The 2004 Eagles and the 2014 Chiefs: Offensive observations

[OldSchool]

The more I look at the 2013 Chiefs offense as it matured and absorbed more of Andy Reid's plays and philosophies throughout the year, the more I was reminded of the 2004 Eagles offensive unit led by McNabb, Westbrook, and Owens.

There are several things to keep in mind.

1. The entire Chiefs roster in 2013 was in the process of learning and installing a completely new and very complex system. The 2004 Eagles, on the other hand, already had extensive experience with Reid: Reid was going into his 6th year with McNabb and his 3rd with Westbrook. Owens was the only truly new addition to that offense in 2004. Westbrook, while not a star yet, was on the verge of breaking out as his production improved significantly from year 1 to year 2.

2. In 2002-2003, Reid was still in the process of finding out how dynamic of a weapon that Brian Westbrook could be. If stats are anything to go by, he completely figured out how to take advantage of Westbrooks' skill-set by 2004. This is a big reason why Charles was so successful in both the passing and run game in 2013 while the rest of the offense was slow to develop. It also doesn't hurt that Charles is the most explosive weapon on the Chiefs' roster.

3. What Reid was rolling with in 2013 was roughly akin to what he had in 2004 as far as his top 3 offensive players went (excluding the OL):

Alex Smith
Jamaal Charles
Dwayne Bowe

to

Donovan Mcnabb
Brian Westbrook
Terrell Owens

Again, the main differences are that Reid had no experience with any of the players that he inherited in KC and, of course, the fact that Owens was a HOF caliber WR in his prime while Bowe is just another good WR.

With these things in mind, let's take a look at the stats from that 2004 offense and the Chiefs' first season with Reid in 2013:

Passing:

Alex Smith: 308/508, 60% COMP, 3313 Yards, 6.5 Y/A, 23 TDs, 7 INTs; 76 Rush Att, 431 yards, 1 TD

Donovan McNabb: 300/469, 64% COMP, 3875 Yards, 8.3 Y/A, 31 TDs, 8 INTs; 41 Rush Att, 220 Yards, 3 TDs

RBs:

Jamaal Charles: 259 Rush Attempts, 1287 Yards, 5 YPC, 12 TDs; 70 REC, 693 Yards, 9.9 avg, 7 TDs

Chiefs' total Rushing production (excluding QB): 329 Attempts, 1529 yards, 16 TDs

Brian Westbrook: 177 Rush Attempts, 812 yards, 3 TDs; 73 REC, 703 Yards, 6 TDs

Eagles' total Rushing production (excluding QB): 271 Rush Att, 1222 Yards, 7 TDs

WRs:

Dwayne Bowe: 57 catches, 673 yards, 11.8 avg, 5 TDs
Donnie Avery: 40 catches, 596 yards, 14.9 avg, 2 TDs
Dexter McCluster: 53 catches, 511 yards, 9.6 avg, 2 TDs
Junior Hemmingway: 13 catches, 125 yards, 9.6 avg, 2 TDs

Terrell Owens: 77 catches, 1200 yards, 15.6 avg, 14 TDs
Todd Pinkston: 36 catches, 676 yards, 18.8 avg, 1 TD
Freddie Mitchell: 22 catches, 377 yards, 17.1 avg, 2 TDs
Greg Lewis: 17 catches, 183 yards, 10.8 avg

TEs:

Anthony Fasano: 23 catches, 200 yards, 8.7 avg, 3 TDs
Sean McGrath: 26 catches, 302 yards, 11.6 avg, 2 TDs

L.J. Smith: 34 catches, 377 yards, 5 TDs
Chad Lewis: 29 catches, 267 yards, 3 TDs


The biggest discrepancies I see are the number of rushing attempts, total passing yards, total passing TDs, and also average yards per completion. These can easily be contributed to a number of factors:

1. Lack of Comfort and Understanding in the System: It's been said again and again, but Chiefs fans seem to always forget. This was year 1 under a new regime with a new and very complex offensive system. How many plays went wrong and were left on the field due to a missed blocking assignment, a route run wrong, etc? No one truly knows except for the coaching staff and the players but I can tell you with certainty that the number of mental mistakes made by the Chiefs would have undoubtedly outnumbered those made by the 2004 Eagles. It's also no secret that Smith didn't seem to trust his WRs with the deep ball very much early in the season but opened it up later in the season and proved himself to be one of the more accurate deep passers in the league. His biggest problem was that his fears actually came true, there were far too many dropped passes when Smith decided to throw it deep. The lack of comfort and understanding in the system is also likely the main reason why Reid ran the ball more in KC than he did in Philly.

2. Dwayne Bowe is not Terrell Owens: It goes without saying that Owens, in his Prime, was a far superior player to the Dwayne Bowe of 2013. Despite playing in only 14 games in 2004, Owens accounted for nearly a third of the Eagles' passing yardage and nearly a half of their passing TD total. While he had an undesirable personality off the field, Owens had HOF ability on it.

Reasons for optimism in 2014?

While the Eagles fell apart in the following 2005 season, the Chiefs should be much improved barring any injuries to key individuals (Smith, Charles, Bowe).

1. While Dwayne Bowe has his own issues off the field, no one questions his leadership in the locker room and how he is viewed by other players; he has also committed to improving his overall fitness and thereby increasing his speed and quickness for the 2014 season as well. I fully expect him to return to form as a 1k yard WR and play with the same tenacity that he did for most of the playoff game against the Colts (until his failure to keep half of his foot inbounds on our final offensive play).

2. While I don't think that our current receiving weapons, outside of Bowe, are anything to write home about; Donnie Avery and AJ Jenkins are and should be, at the very least, slightly superior to the combination of Todd Pinkston and Freddie Mitchell. Jenkins is a former 1st round pick who showed some promise in his limited snaps last season and I, and apparently the team, expect him to make some big strides this season. The NFL draft, with its deep pool of WRs, will likely provide us with an upgrade at this position in the draft.

From the TE position, a healthy Travis Kelce and Anthony Fasano should easily be superior to the duo of L.J. Smith and Chad Lewis.

3. Alex Smith: It's been well documented that Smith is a player who gets significantly better with more time in a system; that goes back to his college coach, Urban Meyer, stating that:

"He is a guy that, until he understands it, he is nonfunctional," Meyer, who had just been hired at the University of Florida, said in April 2005. "He is a guy that, I keep hearing how Brett Favre kind of makes something out of nothing and is a person that runs around to make a play. Alex Smith is not that kind of player. Alex Smith is a person that, once he is taught, he has to learn it all."

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/49ers/archiv...#storylink=cpy

You saw it first hand over the course of the season. As the season progressed, his play steadily improved, culminating in a Chiefs' record breaking performance in the playoff game without Charles at his side and without his deep threat in Donnie Avery for much of the game. If you needed further proof of this, look no further than the increase in production from year 1 in Harbaugh's system to year 2 in the same system. He jumped from 61.4% completions to 70.2%, that's a tremendous improvement. Not only that but his YPA went up from 7.1 to 8.0 and he nearly doubled his TD/Pass ratio.

Barring any injuries, I fully expect to see a similar improvement in his game from year 1 to year 2 in Reid's system, especially if the players around him improve in their understanding of the system as well.

My prediction for our offense next season?

Barring any injuries:

I expect similar production from Jamaal Charles with a significant increase of help from Knile Davis.

I expect Alex Smith to improve by around 4-7% in completion percentage with a jump up by 1-3 YPA (depending on what kind of WR we draft, if any). I expect his final stats to end close to: 350 COMP, 4000 yards, 30 TDs, 8 INTs.

Offensively, knowing Andy Reid's track record combined with Alex Smith's maturity and improved play going from year 1 to year 2 in an offense, I think we'll be fine in 2014.

Now, let's hope for a great draft class to bolster our roster so we can all see the Chiefs finally win a play off game.