Bowles' hiring should pay dividends for Eagles

Todd Bowles approach to football is refreshingly simple.

We make it too complicated sometimes, the Eagles new defensive backfield coach said. Its still blocking and tackling. Its executing the fundamentals.

Bowles must have cringed watching the tape of the Eagles secondary from last season. The fundamentals were atrocious. Sloppy tackling, blown coverages, receivers running wide open while defenders looked at each other as if to say, I thought you had him.

The Eagles allowed 27 touchdown passes last season. Their red zone defense ranked 30th in the league. Most of the blame fell on defensive coordinator Juan Castillo, but it didnt appear that he got much help from secondary coach Johnnie Lynn. Week after week, the defensive backfield looked out of sync.

We know all about the lockout, the missed OTAs and the new personnel, but the fact remains the Eagles had three cornerbacks with Pro Bowl credentials and a pair of young safeties who came highly recommended. At some point you expected it to come together, but it never did.

The fact that Lynn was the only coach on the staff who was not retained speaks volumes. Bowles was hired to replace him. It is a move that should pay dividends for the Eagles.

Bowles has been around the NFL for more than 20 years as a player and coach. He earned a Super Bowl ring as a safety with the Washington Redskins and he finished last season as interim head coach of the Miami Dolphins. He is respected around the league as a smart guy and excellent teacher.

Bill Parcells knows a good coach when he sees one. Look at his staffs and you see names like Bill Belichick, Tom Coughlin, Sean Payton and Romeo Crennel, He hired Bowles as his secondary coach in Dallas and when he left to become the boss in Miami, he brought Bowles with him. It says a lot about Bowles that Parcellsa hard-to-please boss if there ever was onethought that highly of him.

One of the best things Andy Reid did when he came to Philadelphia was put together an outstanding coaching staff. Those assistants were a huge asset in the early years when the Eagles were dominating the NFC East. But many of those coaches left for other jobs and then there was the tragic loss of Jim Johnson. Reid filled those spots with a lot of young coaches, some of whom were overmatched.

It was a problem, and while Reid will never admit it, he did recognize it. He began looking outside the organization for veteran coaches. He hired Bobby April to coach special teams. Last year, he hired Jim Washburn to overhaul the defensive line. He coaxed Howard Mudd out of retirement to fix the offensive line. Adding Bowles, who played his college ball at Temple, is one more step in upgrading the staff.

When he met the media Tuesday, Bowles downplayed his role. He said he was strictly a defensive backfield coach sharing duties with fellow assistant Mike Zordich. Bowles shot down the notion that he would be at Castillos elbow during games serving as a kind of co-defensive coordinator.

But Bowles is too good a coach not to have a major say in how the defense is put together. He will almost certainly have a bigger role than Lynn did. He may not take the play-calling away from Castillo, but he wont be far away either.

Bowles talked about his approach to the game. He believes in keeping things simple. He will insist on players doing things the right way. He expects them to tackle, which they didnt do last season. He expects them to be fundamentally sound, which they werent for most of last year.

So far in practice, the Eagles secondary is playing mostly press coverage. Cornerbacks Nnamdi Asomugha and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie are playing man to man on the outside. Last season, with Asante Samuel in the mix, the Eagles tried to combine zone looks with some man coverage and no one knew what they were doing half the time.

Bowles insists the Eagles wont be exclusively a press coverage team. He said no team in todays NFL can allow itself to become that predictable. The days of Lester Hayes and Mike Haynes are over, he said, referring to the Raider corners who popularized the bump and run years ago.

You have to mix it up now, Bowles said. You cant just say, Were a press team because offenses can get you out that by putting receivers in motion or using bunch formations.

Thats true, but my guess is the Eagles will play mostly press coverage. The main reason is their best players, Asomugha and Rodgers-Cromartie, are much better at it. But it also makes sense when you have a defensive line that led the league lead in sacks last year.

If you are getting heat on the quarterback, you dont want to give him any easy throws. If the corners jam the receivers, it throws off the timing of the route and the quarterback has to hang onto the ball. The result is often a sack. But if the defense plays zone, the corners play soft and the receivers have a cushion which allows them to get open. Zip, the ball is gone in a blink. Advantage offense.

Press coverage is also a simpler proposition. Asomugha and Rodgers-Cromartie looked lost playing a zone. They didnt know how to play off a receiver. Asomugha, in particular, looked awkward playing in space. But in press coverage, he locks on his man and blankets him. There is not as much switching or adjusting on the fly.

There were too many mental mistakes last season, Bowles said. That is something we definitely need to address. I want our guys to be more vocal. Communication is going to be ulta-important.

Communication starts with the coach and, in Todd Bowles, the Eagles have a good one.

E-mail Ray Didinger at viewfromthehall@comcast.net