Ryan Day

Posted: July 5th, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 35 Comments »

Chip Kelly runs the Eagles offense. Pat Shurmur is the passing game guru. Ryan Day is here to coach the QBs.

Day is the third QB coach in 3 years. It isn’t that Kelly can’t find the right guy, his QB coaches keep getting hired to go somewhere else for a better job. Bill Lazor (now the OC in Miami) and Bill Musgrave (now the OC in Oakland) both had NFL backgrounds. Day comes straight from the college ranks. How will he do?

Tim McManus wrote a good piece about Day recently.

Ryan Day played quarterback for Chip Kelly when the coach was in full-out mad scientist mode. Serving as New Hampshire’s offensive coordinator at the time, Kelly rotated offensive systems in and out at a dizzying pace as he searched for the perfect concoction. Day was the signal-caller in the middle of the whirlwind.

“At that time, we were changing offenses every week. We would go from Run ‘n Shoot to the Wing-T to the Veer. One week we threw it six times, the next week we threw it 65 times,” Day recalled. “Coach kind of had a laboratory there, and it was a lot of fun to be around.”

So much fun that Day found it hard to pull himself away — much to the detriment of his grade point average.

“Coach used to laugh: when I was in college, in the spring I would get like a 3.0 but in the fall I would be around a 1.5,” he said. “I used to spend pretty much the whole fall in there listening to the meetings, listening to some of the game-planning and kind of learning how that went, which is kind of why I became a coach. I just liked it and I got around Coach and he made it exciting for me. Maybe without that, I wouldn’t have gotten into coaching.”

Kelly gave Day his first gig, making him New Hampshire’s tight ends coach following his senior year. His career path since has led him from Boston to Philly and back again a couple times over. A grad assistant at Boston College (2003-04) and Florida (’05), Day was hired as Temple’s wide receivers coach in ’06. He left for the same position at BC and remained there for five years before heading back to Philadelphia to become the Owls’ offensive coordinator/wide receivers coach in ’12. Then it was back to BC, where he served as the offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach before Kelly scooped him up this offseason to coach the Eagles’ QBs. Day had been following Kelly’s career from afar and enjoyed watching the evolution of his offense as he took it from New Hampshire to Oregon and then to the NFL. With connections to both the city and the Eagles coaching staff, he viewed this as the right time and opportunity to move his young family.

It will be very interesting to see how Day does this year. Lazor got great results in 2013, but was very tough on his QBs. From an article by Jeff McLane:

Lazor was credited with helping to develop Foles during his record-setting second season, but the two occasionally butted heads over the coach’s intensity, according to a source familiar with the relationship.

Musgrave was supposed to be more of a player-friendly coach. Last year’s results were far from ideal. How much of that had to do with the QB coaching is impossible to say. There were OL injuries to deal with. Defensive coaches had a year of tape to study so the element of surprise was gone.

We don’t know what kind of coach Day will be. My guess is that he will be demanding. Day played for Kelly at UNH and Kelly was very tough on his QBs. Here are some comments from Tyler Murphy, who just played QB for Day at Boston College.

“Coach Day is a down-to-earth kind of guy. If I feel like something’s wrong or I’m not comfortable with something, I can just go right to him. I don’t have to hesitate; I can just say it. He’s not afraid to tell me if I’m doing a bad job at this, or if I’m not doing a good job leading. As a veteran, you have to be sure you’re doing the right things and setting the right example for the younger players. We’ve built a bond and I don’t want to let him down,” Murphy said.

Interesting that Murphy brought up leadership. That was the top priority for Day when dealing with college QBs. Here Day is talking about Chase Rettig, his QB at BC in 2013.

Day will have to stress a lot more with mechanics and fundamentals now that he’s working with NFL passers. Being a gritty game manager isn’t enough at this level. Obviously Kelly thinks Day can do that kind of teaching.

One advantage Day does have is that he played in Kelly’s system. He can talk to QBs about what he did in this system.

