The System Vs. The Player

I have this discussion all of the time. Do you get players to fit your system, or do you adjust your system to fit the players that you have? Most coaches/recruiters/trainers are not willing to adjust their system to fit the talent. Is it ego? Is it the fear of failure? Is the fear of the unknown? Stepping outside the box to see what happens can be scary. The unknown may turn out to be a place of success. But, the unknown may also be a place of failure. Do you take the chance? Or do you stick to your guns? Which is the right answer? The System or the Player?

I ask this question because of the issues that the Washington Redskins have had this 2009 season. But if you look around the league there are other teams who have a bit of an issue with this topic as well. Vince Young or Kerry Collins? Shaun Hill or Alex Smith? J.P. Losman or Trent Edwards or Ryan Fitzpatrick? Brady Quinn or Derek Anderson? Bruce Gradkowski or JeMarcus Russell? Josh Freeman or Josh Johnson? Jay Cutler or Kyle Orton? I mean I’d love to see if Matt Hasselback could play outside of the West Coast Offense. If you ask me, Hasselbeck has been average at best, but for some reason he gets a pass. Please don’t give me any crap about Hasselbeck making the Super Bowl. He didn’t win it. I mean Donovan McNabb and Rex Grossman made the Super Bowl too. So, if Hasselbeck get’s a pass so do they. Could Peyton Manning play in the West Coast Offense. Hell if we switched Petyon Manning and Matt Hasselbeck what would the results be? Would Jim Mora switch to a Spread Offense to suit Peyton? Or, would Peyton have to learn a new system. That should be easy for him right, I mean the general consensus is Peyton Manning is smart, so switching Offense’s should be easy for him right? Does Seattle have the parts around Peyton for him to be successful? I certainly think that Indianapolis has everything for Matt Hasselbeck to be successful.

Let’s look at Michael Vick and Matt Schaub. Remember Matt Schaub played well when Mike Vick got hurt? Well the reason why Michael Vick didn’t do so well in that system is because he had to sit in the pocket. If any bright ass was watching Vick at Virginia Tech, we all know that Vick NEVER sat in the pocket. This to me is poor coaching. You can make the point that Vick never studied. Point well taken. But isn’t this the same guy, whom we just established never studied, that later ran the Spread Option Offense with Warrick Dunn and basically ran his way into the record books? This is also the same guy that went 12-4 in 2004 and was one game away from the Super Bowl. But for some strange reason people believed that Matt Schuab was better than Michael Vick. Imagine if Michael Jenkins and Roddy White didn’t leave their hands in the locker room all of those years. This may have been one of the most potent Offenses in the league. Matt Schaub has since moved on to the Houston Texans. I do see why people were high on him. He is a solid QB, but he hasn’t won anything folks. And truth be told, he actually has more talent in Houston right now, than he did when he was in Atlanta. So why is he not winning? Was it the system? What do you think? You make the call.

I had a guy run me down one day. He is an Eagles fan, but for some strange reason doesn’t like Donovan McNabb. My initial belief was that he thinks Donovan can’t win big games. But after delving deeper into the situation, I was amazed at what I heard from this guy. He believes Donovan is not accurate. He also believes that Donovan can only throw the deep ball. So I asked a dumb question, “Is the degree of difficulty higher the longer/deeper the pass?” I then asked him to name his top 3 QB’s in the NFL? Keep in mind, this is like 2 years ago. He says Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Drew Brees. Fair enough. I then asked him to give me another 3, he then says Phillip Rivers, Carson Palmer and Eli Manning. At this point I am livid. At this particular time, Carson Palmer was stinking up the joint and so was Eli Manning. So I asked him about his own teams starting QB, and he says that his teams QB (Philadelphia Eagles – Donovan McNabb), was not in the Top 10. Now I don’t claim to like him, but even Tony Kornheiser thought that people should recognize Donovan as the #3 QB in the league. I mean isn’t this the same guy who ran the hell out of the West Coast Offense with #2 and #3 WR’s for like 4 straight years? Do we remember what happened when he actually got a playmaker at WR, in Terrell Owens? What was Carson Palmer’s excuse? He was in the same system with two legit #1 WR’s (T.J. Houshmanzedah and Chad Ochocinco [then Johnson]), and never matched McNabb’s production. The only difference is Donovan was in the right system with the wrong pieces. What was Carson Palmer’s excuse? He had the right pieces, was he in the wrong system?

I brought all of this up to talk about a guy that I think is unfairly criticized, Jason Campbell. He is more suited for a Power Running game. Sure he ran the West Coast Offense in college, but in which system was he most successful when he got the NFL? We can talk about the owner, the V.P. of Football Operations, and the General Manager all day, but the guy that I think tried to do the right thing, but reverted back to his old ways was Coach Jim Zorn. He had the right idea last year and trying to combine a Power Running game with the West Coast Passing Game. I understand we suffered some injuries on the Offensive Line, but why do you think the Redskins started 6-2 last year. People tried to say it was film, but it doesn’t take 8 weeks for any NFL team to figure you out. Trust me people, it really takes about 2-4 days before any NFL coach can figure out what you do. People knew what we were doing, they just couldn’t stop it. Coach Zorn adjusted the system to fit the players, that’s why he was successful. Why is/was he struggling towards the end of last year and the beginning of this year? He tried to make the players fit the system. The reality is, everyone has injuries at this point in the season. And although we have had our fair share of injuries, the Redskins played one of their best games of the season against the Broncos. If you were paying attention, the play-calling was something straight out of the book of Joe Gibbs, minus all the motioning pre-snap. Imagine what happens when/if the starters come back. Although Ladell Betts had a great game, just remember the guy that he replaced had 1,487 Rushing yards last year. He got 1, 000 of those yards in the first half of the season in 2008 before injuries got a hold of him and the Offensive Line. But we also stopped doing what was working. So we will never know if it was truly the system or the personnel. So to answer the original question, is it the player or the system. It is a combination of both in some cases, but you have to be open to going either way.