In 2011 after the Philadelphia Eagles fired Sean McDermott, they hired.....

Longtime Offensive Line Coach Juan Castillo to take his place, as the new Defensive Coordinator.

No need to re-read that sentence... You read it right the first time. You can't even do this in Madden wtf.

Castillo would last almost 1.5 years before getting fired.

In this week's newsletter, I'll take you through how this signing ever happened, what people thought about the hiring, the Dream Team, Castillo’s full coaching background, the Defense's performance during his time, and specific things that went wrong that ultimately got him fired.

McDermott Is Out and Castillo Is In

After McDermott's Defense gave up 20+ points in 11 games and ranked dead last in the NFL in the Red Zone, Reid decided to part ways with his Defensive Coordinator.

They immediately began a search for their next coach interviewing candidates such as:

• Dennis Allen (Current Saints Head Coach)
• Joe Woods (Current Saints Defensive Coordinator)
• Jon Hoke (Who at that time was the Bear's Defensive Backs Coach with almost 30 years of coaching experience).

However, in a move that stunned almost everyone, the Eagles decided to hire their Offensive Line Coach Juan Castillo instead.

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Even the Owner of the Team Was Shocked:

When the Owner of the Eagles Jeffrey Lurie was asked if he had reservations, Lurie didn't hold back:

Castillo would need to go from coaching 5 different Offensive positions (that all do similar things) to needing to coach 11 Defensive positions that have almost nothing to do with the Offensive Line.

Most Fans Hated the Move But Some Endorsed It

Reid was asked about the thought process/decision of this hire and he would explain:

Reid would reference Mike Holmgren taking a risk on him early in his career:

Although the majority of people at the time were confused and/or angry (aka every Philly fan alive), there were a few respected coaches who supported the hiring.

Steve Spagnuolo, the Rams Head Coach at the time (and the current Chiefs Defensive Coordinator) backed Castillo:

Lastly, Ron Rivera (Current Head Coach of the Washington Redskins/Commanders/Football Team/TBD Name) chimed in

Castillo's Defensive Background

To be (sort of) fair Castillo had a Defensive background.
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He played Linebacker at Texas A&M University Kingsville, then Professionally in the USFL for several years, to later coaching on the Defensive side at the high school and collegiate levels:

• Texas A&M University Kingsville - Defensive Line Coach & Linebackers Coach
• Henrietta M. King High School - Defensive Coordinator

The only catch to this is that this last happened in 1989…

20+ years before this hire happened.

Other than that, from 1990 to 2010 he had primarily coached Offensive Line, with 1 year of being the Tight Ends coach.

Castillo's Defensive Style

Wide 9 Defense

The Wide 9 Defense has glaring strengths and weaknesses that would be shown throughout the season.

The name Wide 9 comes from the 9 Technique that the Defense Ends align in - as you can see in Red below.

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The purpose of the Wide 9 is to:

• Allow the Ends to have a Rushing head start when Pass Rushing against slower Offensive Tackles
• Prevent Offenses from running any outside plays, and resort to running plays between the tackles

The results showed that as the Eagles led the NFL in sacks in 2011.

Their two starting Defensive Ends alone had 29.

The only problem is that the Wide 9 is also notoriously bad against the run.

The Ends are too wide to make plays happening in between the tackles, and oftentimes they eliminate themselves from the play completely just by going upfield and opening up lanes for the Running Back to cut back to.

There's no better example than in week 1 of 2011 vs the Rams when Steven Jackson scored on their first running play of the game.

Although the Ends set the edge, the Offensive Linemen and the Wing were able to freely climb to the Linebackers, blocking every single one.

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Jackson simply cut back into the giant lanes created by blocked linebackers and score a 47-yard rushing touchdown.

Vince Young Declares the Eagles as The Dream Team

1 year before the hiring. the Eagles won the NFC East, had the #2 Offense in the league, and were coming off three straight playoff seasons.