It is way too early to have any idea of how Day will do. You can be encouraged by the fact that Mark Sanchez had a good spring and Matt Barkley just played the best football of his young career. The real test will be to see how Day does with Sam Bradford. We’re still a month away from getting any info on that situation.

If Day does a good job with the QBs, it will help the Eagles to have another big year on offense and it will solidify Day’s status as one of the hot young coaches in football.

_

35 Comments on “Ryan Day”

  1. 1 Charlie Kelly said at 4:50 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    matt barkley just played the best football of his career? when?

  2. 2 Joe Minx said at 5:07 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    For a couple of days in a t-shirt & shorts.

  3. 3 GEAGLE said at 5:40 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    I am curious to see Barkley vs. Tebow. My Initial reaction is Barkley under these coaches for 3 summers, growing as an NFL player for 3 years and growing his command of this scheme for the past 3 seasons should destroy and completely outclass Tebow who hasn’t been in the league for years, and just started to learn chips offense a few months ago. Barkley been in this offense for 3 years compared to Tebow having about 3 months experience in this offense. So it should be Barkley easily outclassing Tebow… The one factor that goes against that and may make things interesting is that while this offense is new to Tebow, the run game portion of the offense is a Tebow wet Dream.. He easily should be the best QB at camp during zone reads.. And whe Barkley has been in this offense for 3 years, I’m not sure he has proved yet that he is even comfortable with the run game yet. I’m not sure he has already proved that he is willing to run and pick up the 5 or. 10 yards the defense is dating him to take… You do NOT have to be a fast running QB, but you 100% need to be willing to run and prove that to the defense every single time they dare you to run… So we might see a more entertaining battle for that #3 spot then expected..
    ..
    Then again, doubt anyone would be surprised to see Tebow hold the ball for like 5 seconds on each play and start throwing inaccurate erratic passes all over the place..
    ..
    I do like that chip managed to create a solid competition for the #1 QB, and also managed to create a competition for the #3 QB. Kind of like that Barkley is being challenged in year 3 instead of giving him a free pass simply because no one cares about the #3 QB enough to bother challenging him.,
    …
    I think it’s safe to say that my interest in the 3rd and 4th Quarhers will be more then usual in this years preseason. A lot of improved depth that I’d like to take a look at:
    1) Obviously the Barkley vs. Tebow is more star power then you typically get to see in the second half of a preseason game
    .
    2) Most important is to probably take a look at how some of the OL we saw get some experience last year look this yeaR with the 2nd unit. interested in Gardner, Dennis, Graf, Moffitt, hopefully one of the UDFA can play
    ..
    3) DB depth is juicy. We will see safeties like Watkins, Wolff,Reynolds in the second half, along with our prized CB Rowe, and JaCorey, Biggers, Randall Evans
    ..
    4)getting an extend look at MS2 and Long will be a treat, and we have so much depth at ILB, we are probably going to see some good play out of ILBs that we will be forced to cut because of how stacked we are at the position.. We have so much ILB talent? Hopefully we can trade a quality ILB like Naje Goode for a player at another position like OLB that wasn’t going to make another teams roster because of the depth they had at the position
    ..
    5) Even tho we have 3 backs, doubt we see any of them in the second half. It will be the Tucker and Barner show
    .
    6) a lot of fun WRs to get a look at in the second half, having brought in nice UDFA talent along with veterans like Miles, Tutto. Might even see some Huff or Agholor in the second half along with some TE talent Trey Burton while unleashing our “secret weapon” GJ Kinney!!
    ..
    Most years 4th quarters become lame,.its a testament to our depth that there should be more second half interest then normally

