A Fresh Look At 2024: Brian Johnson

[Fletch59]

 Very much the same as before, it's time to look at 2024 with fresh eyes and not the same old prospects.   So I give you, Brian Johnson. Now, this isn't the AC/DC singer, this is the coach; yet another 36 year old, he's a hair older (he'll be 37 before the draft).  Johnson was highly sought by the Panthers in the end of 2022 and he'd been tied to Steve Wilks as a possible OC; he was probably sought as a want for the Frank Reich regime, too.   As things went, the Eagles' OC job was the prime one to get, and as the 2021-22 QBs coach there, he had the inside job to replace Shane Steichen  That left all the other jobs as secondary choies. 
Johnson was a backup QB to Alex Smith at Utah in the Urban Meyer days, then under Kyle Whittingham starting in 2005, 2007, and 2008, throwing for a total of 7838 yards, 57 TD, 27 INT along with 848 rushing and 12 rushing scores.  Undrafted, he ended up back at Utah as QBs coach by 2010.  He was OC by 2012; Dan Mullen took him as QBs coach at Missisippi State  2014, was OC at Houston 2017, QBs coach at Florida 2018-19 as Mullen moved, and OC 2020. He was then QBs coach with Philly 2021-22.  He was with Jalen Hurts in that area; but notably, Hurts was drafted before (2020) Johnson showed, and Hurts had already won the job. But he really grew into the right QB at that point, and that's when they started winning.   Johnson had Kyle Trask, Kadarius Toney, and Kyle Pitts in his 2020 offense, would have helped recruit Anthony Richardson, putting together an offense that saw each drafted in the top 50.   Pitts and Toney are really unique pieces that require versatility to scheme into existence. Not a ton of experience calling plays - four years in college and one pro - if you take "OC" as calling plays, which you never know (I don't know if he called plays under Major Applewhite at Houston).   But, there's experience there (and yes, when you're poking around 35-40 year old guys, they're not going to have 20 years playcalling experience, you're hiring them specifically because they aren't doing things the way someone did them in 1997). He has an array of guys to pull from for assistants, depending on who replaces him as Eagles OC in theory - Marcus Brady, the Eagles assistant and former Frank Reich OC, might make sense to come here (he would probably not be the next OC, my guess is Kevin Patullo); Matt Patricia is also a non-coordinator there.    Getting Roy Istvan as OL coach would be an ideal (key assistant to all-world OL coach, Jeff Stoutland).  Granted, Stoutland brings up the ideal point which is, all of it works as well as it does because of the Philly OL.  Not exactly working with that right now.  But if Johnson is interested and can land Istvan, that's a great start at minimum. 

Source: http://absolutepanthers.blogspot.com/fe ... ts/default