You know what they say, change your offensive coordinator and you'll really find out who your friends are. When the St. Louis Rams hired Josh McDaniels as their new offensive coordinator, one of his former proteges reached out to Rams QB Sam Bradford.
Matt [Cassel] just told me if I ever had any questions about the system, not to hesitate to call him. He'd be more than happy to talk to me about the system. There's guys out there who are willing to help. I think once I get into it a little bit more, or once I start to have questions about it, that's when I'll probably reach out to some other guys and just ask them kind of what they thought about Coach McDaniels. What they thought about his offense. What helped them learn it. How they processed the information that was given to them.
McDaniels' offense will be the third offense in three years for Bradford, from Bob Stoops' spread attack at Oklahoma to Pat Shurmur's West Coast offense with the Rams, and now McDaniels' offense, which has no name or label.
Yes, transitions like that aren't automatic, but Bradford did a pretty good job picking up Shurmur's offense in his rookie season, an impressive feat when you consider that he was also getting his first exposure to the size and speed of the NFL game. That's not a small adjustment to make.
McDaniels offense should be a much better fit for Bradford than the West Coast offense, something more akin to the system he ran at OU but with an NFL twist. This system will take even better advantage of his accuracy, accuracy all over the field, as well as his football acumen. McDaniels offense seems a little mechanical, more fluid.
Like the rest of us, Bradford took the occasion to make the obligatory Kyle Orton comment:
You look at what Denver did this year...Orton had a great year; put up some great numbers.
Yes, Sam, If Kyle Orton can do it, so can you.