DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum It's early, but John DeFilippo doesn't look like a rookie offensive coordinator for Cleveland Browns: Tom Reed

It's early, but John DeFilippo doesn't look like a rookie offensive coordinator for Cleveland Browns: Tom Reed

By Tom Reed on October 13, 2015 at 5:04 PM, updated October 13, 2015 at 5:25 PM link


BEREA, Ohio – John DeFilippo didn't get married until age 36.

Most football coaches are wed to their work, but few seem as willing to admit it as the new Browns offensive coordinator.

"I'm one of those guys who puts my job first," DeFilippo told NEOMG in the summer. "A lot of people will say that's wrong, but I knew what I wanted to do and I knew how to get there and I had to do it the right way."

Time spent on 10 college campuses and inside six pro organizations has prepared the 37-year-old for the task of coordinating the NFL's Isle of Misfit Toys. To the surprise of many outside the walls of Berea, DeFilippo hasn't coached like a first-time pro playcaller.

The Browns (2-3) head into Sunday's game against the Broncos ranked eighth in total offense and 13th in scoring. Quarterback Josh McCown and his unheralded supporting cast deserve much credit for executing the game plan, particularly over the past three weeks.

But DeFilippo, with the help of coach Mike Pettine, has quietly put the offense in good position thanks to his knowledge, confidence and willingness to adapt to circumstances. Whether it's condensing the playbook for Johnny Manziel or tailoring a plan to an opponent, the coordinator has been as nimble and unflappable as a high-wire walker in the face of lakefront gusts.

"He sees the game, and when a play breaks down, he knows immediately why it happened," Pettine said. "He is very good at troubleshooting and very good at understanding defenses and what they are trying to take away and how to take advantage of it and how we can get our guys in the right position to make plays."

DeFilippo's attack is not without shortcomings. The Browns aren't efficient in the red zone. They don't run the ball with any consistency. Their playmakers, save for Gary Barnidge, lack size and the recent trend of asking McCown to throw 45 to 50 times per game doesn't seem sustainable.

But who in July thought the offense could excel behind the talents of McCown, Barnidge, Travis Benjamin and rookie Duke Johnson? John DeFilippo, that's who.

He was McCown's biggest backer in the organization from their days together in Oakland when so many criticized the free-agent signing. DeFilippo took one look at Benjamin running routes in the spring and said the returner needed to be more involved in the passing game. He's made exceptional use of Barnidge's soft hands (feet and thighs) and told anyone who would listen Johnson would become a match-up nightmare for opponents out of the backfield.

The Browns rank sixth in passing, averaging 289 yards per game, on the strength of a veteran quarterback who can make use of the entire playbook and a varied offense that employs multiple formations and lots of motion. They have scored on 16 of their last 26 possessions dating to halftime of the Raiders' game.

"Like I said last week, I feel him getting better every week and doing a good job of adapting really to what the game needs as far as where we're at offensively," McCown said. "(He) does a good job of staying calm and working through the call sheet and trusting his preparation. That's been huge for us, obviously."

DeFilippo understood the skepticism surrounding his hiring. The Browns went from veterans Norv Turner and Kyle Shanahan to a coordinator who had only called plays for two seasons at San Jose State.

If not for Ray Farmer's text messages and the front-office meddling, DeFilippo wouldn't have the opportunity. But the NFL is all about taking advantages of chances. So far, so good for the assistant Pettine calls "a hot-blooded Italian," one who likes his red wine and Hoyo De Monterrey cigars.

The Browns haven't scored fewer than 20 points since the opener against the Jets when McCown was lost on the first series to concussion. He staunchly backed Pettine's decision to roll with McCown even after Manziel beat the Titans with a pair of TD passes to Benjamin.

Can the offensive production continue? That's unclear. Lets not forget the Browns also enjoyed a quick start last season before another bridge quarterback, Brian Hoyer, began to play down to his level.

The league's top defense comes to town Sunday and formidable Rams and Cardinals units await the Browns over the next three weeks.

