Sports
Final 4 NFL teams all feature offensive-minded head coaches
Published
2 months agoon
By
FNN NEWS
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — 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 play-callers.
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, play-calling 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 opportunities with play-action passes downfield.
“He’s not just copying plays from other people,” 49ers defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans said. “He has that very creative mind and he’s always putting his players in position to make plays. That’s what sets him apart from all the other coordinators in the league.”
The Niners use frequent motion and different formations to disguise their intentions and Shanahan has created a nearly position-less offense that allows him to move playmakers such as Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, George Kittle and fullback Kyle Juszczyk all over the field to create mismatches.
“He pays attention to detail on every little thing,” 49ers rookie quarterback Brock Purdy said. “He’s the one that’s installing the plays every single day, which is pretty cool to have your head ball coach be the one that teaches you what you’re running.”
Shanahan built on the offense his father ran during two Super Bowl runs in Denver in the 1990s and has evolved it to the modern game.
He has built an encyclopedic knowledge of his system that allows him to pull plays from his past and tailor them to his current team.
Foerster also said Shanahan has the uncanny ability during a game to see how a defense is playing the Niners and will pull out a play they didn’t even practice that week.
That has led to several big plays already this season.
“He’s just looking, where’s that dagger,” Foerster said. “Where’s that play that I think will really get them on this one?”
Reid’s approach is a little different, relying much more on the passing game over his career with an offense that has hit a peak ever since Patrick Mahomes took over as QB in Kansas City.
Reid also likes to pull out some gadget plays — whether it was a play from the 1949 Rose Bowl he used against San Francisco in the Super Bowl three years ago or the “ ring-around-the-rosie” Snow Globe play against the Raiders in Week 18.
“You do (want to make it fun), but you want to score, too,” Reid said. “It’s not fun when you’re not doing that.”
The Chiefs have done plenty of that since Mahomes took over in 2018, averaging a league-best 30.1 points per game in that span — 3.6 more points per game than No. 2 Tampa Bay in a gap that’s bigger than the one between the Buccaneers and the 16th-place team.
“When you got Coach Reid, he can get anyone (open),” tight end Travis Kelce said. “He can get my dad open, if he was out there. So, I’ve been unbelievably fortunate to be under his guidance, programmed the way he is, because I do genuinely believe he does it the right way.”
Not all the head coaches still alive in the playoffs call the plays, with Sirianni having made the decision during his first year in Philadelphia in 2021 to delegate those duties to coordinator Shane Steichen.
Sirianni said that has allowed him to better manage the game and deal with defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon and special teams coordinator Michael Clay instead of always looking at his play sheet for the next play to call.
“That’s my job as the head coach is to manage the game. Everybody does it a little bit differently, I get it, and what works best for us is that I do it this way,” he said. “We like our processes of how we’re going. We’re always trying to tweak it and make it better, but I’ve got great coaches that I’m able to lean on there, and Shane is doing a great job of calling it.”
Sports
Bucs re-signed defensive tackle Deadrin Senat
Published
3 days agoon
March 28, 2023By
FNN NEWS
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers today re-signed defensive tackle Deadrin Senat.
Senat (6-1, 305) has played in 34 career games, logging 51 tackles (four for loss), six quarterback hits, one sack and one fumble recovery. In the 2022 campaign, Senat appeared in 12 games for the Buccaneers, finishing with 17 tackles, two quarterback hits and one sack. He originally entered the league as a third-round selection (No. 90 overall) by the Atlanta Falcons in the 2018 NFL Draft. The Immokalee, Florida, native played collegiately at the University of South Florida from 2013-17, earning all-conference honors in his final two seasons with the Bulls. Senat wears No. 95 for the Buccaneers.
NBA
Orlando Magic Rally Late to Beat Washington Wizards 122-112
Published
1 week agoon
March 21, 2023
ORLANDO, Fla. (FNN) – The Orlando Magic had a lot of ground to make up for at home after their long road run, and the Washington Wizards didn’t make it easy on them–their defense greatly frustrated the Magic.
First Half
The Wizards led most of the first quarter, especially since the Magic made none of their three-pointers…until Moritz Wagner came in off the bench with just over two minutes left in the first. With a couple of shots, he switched the lead to Orlando by a single point at the end of the first quarter, 26-25.
