Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Frank: Overrated and underrated Eagles: Coaches

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Frank: Overrated and underrated Eagles: Coaches

    http://www.csnphilly.com/07/04/11/bF...171&feedID=692

    Frank: Overrated and underrated Eagles: Coaches

    Monday, July 4, 2011
    Posted: 5:43 p.m.

    By Reuben Frank
    CSNPhilly.com

    The most popular coach in Eagles history never won a darn thing.

    In this week’s installment of our summer series – the Most Overrated and Underrated in Eagles History – we take a look at a couple Eagles coaches whose legacies do not quite match up with reality.

    Overrated


    Buddy Ryan is revered in Philadelphia, which is kind of bizarre considering that he’s one of only three head coaches in NFL history to take three or more teams to the playoffs and not win a single postseason game.

    Of the 78 head coaches in NFL history who’ve reached the playoffs at least three times, only three – Ryan, Allie Sherman and Jim Mora Sr. – have failed to win at least one playoff game.

    The Eagles were 0-for-Buddy, yet the guy is beloved in Philly because he acted tough, ripped his players and constantly flouted authority, whether it was general manager Harry Gamble or owner Norman Braman.

    Not only did Ryan’s Eagles go winless in the postseason, but they also lost horribly and pathetically and ridiculously in the postseason.

    In three playoff games with Ryan at the helm, the Eagles scored one touchdown.

    One.

    Think about that for a moment. They lost by a combined 61-25 to the Bears in 1988, the Rams in 1989 and the Redskins in 1990. In those three games, they had 44 possessions and managed one touchdown – Anthony Toney’s one-yard run in the fourth quarter against the Rams with the Eagles already trailing by 14 points.

    And the world’s greatest defense? Allowed at least 20 points in all three games to Mike Tomczak, Jim Everett and Mark Rypien.

    Was Buddy really a defensive genius? Maybe with the Bears, but only one of his five Eagles defenses ranked in the top 10 in the NFL in either points or yards allowed.

    Not until Rich Kotite replaced Ryan did the Eagles finally win their first playoff game since the Dick Vermeil Era.

    Andy Reid wins 10 playoff games and gets blasted. Buddy manages one touchdown in the playoffs and he’s a legend.

    Go figure.

    How is it possible to have Reggie White, Eric Allen, Jerome Brown, Clyde Simmons, Seth Joyner, Wes Hopkins, Andre Waters and Byron Evans on defense and Randall Cunningham, Keith Jackson, Cris Carter and Keith Byars on offense and get blown out of three straight playoff games, two of them at home?

    Leave it to Buddy.

    Underrated

    Marion Campbell has never gotten the credit he deserves for his role on Dick Vermeil’s staff in the late 1970s and early 1980s and also in putting together the Eagles team of the late-1980s and early 1990s.

    As a head coach, Swamp Fox wasn’t anything special. His .298 winning percentage with the Eagles and in two stints with the Falcons is third-worst in NFL history, ahead of only David Shula (.26 – who Norman Braman nearly hired to replace Campbell – and Bert Bell (.179), who went on to become NFL Commissioner.

    Campbell went 17-29-1 in three years as head coach of the Eagles before getting fired with one week left in the 1985 season.

    But Campbell served an extraordinary six-year stint as Vermeil’s defensive coordinator, from 1977 through 1982. During that span, the Eagles ranked ninth or better in the NFL in defense five of six years, including No. 1 rankings in both the 1980 Super Bowl season and in 1981.

    During that span – 1977 through 1982 – no NFL team allowed fewer points than the Eagles, who gave up just 1,377, or 17.9 per game. And no team allowed fewer yards than the Eagles (287 per game).

    The Eagles ranked third overall in the NFL in rush defense during Swampie’s tenure as defensive coordinator and sixth in pass defense.

    Since 1954, the Eagles have never ranked No. 1 in the NFL in defense (points allowed) under anybody other than Campbell – and they did it twice in a row under Swampie. Even in Campbell’s three years as head coach, the Eagles were solid on defense, ranking eighth, 14th and 10th.

    Campbell was a defensive lineman on the NFL-champion 1960 Eagles team, which means he had a role on every Eagles team that reached a title game from the early 1950s until 2004.

    The Eagles hadn’t reached the playoffs in 18 years when the 1978 team made the first of four straight trips. In those four years, the Eagles gave up 17.6 points in seven playoff games with Campbell as defensive coordinator.

    Swamp Fox’s other major contribution to the Eagles came in the draft. It was Campbell – and not Ryan – who was head coach when the organization drafted Reggie White, Randall Cunningham, Wes Hopkins and Andre Waters, who would become the nucleus of Ryan’s underachieving teams.

    Campbell is one of the key figures in Eagles history, as a player, a coordinator and a head coach. Even if nobody realizes it.

  • #2
    Would in general agree, but if he's going to give Campbell credit for some of Ryan's successes, you have to give Ryan a lot (most?) credit for Kotite's successes, whatever they were. It's hard to credit Kotite with anything good

    Ryan took a horrible team, with some good pieces, and turned it into a very good team. His attitude was loved, for sure, and he could sure coach defense (though the point about playoff defense performance is a good one). Mainly, he made the Eagles fun to watch again, and that is hard to underrate.

    His fatal flaw, despite drafting some good players, was a total inability to coach offense it would appear, certainly never teaching Cunningham traditional QB skills. And a large part of the problem was the largely inability to fix the OL, which was absolutely horrible if memory serves. He tried and failed with the trade for Solt, and Kotite and Rhodes failed repeatedly afterwards with terrible draft choices until Rhodes' final one, Tra Thomas, and I guess Mayberry playing well at guard after proving to not be a tackle.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by FairOaks View Post
      Would in general agree, but if he's going to give Campbell credit for some of Ryan's successes, you have to give Ryan a lot (most?) credit for Kotite's successes, whatever they were. It's hard to credit Kotite with anything good

      Ryan took a horrible team, with some good pieces, and turned it into a very good team. His attitude was loved, for sure, and he could sure coach defense (though the point about playoff defense performance is a good one). Mainly, he made the Eagles fun to watch again, and that is hard to underrate.