DeFilippo, however, has the short and intermediate passing game humming. The swing passes to the versatile Johnson and Isaiah Crowell supplement a rushing attack averaging just 88.4 yards.

Instead of grinding it out against the Ravens, a strategy that would have played into Baltimore's favor, McCown threw the ball 51 times. The fact the Browns fell behind aided in the decision to stay aggressive through air. By game's end, the Ravens' defense was exhausted and the Browns found some success running the ball.

McCown finished with a franchise-record 457 yards passing.

"I know Josh is going to get heaped with praise, and it is well deserved, but I just think we functioned extremely well as a unit," Pettine said.

That includes the man calling the plays.

DeFilippo has much to learn as he grows into the job. He won't lack for effort, however. He has a strong work ethic and an understanding wife to thank for that.

He seems to be doing a pretty good job so far. I'm glad we are not forcing the run when we have so much trouble running the football. I hate it when Crow gets just a yard or less. Hopefully this will get better as the season progresses.

-GO BROWNS!

That's a nice story and all. I agree with most of it to this point.

I just hope when people look at the big picture, all coaches and FO people will be looked at objectively. Sadly, everything isn't looking as promising as our O to this point.

#1 - I absolutely hate that we're not running the zone blocking/stretch running style that we ran last year under Shanahan. This straight up, move your man backwards type of blocking is garbage, and isn't working. This offensive line knows how to zone block, our running game kicked ass last season early on. If we want to run the football, go back to that zone running style that WORKED.

#2 - Why do we have to be down a bunch of points before he gets aggressive with the pace of play and the play calling? If we're going to be a pass heavy offense, let's come out firing instead of waiting to be down. Let's see some no huddle early in the game and actually build a lead.

#3 - Our red zone efficiency still stinks. Too many field goals. I know Bowe is wasting a roster spot, but can't he at least be used for jump balls in the endzone?

I do like what he's doing with our receivers and our RB's, he's finding good ways to spread the ball around and get everyone involved. McCown is doing a nice job avoiding turnovers and distributing his passes.

I'm still skeptical. We've beaten two bad teams.

I want to see our weaknesses addressed, and to see this team string together a few wins against some quality opponents.

Overall, Flip is doing a nice job getting the most out of what he was given.

Way too early, but I think he's finding ways to get it done without a stud QB and without a running game.

Both things, IMO, are virtual blockades for an offensive coordinator. I thought has called two dynamite games these last two against SD and Balt...

But, still a little early. Wish this guy, and this team, could get the running game flowing.

Redzone efficiency is pretty random. We will probably regress to the mean over the course of the season.

You make some good points.

Let me take on #2...


I don't think he's quite ready to fully deviate from the original plan of a run based offense just yet. I don't think he wants to throw it 45+ times a game either, but I also think its great that we CAN if we need to. I agree with your #1 point though, about the run blocking. It bugs the hell out of me too!

Also, maybe its a little too early in the season to gamble with trying to jump out early? Maybe as the season progresses and we get more film on our opponents, Flip will be able to get a better sense of where and how we can take advantage of them earlier in the game.

One of the things I loved about this past weekend was the fact that our offense wore the Ravens down, and our offense looked like it was still getting stronger

And that comes with growing confidence...

say all this stuff about how great our offense is when we play a real defense. Denver is going to be a very interesting game to be sure.

I don't expect a repeat of the dazzling stats as from our last game, and the offence should find the going tougher, however I believe we will find a way to grind it out. Now whether we win, that will be up to our defence...

Denver is giving up just under 16 points per game. Number 1 in total yards allowed at 278 yards per game. Number 5 in passing yards at 192.8 yards per game. Number 5 in rushing yards allowed at 85.2 per game. Number 1 in sacks with 22. Number 4 in INT's with 7. Number 1 in forced fumbles with 10. Number 5 with QB rating against their defense at 70.9

IMO their defense is the best or second best in the NFL right now. If our offense looks good this game we should all be very, very pumped, suprised and happy.