Cole Anthony got a nice and-1 after his rebound from a failed Wizard free throw. Bradley Beal fouled him as he ran into the paint, but Anthony’s fadeaway shot was successful as he fell to the floor.
In the second quarter the Wizards regained the lead, but like in the first quarter, the Magic rallied near the end of the quarter. When Gary Harris, Markelle Fultz and the other Wagner, Franz, got back on the court, the Magic began sinking more shots.
Mo Wagner contributed 11 points in the first two quarters, while Franz, Harris and Anthony each followed with 10 points. The Magic also made up for their three-pointer deficit in second quarter. They were seven of 17 (41.2 percent) on threes in the first half compared to the Wizards’ five of 15 (33.3 percent) and were 23 of 43 on field goals (53.5 percent) compared to the Wizards’ 21 of 40 (52.5 percent).
For Washington, Deni Avdija and Monte Morris led the scoring with 12 points each; Kristaps Porzingis followed with 11 points.
The Magic secured a four-point lead heading into halftime, 60-56.
Second Half
The Magic ended third quarter one point behind, 88-87.
The Magic brought the fire in the fourth quarter, getting on a run between Markelle Fultz, Wendell Carter Jr. and Paolo Banchero, who went to the free throw line three times late in the fourth and nailed every free throw. The highlight play of the second half happened within the final minute of the game: Banchero had pressure on him and made an ugly fadeaway baseline three-pointer…and sank it in.
The most critical hit of all was Bradley Beal fouling out of the game, which dealt a huge blow to the Wizards’ offense in the final stretch. Porzingis tried to pick up the slack, but the Magic saw the blood in the water and piled on the pressure, closing out the game with a 10-point win, 122-112.
For the night, Gary Harris led in scoring for the Magic with 22 points, going six for nine on three pointers and seven for 10 on field goals. Franz Wagner followed with 20 points with four rebounds and six assists. Banchero contributed 18 points and was six of six on free throws. Fultz contributed 17 points with five rebounds and five assists.
For the Wizards, Porzingis led the scoring by far, with 30 total points, six rebounds and three assists. Beal followed with 16 points, five rebounds and seven assists.
__________________________________
Mellissa Thomas is Editor for Florida National News. | mellissa.thomas@floridanationalnews.com
Autos
2023 DAYTONA 200: Josh Herrin Claws Back from Penalty to Snatch Victory
Published
3 weeks agoon
March 11, 2023
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (FNN) – Josh Herrin rallied back from the 7th position in a ten-lap restart to defeat Josh Hayes by .070 seconds in the 81st running of the DAYTONA 200, the annual single-man motorcycle endurance race.
Josh Herrin started strong and held the lead for most of the race. Two racers crashed out early, but things didn’t really get disruptive until the race got down to less than 10 laps remaining.
The most notable crash of the race was Herrin’s contact with Richie Escalante, who had been keeping up with Herrin for the majority of the race. The contact sent Escalante sliding off the track–and out of the running–with just eight laps to go. Escalante attempted to lift the bike up to get back on it, but there was no chance remaining for him to get back in the race. Seeing his chance of victory lost, he slammed his gloves to the ground as he removed them.
The call of whether the contact was an intentional push or race incident was tricky because when played back in slow motion, the collision looks incidental since Escalante had leaned in a bit too far and then just barely lifted back up at the last second while Herrin went wide in the turn as he was sometimes doing throughout the race. However, when played back in real time, it looks like Herrin intentionally went wide to knock Escalante out. The collision went under review.
Despite the brief break after Escalante’s crash, Herrin regained the lead. With five laps remaining, Teagg Hobbs crashed into Jason Waters, causing a red flag. After the red flag period, Herrin got penalized for his collision with Escalante by dropping six positions to the number seven spot. Five laps were added, making it a 10-lap race for the restart.
Ultimately, Herrin was penalized six positions to start at seventh for the restart. Herrin confessed he wasn’t sure he could make it to the end, given the amount of pain he was in, but he heard the struggling conditions of several other racers, since they couldn’t switch out tires during the red flag period, and give it all he had.
“After 15 years of trying I finally got it right,” Herrin said. “This is by far my favorite event that I ever get to race. It’s the one race a year where we really see the teamwork that goes on.”
_______________________________________
Mellissa Thomas is Editor for Florida National News. | mellissa.thomas@floridanationalnews.com
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