  4. 4 GEAGLE said at 5:13 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    We haven’t seen Barkleys best yet.. Believe that. kid works at his craft, he will improve especially now that he should have a really good command of this offense. I assume he outclasses tebow with ease in camp/Preseason. We will see the best Barkley we have ever seen… With that said, It’s still very likely that the “Best Barkley we ever seen” still isn’t a starting caliber NFL QB, but I’m not ready to rule out growing him into a guy that can eventually replace Mark Sanchez as a back up we feel good about if we have to ask to play 3 or 4 games cause a starter goes down. I think the best case scenario is Barkley turns into a solid system QB after chip grows him for 3,4,5 years in this system.. He won’t ever be our franchise starter. Best we can hope for is a Sanchez type backup.. The problem is that his contract expires in two years, and he probably won’t have gotten much playing time with Mark and Sam ahead of him, which also means he still hasn’t failed as a starting QB, so after 4 years as our #3 QB, I’m not sure Barkleys ego will be ready to accept signing on to be our #2 QB long term… The kid is used to being a top QB, and as long as he is here, some part of his brain will justify that he is a young talent who hasn’t gotten the chance because of two quality veterans ahead of him. I suspect that his ego will need to Fail before he is ready to accept a career as #2 and try and grow into one of the better backups. so I worry that it will be a completely wasted pick because after 4 years he will have to go somewhere else, and Fail before he is ready to accept reality of his pro limitations and commit himself to being one of the better backups to try and give himself a chance at longevity in the league, making good money to be a backup
    ….
    I do think we are going to see some nice improvements out of Barkleys in his 3rd preseason, and his 4th next year… But it’s not going to be enough improvement to overthrow Sanchez or Bradford… He is going to leave us. No doubt about it. Might as well trade him if he ever has quality preseason games and drums up trade interest

  5. 5 Charlie Kelly said at 5:50 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    Wow!! You certainly have a lot to say about him.lol

    he seems like a good dude, so i hope the best for him.

  6. 6 GEAGLE said at 8:02 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    And you seem to post just the post…

  7. 7 TommyLawlor said at 5:15 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    Since I’m writing this on July 5th and we know the Eagles just had minicamp and OTAs, I didn’t feel I needed to go into the whole “this was just shirts and shorts” explanation. Trying to give my readers some credit for being pretty smart and able to figure that out on their own.

  8. 8 Charlie Kelly said at 5:47 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    i know, i was being sarcastic.

  9. 9 SteveH said at 7:09 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    Well now you know better Tommy.

  10. 10 MagsBestPlaceonEarth said at 7:41 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTZsQeqeBr1YtMUNKi7WK6EQM4RbvPnO4_gpod4bsCDjZHHg7at

  11. 11 anon said at 5:52 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    “Andy Slater of WINZ in Florida reports Giants unsigned franchise player Jason Pierre-Paul suffered a “severe” hand injury during a fireworks accident on the fourth of July. He has not signed his franchise tender and therefore is currently not under contract. If the hand injury is severe enough, the Giants could rescind Pierre-Paul’s tender and be off the hook for his $14.813 million salary, sending JPP into unrestricted free agency. We’ll wait for the rumors to be confirmed to pass along anything definitive, but there are whispers that JPP may have lost fingers and/or parts of his hand.”

    — wouldn’t wish that on anyone, but man he’s dumb.

  12. 12 Joe Minx said at 6:00 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    Never play with explosives. Sad people don’t realize that.

  13. 13 TommyLawlor said at 6:26 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    Reports now say it isn’t career threatening.

  14. 14 SteveH said at 6:27 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    I wonder if season threatening though, might still cause the Giants to pull the plug.

  15. 15 Avery Greene said at 7:16 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    http://img.pandawhale.com/95113-Nelson-haha-meme-imgur-kncuYjp-BPu6.jpeg

  16. 16 GEAGLE said at 8:01 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    You gotta be kidding me…smh

  17. 17 Stephen E. said at 11:08 AM on July 6th, 2015:

    I would laugh if we ended up signing him for veteran minimum. Would be interesting to see the reaction from the “should have drafted JPP instead of Graham” crowd.

  18. 18 ACViking said at 7:19 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    T-Law:

    You’ve done a fantastic job carrying the endless month of dead-football weight on your shoulders.

    You’re there for us every day — pounding the keyboard so we can have an Eagles story to distract us from the desert of pre-TC time.