It's time to knock them down a notch or two...

One of the underlying themes of the article is Flip is learning and getting better and growing into the job.

When all coaches and FO people are judged "objectively" I hope there is consideration given to people growing into their jobs and developing over time. So far it seems to be happening at a good pace for Flip, but it takes time for others.

No, it's not, but we were discussing the O in this article.. It stands on it's own and to me anyway, it appears that Flip is doing a pretty darn good job.

I truly enjoy his offense. His spread style works extremely well with the roster we have on offense, especially our smaller WR'ers and RB's who can catch the ball well. I understand people gasp a little when they see our 51 throws, but I'd continue to do that. Extended hand offs, bubble screens and flares have been our best, most well executed plays this season so far. Keep it up!

j/c

Cleveland Browns: Contrasting Kyle Shanahan, John DeFilippo

The Cleveland Browns have found an unusual amount of offensive success, especially this early in the 2015 season. The offense was expected to be the major weakness on the team with the defense being tasked with keeping them in games and doing the heavy lifting.

The opposite has occurred an while the Browns’ biggest loss in some people’s minds was the loss of offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan, John DeFilippo has been more than up to the task. Their methods for how they have attacked offensively have been completely differently, but have both been able to find success with the Browns and largely the same cast of players.

Before Kyle Shanahan’s exit in Cleveland, which was far less quitting and far more quitting before he was fired, the Browns offensive attack found a great deal of success under his guidance. Shanahan is a certified coaching prodigy when it comes to X’s and O’s, coming up with gameplans and his methods of attacking defenses. He is legitimately one of the brightest offensive minds in the game right now.

Shanahan employed the pure zone blocking scheme that he learned under his father, Mike Shanahan, the two time Super Bowl champion. The concept has offensive linemen to win with position, athleticism and spacing to create multiple running lanes for which a running back has to choose. This puts a premium on running back vision and instincts. It is a system that has helped to create some stars out of players that other teams did not value highly.

Defensive coordinators try their best to take an offense’s best player away from them as much as possible, thereby forcing the offense to beat them with secondary or even tertiary options to beat them. Shanahan’s acumen and brilliance in coaching has been in his ability to create opportunities and isolate matchups for the team’s best player to succeed despite the defense’s attempts to contain them.

This is something he has done at every place he has been from Houston with Andre Johnson and is currently doing with Julio Jones in Atlanta. Johnson put up Hall of Fame numbers and Jones, right now, has been so dominant that he is in the MVP discussion at this stage of the season. Shanahan maximizes his best player and really lets them shine, regardless of the opponent.

The flip side of this is that while Shanahan has maximized his best players, the ancillary players tend to fall by the way side to some extent. With Andre Johnson and Julio Jones in particular, they eat up so many targets that the rest of the offense’s production tends to be relatively ordinary and even somewhat underutilized.

When it works, the team is winning and no one is terribly concerned as is being seen with the Falcons. Their running game is productive, Julio Jones is having the best season of his career and the team is 5-0 in the standings.

Contrast that to what DeFilippo is doing in Cleveland. Flip has kept some of the zone concepts in the running game but added gap concepts to it, to be able to have their linemen attack at the opponent as opposed to winning in space and position. Under Flip, the running game has not been nearly as successful as it was under Shanahan and not all of the issues are due to Flip, but certainly, that advantage goes heavily to Shanahan.

Where Flip is successful is how he spreads the ball around, creates mismatches and attacks them as opposed to focusing it all on the main playmaker. As a result, through five weeks of the season, their top seven targets have 24, 22, 21, 17, 14, nine and seven receptions respectively.

One of the key differences in the passing game is the usage of the running back position, which is where Flip is trying to make up the difference in what they are not getting from the running game. Under Shanahan in ’14, the Browns had a total of 32 catches from the running back position (under 12% of the team’s total). With Flip, the emphasis has been far different, where through five weeks, the running back position has the same 32 receptions, but it accounts for over a quarter of the team’s receptions thus far (over 26%).

