Eagles' West Coast Offense experts weigh in on Sean Mannion's verison

Sean Mannion is blending elements from several versions of the West Coast Offense to build a system tailored to the Eagles’ personnel.

By Reuben Frank • Published September 4, 2026

Eagles running backs coach Jemal Singleton has seen a lot of versions of the West Coast Offense in his coaching career.

He coached at Air Force in Colorado Springs in the early 2000s alongside Troy Calhoun, who had coached with Mike Shanahan in Denver.

He coached with the Raiders under Jon Gruden, who first began developing a West Coast system as Ray Rhodes’ offensive coordinator with the Eagles in the 1990s with future NFL head coaches and West Coast practitioners Bill Callahan and Sean Payton also on the staff.

He coached with the Bengals under Zac Taylor, who had coached under Sean McVay with the Rams.

Now he’s part of a group of offensive coaches helping develop Sean Mannion’s own version of an offense that emphasizes wide-zone running schemes, lots of under-center and play-action looks and pure-progression reads from the quarterback as opposed to a coverage-read scheme.

"There’s a West Coast Offense, and there's these different schools of thought,” Singleton said. "I think what has happened with everybody is it takes a little bit of what the the owner of it is, the guy that's calling it is like twisted just a little bit or takes it in a little different direction.

"I've been around this system for a lot of years. I mean, it's really cool to see the morphs and twists and adjustments that different people have made with it.”

The West Coast Offense traces its roots back to Hall of Famer Bill Walsh when he was on Paul Brown’s Bengals staff in the 1970s and then when he was winning Super Bowls as 49ers head coach in the 1980s. The first time we saw a version of it in Philly was in 1995 when Gruden was Ray Rhodes’ offensive coordinator. Gruden had coached under former Walsh assistant Mike Holmgren with the Packers on a staff that also included Andy Reid.

Mannion has been exposed to a lot of versions of the West Coast system as a player and coach. 

In 2017 and 2018, he played for a Rams team coached by McVay with future head coaches Matt LaFleur and Taylor also on the staff the first year. He spent most of 2019 through 2021 with the Vikings, whose starting quarterback, Kirk Cousins, had played in Washington under Mike Shanahan and later Jay Gruden. And his first two years as an assistant coach came under LaFleur.

So he’s taken bits and pieces of all of their systems and schemes and molded it into something uniquely his own.

That's what we’ve seen in bits and pieces this summer and will begin to see fully formed when the Eagles open the 2026 season a week from Sunday at the Linc against the Commanders.

"I think Sean is doing a phenomenal job taking into account what our personnel is, what we're doing, some of the things that we have, what our strengths are, and he's just continuing growth,” Singleton said. "There's going to be some Sean Mannion type stuff that's involved with just how he calls it, and some of the things that he learned.

"The cool thing is that he played in the system. He's been a quarterback in the system, and then also having been a coach in the system, and now he's got a chance to install it and implement it.

"Things like, ‘Hey, I wish I could do this,’ well, now he's got an opportunity to do that. So it's been a lot of fun just seeing what he's been able to do so far.

"With Sean, it's just small, minor tweaks that he's taken and learned from other places. I think what he's done has been pretty cool incorporating the people we have in the building, the players that we have, and making it conducive for them. So I'm excited as we keep moving forward and keep getting better.”

Josh Grizzard, the Eagles’ new passing game coordinator, spent the last two years in Tampa, including a year working with current Jaguars coach Liam Coen, who was with McVay for four years. So he’s also well-versed in the principals of the West Coast system, and a good fit to help Mannion install his version of the offense.

"As we get into it, we start to see what is X player really good at so we can feature this more or what is this great route that we have that we might not have had at a previous stop that this guy is good at this or it could be a certain type of run,” he said Tuesday. "I mean, we're talking pass game in here, but it could be the run game as well. And so that's ultimately on us to be able to morph that.

"And I'll say with most places, you might not even know until week three, four, five, exactly like, ‘Hey, this is really what we're good at. Let's hone in on this.’ And then how can we dress that up to to make it look different each week?

"And so once you figure out concepts that A) work against that coverage that you're going against that week, and then B) How good are we at running that route, and how good are we at taking that same drop and being in the right spot where you feel like, ‘OK, it's not going well, let's try to get back on track with those calls.’”

https://www.nbcsportsphiladelphia.com/nfl/philadelphia-eagles/west-coast-offense-sean-mannions-jemal-singleton/749532/