    To borrow from a truly great movie . . .

    Thanks for the liberty, Mr. Roberts.

    Thanks for everything.

  19. 19 MagsBestPlaceonEarth said at 7:38 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    Henry Fonda. Jack Lemmon. Even Cagney. They were actors.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASOLrKsyrFU

  20. 20 ACViking said at 8:10 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    Hear, hear.

    What a cast . . . and don’t forget Ward Bond as Doughty (in the white chief’s cap and blue shirt above)

  21. 21 A_T_G said at 9:54 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    Congratulations to the U.S. Women who play that other, weird version of football. You know, the one that involves moving the ball using your foot.

  22. 22 anon said at 9:55 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    Hopefully Zach Ertz won’t let his girl one-up him and he leads us to a world championship.

  23. 23 Dominik said at 8:32 AM on July 8th, 2015:

    While I do think it’s Ertz goal to win his world championship, I do think he has some other plans for the next few days

    https://prod-cdn-ugc.sqor.com/cache/9_800_0__b0f9122aab930bf8226630074bfc0bdf96acc457ca48cf995ab59a1d8acb13a2.png

  24. 24 Stephen E. said at 11:09 AM on July 6th, 2015:

    I’ll assume you aren’t completely ignorant– being an American football fan– and realize that the kicking game used to score more points and the ball used to be snapped with the foot.

  25. 25 CrackSammich said at 9:59 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    Apparently Jason Pierre Paul really messed his hand up with fireworks this weekend. The early and probably completely unreliable reports talked about chunks of fingers missing.

    http://deadspin.com/report-jason-pierre-paul-seriously-damaged-hand-in-fir-1715870503

    A weird bit of cognitive dissonance there, where you don’t want to see guys blow their hands apart, but you’re not exactly unhappy about it happening to a rival player. Football creates some moral conundrums.

  26. 26 Insomniac said at 10:07 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    He has burns on his hands. That’s a real exaggeration from missing parts of his hands.

  27. 27 SteveH said at 10:20 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    Yeah that’s quite a ways from missing parts of his fingers. Still depending on how bad the burns are it might screw with his season.

    I’m curious to know what happened with the accident. He brought in a serious load of fireworks in that U-haul.

  28. 28 Insomniac said at 10:24 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    We need more details really. With the given information, it’s not as bad as missing parts of your finger though. It depends on the degree of burn and if he does have nerve damage on that finger that’ll affect his status of playing this year.

  29. 29 EagleNebula said at 10:57 AM on July 6th, 2015:

    He plays a position that doesnt require him to handle the ball. He could probably play even if he lost a finger or two, though I am sure it will reduse his effectiveness somewhat.

  30. 30 ICDogg said at 2:11 AM on July 6th, 2015:

    classier?

    http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t80/MirokuThaMonk/firecracker.gif

  31. 31 Insomniac said at 7:27 PM on July 6th, 2015:

    Yes. That’s how highly I view BGN.

  32. 32 Avery Greene said at 10:11 PM on July 5th, 2015:

    Dumb mistake on his behalf. He hadn’t even signed his franchise tender. He’s probably going to lose $15 mill this year (roughly) because of this incident. Or, I should say he might lose $5 million a year because of this. I could see Jones paying him $10 mill.

  33. 33 RogerPodacter said at 10:05 AM on July 6th, 2015:

    i wonder what, if any, legal side effects there could be of this. he seemed to be moving a literal shit ton of fireworks.
    i know they are illegal in NJ as a whole. wonder where this all went down.
    in the end, i don’t think there will be any legal problems worthy of league attention, but who knows.

  34. 34 Media Mike said at 5:41 AM on July 6th, 2015:

    This had better be playing when we host the Giants………………if that overrated one trick pony is still on their team

    http://fingerstylepop.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/katy-perry-firework-fanmade-yourang-1.jpg

  35. 35 370HSSV 0773H said at 10:36 AM on July 6th, 2015:

    Please don’t quote Jeff McLane.