Kyle Shanahan

[Thaak]

One of the most prolific offenses in the past 10 years has been the New Orleans Saints with Sean Payton and Drew Brees. One thing I loved to hear, is that Sean Payton got together with Drew Brees to find out what his favorite plays were when he was with San Diego, and then he added those plays to the Saints' playbook. Payton does his best to run what works with who you have, and put his players in the best position to succeed based on their current skill set.

 

On the other hand, you have Peyton Manning lead offenses (offensive coordinators, in my mind, are just assistants to Manning). Where he demands perfection in what he wants to do with the offense. And reports say that he practices after practice with his running backs and receivers to such an extent, that they know exactly what Manning expects on any given moment.

 

So making players fit your system does work.

 

However I feel that's the exception rather than the rule. You see many, many, many coaches fail when they try to do the square peg in the round hole thing, because their ego is too big to make what works happen instead. Kosar draws a play in the dirt, throws a TD to Michael Jackson, and gets benched by Belichek. Was Kosar physically wearing down? Yeah. Was his talent diminished enough to be benched? Probably. Was Belicheck an egotistical ass because of the reason he benched Kosar in this situation? Absolutely.

 

I think Shanahan is of the Payton school, rather than the Peyton school, which is why we are seeing so much offensive success with a supporting cast of "who?"