Why Reid Won't Let Loose With His Playbook

The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Minnesota Vikings 26-14 yesterday in a Wild Card Matchup.

With seven minutes remaining in the game Eagles coach Andy Reid finally decided to open up his playbook and beat the Minnesota pass rush. Donovan McNabb hit Brian Westbrook with a little screen pass and Westbrook went the distance to give the Eagles a commanding lead.

All game long Reid kept calling runs up the middle that were getting stuffed. And once the Eagles reached Minnesota territory, the Vikings pass rush would get to McNabb and the drive would stall. Minnesota would know exactly what the Eagles where going to do next. They should of, after all Vikings coach Brad Childress was once the Eagles offensive coordinator.

Then Reid made his finest play call with the Westbrook screen pass call. Many of you wonder what took so long?

What took so long is Andy Reid is a disciple of the West Coast Offense.

San Francisco coach Bill Walsh created this offense while an assistant to Paul Brown with the Cincinnati Bengals. He eventually took the offense to San Francisco where him, Joe Montana, and Jerry Rice made the offense one of the most explosive offenses in the country.

Many of Walsh's assistants eventually became head coaches. And those head coaches lead to other assistant coaches becoming head coaches.

Two of Walsh's main assistants became head coaches in the league, Mike Holmgren and Dennis Green. They both studied the west coast offense and took this scheme with them to their new jobs.

Both where successful right away. Holmgren lead Green Bay to a Super Bowl win in his fifth year with the team. Green lead the Vikings to many playoff appearances and Minnesota was always a successful offensive team.

After Green Bay's Super Bowl win many Holmgren assistants became popular choices for head coaching vacancy's. First Steve Mariucci became the 49ers coach in 1997. Then Reid got his job in Philadelphia in 1999.

But somewhere down the line these assistants have been criticized for their conservative play calling. Maricci in San Francisco began hearing these criticism around 2002 when the team was struggling to get in the playoffs. And for years Reid has been criticized for his conservative ways.

While watching the Eagles game on Sunday, Reid has been fairly criticized. But there are reasons why Reid is conservative.

- West Coast disciples believe in a short passing game over the run.

- They believe that their system will work with whoever the quarterback is.

- They believe in having multiple routes for their receivers and having multiple reads for the quarterback.

- Most of all, they believe their system cannot fail and they become arrogant to this fact.

What made Walsh special is that he knew when exactly to call a right play. During the 1981 NFC championship game with the 49ers down to the Dallas Cowboys with minutes remaining in the game, Walsh called some of the best plays in the history of the game.

While the Cowboys believed the 49ers would pass the ball, Walsh would call for a sweep play. When they were expecting a run, Walsh would call a short slant route. And eventually Dwight Clark made one of the most memorable plays in the history of the NFL.

Walsh also had the guts to call trick plays. He would call a reverse, double reverse, or a flea flicker. There was only one Bill Walsh.

Reid needs to open up his playbook and stop being so conservative. He needs to call plays that the defense is not expecting. Add in a couple of trick plays and the Eagles could be unstoppable.

This is just a pipe dream though.