      His fatal flaw, despite drafting some good players, was a total inability to coach offense it would appear, certainly never teaching Cunningham traditional QB skills. And a large part of the problem was the largely inability to fix the OL, which was absolutely horrible if memory serves. He tried and failed with the trade for Solt, and Kotite and Rhodes failed repeatedly afterwards with terrible draft choices until Rhodes' final one, Tra Thomas, and I guess Mayberry playing well at guard after proving to not be a tackle.
      I just read 'Rex Ryan's book and he claimed Buddy was all over the FO to get SD's offensive left tackle (I can't remember his name) to protect Cunningham. The FO never came through and Buddy took the rap.
      "Hey Giants, who's your Daddy?"

      Comment


      • #4
        Buddy Ryan was just not a very good HC. IMO Buddy's fatal flaw was arrogance. If he was as good as he thought he was his defenses should have finished top 5 most of his years coaching in Philly. Bud Carson was the one who made that D into something Buddy never could.
        FRESH > cancer

        I hate everything the Cowboys stand for. If you think they are America's team, then you support everything that is wrong with America. The excess, the greed, the lack of maturity, the lack of responsibility, the lack of control. - Luzinski's Gut

        Comment


        • #5
          Besides his bluster and the fact that the Eagles were a fun team to watch -- well, until the postseason anyway -- Buddy is also remembered because the Cowgirls stank while he was here, and the Eagles went 8-2 against them (the game with the replacement players included). I think he even said, "They'll love you in Philly as long as you win those two games every season."
          "Philly fans are great....It's the only place where you pull up on the bus and you've got the grandfather, the grandmother, the kids and the grandkids - everybody flicking you off. At other stadiums, they give you the thumbs-down. Here, they give you the middle finger.”
          — Michael Strahan

          "No one likes us, no one likes us, no one likes us, we don’t care, we’re from Philly, F—-ing Philly, No one likes us, we don’t care!”
          - Jason Kelce with the best championship speech ever

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Eagle60 View Post
            I just read 'Rex Ryan's book and he claimed Buddy was all over the FO to get SD's offensive left tackle (I can't remember his name) to protect Cunningham. The FO never came through and Buddy took the rap.
            Looked up the Chargers' starting roster for a few years around Buddy's time. 24-year old Jim Lachey played LT for the Chargers in 1987 and went to the Pro Bowl for the first time. We all know what he did on the Redskins, so that's got to be the guy.
            "Philly fans are great....It's the only place where you pull up on the bus and you've got the grandfather, the grandmother, the kids and the grandkids - everybody flicking you off. At other stadiums, they give you the thumbs-down. Here, they give you the middle finger.”
            — Michael Strahan

            "No one likes us, no one likes us, no one likes us, we don’t care, we’re from Philly, F—-ing Philly, No one likes us, we don’t care!”
            - Jason Kelce with the best championship speech ever

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by balto-eaglefan View Post
              Looked up the Chargers' starting roster for a few years around Buddy's time. 24-year old Jim Lachey played LT for the Chargers in 1987 and went to the Pro Bowl for the first time. We all know what he did on the Redskins, so that's got to be the guy.
              Yup, that's the guy BE. Nice job! And Blitz, if you didn't like Buddy that's fine. But to knock him defensively is absurd. He revolutionized ed defense with the Bears and his concepts are used today.
              "Hey Giants, who's your Daddy?"

              Comment


              • #8
                His defense with the Bears was great but his defense here underperformed. With the pieces that he had in Philly there is no reason why they shouldn't have finished toward the top more often. But he couldn't even win a PO game.

                But when he came up short here so much I didn't really care what he did with the Bears. I am judging him on his time in Philly.
                FRESH > cancer

                I hate everything the Cowboys stand for. If you think they are America's team, then you support everything that is wrong with America. The excess, the greed, the lack of maturity, the lack of responsibility, the lack of control. - Luzinski's Gut

                Comment


                • #9
                  I was buying his stuff about Buddy until he started sticking up for Marion Campbell. If you judge Marion Campbell as a coach during the time he spent on Vermeil's staff (and I hated Marion Campbell for ruining my childhood viewing of the Eagles) then you have to give Buddy credit as a coach for his stint on the Bears.

                  If you do the sane thing and judge them both as headcoaches, then Marion Campbell sucked balls as a head coach. Separately, his two arguments might make good columns. Together, it's an exercise is faulty logic.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by sfphillyfan View Post
                    I was buying his stuff about Buddy until he started sticking up for Marion Campbell. If you judge Marion Campbell as a coach during the time he spent on Vermeil's staff (and I hated Marion Campbell for ruining my childhood viewing of the Eagles) then you have to give Buddy credit as a coach for his stint on the Bears.

                    If you do the sane thing and judge them both as headcoaches, then Marion Campbell sucked balls as a head coach. Separately, his two arguments might make good columns. Together, it's an exercise is faulty logic.

                    I totally agree. This is about head coaching performance not coordinator performance. Buddy would win that battle.
                    FRESH > cancer

                    I hate everything the Cowboys stand for. If you think they are America's team, then you support everything that is wrong with America. The excess, the greed, the lack of maturity, the lack of responsibility, the lack of control. - Luzinski's Gut

                    Comment

                    Working...
                    X