely appreciate it. I'm seriously contemplating attempting to start up a site at some point in the not too distant future, probably with some blog stuff and who knows what else. I honestly love looking this stuff up, the ratio of educational studying to football studying I did in college is kind of ridiculous.

 

Hey man feel free to draw your own conclusions from what you see, this was not intended to be adoration for Mornhinweg or anything like that. I have to be honest, I didn't know most of this stuff before I wrote this or much about MM in general. I wanted to see what kind of players he used and was successful with, before Djax and Maclin and McCoy, who I'm more familiar with. I wanted to see what the ups and downs looked like for his squads before he came here. I had no idea what his offensive rankings were each year, and whether or not the offense was overhyped. I didn't follow Philly closely.