New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Final 4 teams all feature offensive coaches
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Chris Foerster had spent nearly two decades as an assistant in the NFL when he first crossed paths with Kyle Shanahan long before he became one of the NFL’s most-accomplished playcallers.
Shanahan was in his third year as an offensive coordinator in the NFL when Foerster joined head coach Mike Shanahan’s staff in Washington as offensive line coach in 2010 and immediately was impressed by the knowledge, creativity and teaching ability of the precocious Shanahan.
That only grew during their four years together in Washington and the past four in San Francisco where Foerster has been an assistant on Shanahan’s staff.
“I’ve been amazed since I’ve worked with him and I don’t stop doing that,” Foerster said. “It’s just how he does it and it’s just his grasp on what he’s doing.”
Shanahan’s success in San Francisco overseeing productive offenses without elite quarterback play is a reason why so many teams each January are seeking the next trendy, playcalling offensive coach to take over their teams.
All four head coaches in the conference championship games come from an offensive background with Kansas City’s Andy Reid and Cincinnati’s Zac Taylor also calling plays like Shanahan, while Philadelphia’s Nick Sirianni delegated that duty during his first season.
“Plays are just plays,” Shanahan said. “It’s how you tie them together, how you hide them, how you do things off of them and it’s how you coach them.”
Few do it better than Shanahan and Reid, whose influence on modern offenses runs deep with nearly half the teams in the NFL running offenses inspired by those two coaching philosophies.
Shanahan’s offense is based on the running game, with his commitment to sticking with the ground game leading to op