Roots of Waldron's OFF--Very interesting read

Shane Waldron was described as a Shanahan / McVay disciple. And he does have roots in those systems, serving on the Washington staff in 2016 before following McVay to the Rams in 2017 and coaching under McVay for the next 4 years.

But with how the #Bears offense is being run and how active everything is at the LOS, it feels like a different philosophy. Last night, it was pointed out to me that Waldron has other roots in the Erhardt Perkins offense.

Waldron's first coaching job was as a graduate assistant at Notre Dame for 3 years under Charlie Weiss. Weiss modernized the Erhardt Perkins with the Patriots from 2000-2004.

Then, Waldron went on to spend the next 2 years coaching for the Patriots under Josh McDaniels, who still utilized core concepts from Weiss' modified Erhardt Perkins system.

Then, Waldron bounced around for 4 years before joining the Shanahan tree. But what is the Erhardt Perkins offense?

I am no schematics expert, but from what I have gathered, that Patriots version of the EP included multiple plays with each play call. Two passes and a run. The QB will align the players and scan the field to ID coverage pre snap and make any necessary checks.

Each player from QB, RB, WR, TE has to make reads through the same lens. The basis of the offense is built in flexibility and taking what the defense gives you. Here are a few screenshots from an excellent article I found about the offense (link below).

baltimoresportsandlife.com/erhardt-perkins-system-part-2/

From what I've gathered, this is a QB centric offense that depends heavily on communication, chemistry, and repetition through different defensive looks.

Moreover, this matches what we have seen the Bears run with Caleb Williams at the helm more closely than what we see from true Shanahan / McVay disciples. Both Tom Brady and Peyton Manning excelled in systems like this, and Waldron seems to think that Caleb should be in a similar offense, conceptually.

Now, does that mean it gets better with time? I do not have the answer to that. But I do think this makes more sense of how jumbled the Bears offense has looked at times this year.

I welcome any discussion around this, or correction to what I have said. Offensive scheme / systems are not something I have extensive enough knowledge of to speak confidently on, but I found this very interesting and felt it to be worth sharing.

Nate Tice
@nate_Tice

It's more about how they label everything, which is what Chris Brown gets at in the article. So it's not so much adjusting on the fly or many plays in one, it's more than they label a complete concept as a term. Instead of tagging every player's role in the playcall.

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Nate Tice
@nate_Tice

In a west coast O, every route combo will be said in the play call "Y-Seam, Z-Under, X-Dig", etc.

But if it's a different formation that could become "Z-Seam, Y-Under, F-Dig", even if the final picture is the same.

In the EP labeling, it's just "Sword", no matter the formation.

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Nate Tice
@nate_Tice

So why it puts more pressure on the other skill players is that they have to know the entire concept picture, not just their individual role getting tagged.

It helps the QB because they just are calling the same term.

It's one code word instead of individual labeling.

My problem with this is I don't know if this coaching staff is giving him proper supervision. He's still a rookie, and there have been times when they needed to avoid putting him in a place where he might make bad judgements because he is still learning. Sometimes they need to give him a play and just run that play, or call a timeout if the look is bad and he doesn't see it. 

My hope is that this is like a trial by fire and Caleb is going to come out of this much stronger than if they were just feeding him plays the whole time.