Greg Auman
NFC South Reporter
Change one letter and the NFC South turns into the NFC Youth, which is becoming for a division that options 4 new offensive coordinators, all of them underneath 40, with a mixed two years of expertise as an NFL OC.
Many components will decide who wins the division, however excessive on the record can be which of the 4 — the Bucs’ Liam Coen, the Falcons’ Zac Robinson, the Saints’ Klint Kubiak or the Panthers’ Brad Idzik — can greatest put collectively a scheme that does not seem like a rookie product.
They’re 4 people, however they’ve linked backgrounds and shared NFL upbringings, with a standard precociousness that has them operating their very own present, with three of the 4 having some degree of autonomy underneath defensive-minded head coaches.
Coen, the oldest of the 4 at 38, has one 12 months as an NFL coordinator, with the Rams in 2022, however that was underneath an offensive head coach in Sean McVay. Kubiak, 37, additionally has a single season as an NFL OC, with the Vikings in 2021. Getting into his eleventh NFL season, he has twice as a lot NFL expertise because the others. Robinson, 37, is getting into his sixth 12 months and first as an offensive coordinator and playcaller, having moved up the identical Rams ladder as Coen. And Idzik, 32, is the quickest riser of all of them, following new Panthers coach Dave Canales’ fast ascent to turn out to be an OC after working with him in Seattle and Tampa Bay.
The closest pair is Coen and Robinson, who labored collectively for 3 years with the Rams, every serving as assistant quarterbacks coach and assistant receivers coach. In 2022, Robinson was the passing sport coordinator and quarterbacks coach when Coen was the offensive coordinator. As such, they’re additionally shut buddies, their households even vacationing collectively in Eire final summer season.
“There are loads of similarities with him, each personally and professionally,” Coen mentioned final week of Robinson. “You have a look at ‘What’s Atlanta going to seem like? What are we going to seem like?’ I believe there’s in all probability going to be some commonalities there that can naturally happen. Principally, the entire division goes to be operating a type of the identical system. … We’re all drawing the identical performs.”
When he was employed in Atlanta, Robinson spoke about what he realized in 5 years underneath McVay.
“There’s just one Sean,” Robinson mentioned. “Positively have realized a ton, whether or not it is management ideas and packaging performs, the wedding of the run and the go, all of these issues that I imagine in as a result of it has been what I’ve recognized from the final 5 years. Eternally grateful for Sean giving me that chance as the primary job I received in teaching. I’ve realized a ton from him, not solely football-wise — X’s and O’s — however off the sector as properly.”
Idzik is not directly a department on the McVay tree as properly, as he and Canales labored in 2021-22 underneath Shane Waldron, who had spent the earlier 4 years with the Rams, overlapping there with Coen and Robinson. As younger assistants, Coen frolicked with Idzik one offseason, instructing him the best way to use “Professional Fast Draw,” a pc platform for creating performs and playbooks.
All 4 new coordinators performed some degree of school soccer, however none ever performed a regular-season sport within the NFL. Coen was a quarterback at UMass, Robinson a quarterback at Oklahoma State. Robinson was drafted by the Patriots in 2010 and spent 4 years on NFL rosters and apply squads. Kubiak performed security at Colorado State and Idzik was a walk-on receiver at Wake Forest.
Kubiak and Idzik grew up with NFL fathers. Gary Kubiak performed 9 years as a backup to John Elway with the Broncos and later received three Tremendous Bowls as an assistant and one as Denver’s head coach. John Idzik spent 28 years in NFL entrance workplaces, together with two years because the Jets’ basic supervisor in 2013-14. Coen’s father, Tim, was a longtime highschool coach who went 53-12 as a small-college head coach at Salve Regina in Rhode Island, and Robinson’s father, Rusty, was a walk-on kicker at Oklahoma.
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The problem of being a group’s highest offensive coach — solely Kubiak had finished that earlier than, and just for one 12 months — is one thing all 4 coaches have embraced this spring. They have been given the possibility to craft and implement their very own playbook, to construct an offense of their very own.
“It has been superior,” Coen mentioned. “You’re taking what you have realized, and you may creatively do extra. That is been a ton of enjoyable, since you get to actually make it your individual.”
Coen and Robinson, as division rivals now, cannot lean on one another as they did for a lot of the previous 5 years. The aggressive side of combating for a similar division crown now overrides the pure intuition to choose one another’s mind, to bounce concepts off one another. They’re nonetheless shut buddies, however the dialog is extra household, much less soccer nowadays.
“I used to be busting his chops — he is been actually quiet the final couple of months,” Coen mentioned. “I’ve talked rather a lot much less ball than we’re used to doing. We met one another by means of soccer, shaped a friendship by means of soccer and labored very carefully, particularly in that 2022 season, and now it is sort of a bummer.”
Liam Coen, left, and Zac Robinson labored along with the Rams and are so shut that their households vacationed collectively in Eire final 12 months.
The 4 teaching staffs are all intertwined. When Coen was the Rams’ offensive coordinator, the defensive coordinator was new Falcons head coach Raheem Morris, and Coen overlapped three years there with Ejiro Evero, now the Panthers’ DC. Canales and Idzik in Carolina know the Bucs’ personnel extraordinarily properly from their 12 months in Tampa. Kubiak, who spent three years teaching new Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins in Minnesota, interviewed for the Panthers’ OC job in 2022 and the Bucs’ opening in 2023 earlier than touchdown with the Saints this 12 months.
As such, having 4 offenses with related roots within the division will assist the NFC South’s defenses. They will all apply towards offenses that look one thing like what they’re going to see of their six video games towards division opponents.
“These defenses are going to get a bit of little bit of a head begin on among the ideas,” Coen mentioned. “You are going to see issues each single day, by means of this section, in coaching camp, good on good, that they’ll see reside.”
Greg Auman is FOX Sports activities’ NFC South reporter, protecting the Buccaneers, Falcons, Panthers and Saints. He’s in his tenth season protecting the Bucs and the NFL full-time, having frolicked on the Tampa Bay Occasions and The Athletic. You may observe him on Twitter at @gregauman.
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