Today, I went home for lunch. I wanted to see the start of the NFL combine. I caught the early segment about the QBs. When the name of Clausen came up, Dukes said something truly shocking. He said "Charlie Weis is (I believe) a revered figure and offensive genius based on what he did at New England."
Wahhhhh... whaaaa... who... The hell you say wha...? I was stunned out of my fucking skull. A moment later they wandered on to the subject of historical revisionism. Let me tell you a little something about historical revisionism.
Charlie Weis was the offensive coordinator for the New England Patriots between 2000 and 2004. He was there for all three of their championships. He is responsible for installing and extremely banal offensive scheme called the Erhardt-Perkins system. This is a smash-mouth run-first, run to setup the pass scheme. The slogan is run to win, pass to score. It is very Lombardi-esque. There is nothing innovative about this scheme. The milquetoast fellows who invented it were as basic as it gets. When you have to throw, you put in 3 or 4 receivers and spread a bit. Once again, there is nothing innovative about this.
Erhardt-Perkins is also a dogmatic system. You demand players who fit the scheme, and you demand that they conform. You do not tailor the system to maximally exploit the unique skills of the players involved.
This is the most un-genius, borring, drab, lifeless, sparkless system the world has ever seen. Although it is called Erhardt-Perkins, it has been around since Lombardi. Don Schula used it in the early going as coach of the Dolphins. The Steelers used. The Giants used it. They all had varying degrees of success with it.
The Patriot offense of the early 2000s was anemic. They did enough to win, and that is all. They were no more powerful than the Giants of the mid-late 1980s, and maybe less so. Like most dynasties, they were a defensive dynasty. Their powerful defense kept them in all games, and Brady would poach a few tough matches in the final moments.
Weis left the patriots after 2004 to coach Notre Dame, where he failed terribly and was fired. The Patriots did not officially name an Offensive Coordinator immediately, but the esquinkly geek, Josh McDaniels, called the plays. Later, McDaniels was anointed the official offensive coordinator. The Patriot offense did not detonate until 2007, when the acquired Randy Moss and went to a fully-functional Spread offense. They scored 67 offensive touchdowns that year, and 50 of those came off the arm of Tom Brady. This was done with an offense that looked nothing like Erhardt-Perkins.
So there you have it folks. That is the real history of Charlie Weis. Weis never innovated a thing in his life. He ran the most boring and conservative offense ever devised by man. He did just enough to win and nothing more. The Patriots did not do anything special offensively until Weis left the building. They became powerful in 2007, 2+ years after Weis began floundering at Notre Dame, and Josh McDaniels was the OC at that time.
Jamie, can you find anything in this resume that would make Weis a revered offensive genius in NFL circles? I see nothing but historical revisionism in that statement.
He ain't shit in my book. His FICO credit score is 620. That is below average.