Whereas Shanahan found a star and emphasized them as much as they possibly could, Flip targets guys he believes can make plays, but really only seems worried with finding guys that can produce; not really discriminating in terms of position. If a player can produce, Flip will try to find a winning matchup and capitalize on it.

Shanahan’s top receiver in Cleveland was Andrew Hawkins, who had 63 receptions and was 16 more than the second leading receiver, Miles Austin, with 47. 5 receivers in total ended up with 5 players in total that eclipsed 20 receptions on the season. Flip is on pace to have seven and the difference between his top receiver (Gary Barnidge, 24 receptions) to his fifth receiver (Taylor Gabriel, 14), is just 10 catches to this point.

Shanahan employed more of a downfield passing attack, trying to attack defenses deep, further opening running lanes and forcing defenses to cover a ton of ground. Playaction and bootlegs were used extensively because of the threat of the running game, moving the pocket and giving receivers time to get down the field to strike. The longer developing routes gave receivers time to beat defenders and get open for big plays. These plays tended to keep more protection into block, limiting the number of receivers to find and hit with passes.

While Flip will take his share of shots down the field, he tends to favor more of a West Coast attack, stretching defenses horizontally while forcing them to stay honest over the top. The space created by these concepts makes finding open receivers easier and creating opportunities for yards after the catch underneath as defenses tend to be inclined to drop back and tackle the pass. Under Flip, the offense works with quicker passes that can have the same impact as running plays.

Both coordinators have been able to elevate mediocre career quarterbacks far above where their talent level suggests. Brian Hoyer had the best year of his career with Shanahan and Josh McCown is enjoying the best season of his career under Flip, at age 36.

The last part of this discussion comes down to the environment created and the wake left with their departures. Shanahan has struggled with his people skills in the NFL and it was a problem in Washington as well as Cleveland, at least that has come out publicly. Shanahan struggled to deal with coworkers and while he was great for some players, he had a tendency to alienate others. He had ‘his’ guys and is a little bit of a diva.

Shanahan’s issues with the Browns came to a head when he came up with a substantial PowerPoint presentation explaining why he was leaving. And while that may have been true, there is reason to believe that, there is also reason to believe he quit before he was going to get fired – that the environment was so toxic that something had to give and he burned that bridge on his way out of town.

Shanahan is undoubtedly brilliant and as talented a young offensive mind as exists in the NFL. His results and production will buy him countless opportunities and as long as he can get results, organizations will put up with the selfishness and lack of people skills. At some point, Shanahan’s acumen will get him the opportunity to be a head coach, whether in college or the NFL. It will be interesting to see if his idiosyncratic tendencies prove effective in that role or if they ultimately lead him to ruin.

Meanwhile, Flip is not nearly as highly regarded as Shanahan as an offensive mind. This job with the Browns is actually his first as an NFL coordinator. He has not called plays since he was an assistant at San Jose State under then head coach Mike MacIntyre, who is now the head coach at Colorado. Flip has been a quarterbacks coach in the NFL, most recently with the Oakland Raiders.

Nevertheless, in coaching circles Flip is regarded as a bright mind, a good communicator and teacher. Maybe just as important, Flip has a reputation of leaving jobs well. For example, Raiders quarterback Derek Carr was extremely complimentary of Flip when it was announced he was going to take the offensive coordinator job in Cleveland after getting to work with him for just his rookie year.

This is a common trend from both players and coaches in Flip’s past as a coach, suggesting he is an inclusive coach that tries to do right by his players as opposed to just going for results. If he is unable to get the job done, that factor will not save him but players seem to like to playing under him.

Shanahan and Flip have both found successful ways to create offensive production, but are doing it in completely different, almost diametrically opposed philosophies. Given that Flip is currently with the Browns, the challenge for him is to work to improve the production of the running game to make it easier to create more and larger plays in the passing games.

If he and the Browns are able to do that, he has a far more complete offensive attack. Nevertheless, despite different offensive coordinators, for the second year in a row, the Cleveland Browns are overachieving on the offensive side of the ball and as it turns out, needs every ounce of it just to compete so far this year.

http://nflspinzone.com/2015/10/13/cleveland-browns-contrasting-kyle-shanahan-john-defilippo/

Championship!!!!..

Wherever Vers is, he's gotta be mad as a hornet at this.

Truth be told, both OC's have their good points and bad, strengths and weaknesses.

The difference in my eyes is that Flip is young and very new to the role and still finding his way. Shanny is older, more experienced in this role and has seemed to have issues with co-workers and players.

Flip doesn't seem to have those issues.

In the end, both seem pretty smart and very productive. But I'll go with the guy that gets it done, has plenty of upside and doesn't ruffle feathers to get the job done.

That would be Flip.

Lots of college HC jobs open now...
Just sayin

I'm kinda surprised.

I expected the writer to touch on the point that DeFilippo acts like a man and the other guy is a spoiled, pampered, immature, arrogant, daddy's boy with no leadership abilities, who will abandon his guys, his team, his organization, the fans, over the smallest issues of conflict.

Sorry,

I forgot: backstabbing weasel.

It appears you need a target since Vers is gone.



Did you miss the word when?

ie... When articles are written... When these things get discussed?

I didn't discuss any other coaches or FO people in my post.

Did you miss where I agreed with the article that Flip is doing a good job... to this point?

I'm not sure what you took issue with, but I'm sure there's medication for that.

It's a good, interesting read.. but that author really needs a copy editor to check things before he/she publishes.

It's kind of funny because a couple weeks ago, he DID look like a rookie. He has matured a lot in a couple weeks.

Happy with the win and trying a different approach. Some teams run to pass, some (us) need to pass to run better. Liked what I saw but want to stop taking sacks if possible,

Our RT needs the practice. Flip needs more vertical success, digs, etc. And my hat is off to Gabriel, Run him out there a bunch. Sic our runts on 'em.

I was not a fan of Shanny's. He is a good offensive Cord. Very bright, very hard working, and he does a good job. I just know he was all about me, me, me, not us. That's the only reason I was down on him so I have to disagree with your other put downs of him bro.

IMO, Shanny was going to find a way out of Cleveland no matter what.

And Farmer gave him easy ammunition.

Hell of a coach though.

I didn't actually take issue with anything. Just noting that the article was about the O and in particular Flip and I agreed with it.

Nothing more.. Me thinks you protest to much

I am excited about Flip's partial success thus far. And he is better with passing game and McCown for now. Still thinks he has to manipulate run better by forcing people out of the box or burn them up. More misdirection, vertical and quicks, crossing, attack the middle.

Difference as I see it is "taking what the D gives you" and "forcing the D to react to you and what you are taking." Brutal run game wouldn't hurt.

I was probably one of the only people to really like the hiring of Flip. I think that he is a strong offensive mind, and he did a great job with Carr last year in Oakland. I was really happy when we hired him, and took abuse from some for being happy with him.

I think that he is learning his personnel, but man, you cannot dismiss the way he has handled both QBs, and the offense is scoring quite well. I hope that he starts getting things going in the 1st half of games though, That would be my biggest complaint to date.

I was optimistic about the hire - not because of any knowledge of his previous positions, but because this was the guy Pettine wanted last year and I figure that having a strong cohesive FO is important, Pettine has given me enough faith in him that I trust his judgement. I also thought Shanny had failed on multiple levels and I was glad to see him gone, addition by subtraction.

The irony is that had our offense not fallen on its face the second half of last season..

Kyle probably would be a HC right now.. And not here anyways..

Due credit must also be given to Kevin O'Connell...

I highly doubt that. He has a long way to go in developing his people skills...

But he's not a real QB coach, he's only here to pimp Manziel and make sure he gets on the field...

Purple please...

Hate when we have a losing record, and then see articles like this.