Some of the players already on the team included Mike Vick, DeSean Jackson, LeSean McCoy & Jason Kelce.

Then, they added many more big-time players to their team including:

• Nnamdi Asomoguha - Arguably the best Bump and Run, Man to Man Corner at the time
• Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie - Extremely Athletic Press Corner who had shown flashes of his potential in Arizona
• Jason Babin - Coming off a 12.5 sack season with the Titans the year before

And on the Offensive side:

• Steve Smith - Who had just set the Giants' all-time single-season receptions record with 107 2 years ago (2009)
• Ronnie Brown - An Well rounded athletic longtime Miami RB who amassed 4,800 hundred yards rushing and 38 touchdowns in his career
• Vince Young - Athletic Dual thread QB signed to be Mike Vick's backup after 5 years with the Titans

A reporter asked Vince Young what he thought of the latest additions to the team and he'd say:

From that point on, the Dream Team was born.

The media ran with that quote and it quickly spread like wildfire.

Castillo's Defensive Results & Ranks

Surprisingly after making a longtime Offensive Line Coach a first-time Defensive Coordinator, there was some good, but unsurprisingly there was also a lot of noticeable bad.

The good:

• The Eagle led the NFL in sacks with 50 - Babin having 18, and Cole with 11
• In the first year the Defense would show a huge improvement in their last 4 games, holding opponents to 11.5 points per game while only allowing them to average 265 yards
• The start of his second year seemed promising as the Eagles noticeably improved on third down and in the red zone
• Unsurprisingly the end of his first year and in the second year when the Defense showed improvement, they mixed it up coverage-wise with 2 man, 1 man, Cover 3 and Cover 4 throughout games, keeping Offenses guessing

The bad:

• Used a lot of Off-Press Zone Coverage which caused their Star Corner signing to not use his strengths and to struggle.. a lot
  • For Asomugah particularly, his strengths were using his long arms (length) to disrupt the receiver off the Line of Scrimmage, making them predictable, and disrupting the timing of the QB to WR.
  • Receivers struggling to get past Asomugha's jam prevented them from getting to their designated spot on time, and often the QB instead moved their next read.

• Asomugha began losing his confidence after not playing to his strengths and by year 2 and when they ran much more man, he regressed against the pass and would throw his body hoping to tackle runners instead of trying to wrap them up in the run game
• A report leaked that his Defensive Line coach Jim Washburn openly called Castillo 'Juanita' in front of his players, along with ignoring him or condescendingly talking to him in both meetings and practice
• Although the Eagles were in the lead in 16 games going into the 4th quarter, they'd lose 6 of them
• Gave up FIVE 4th quarter comebacks including 3 passing touchdowns to backup Cardinals QB John Skelton
• When the Cardinals moved Larry Fitzgerald around to different spots around the field, they let him keep getting matched up against rookie Jaiquawn Jarrett instead of having Asomugha shadow him
  • To give even more context to why the Jarrett over Nnamdi situation was so frustrating - That same year he ended with 0 interceptions, 0 passes defended, had a 107.0 passer rating when QBs threw to him, and ended up getting cut after only 2 years on the team (as a 2nd round draft pick!).

What Went Wrong

What was Ultimately Castillo's demise was the inability/unwillingness to make late-game adjustments.

What may have worked for 3 quarters may not work in the 4th quarter, and rather than adjusting to it, he stayed in it with the mentality of "Well it worked the 3 other quarters".

A ton of factors go into this thought process (such as going in Dime personnel, getting lit up, and then staying in it through the rest of the game anyways) but mainly when the Offenses were down and just 'Let it Rip' with 2-minute drill offenses, his Defense got lit up.

To add to this sentiment, some players such as Brandon Graham complained that although the team practiced many different looks in practice, they only ran the same (1) thing during the actual game.

This caused frustration from both the team and the fan base, as it almost seemed like everyone but their coordinator could see that the offense had figured out the answer to his defense, yet they stayed in it, leading to 4th quarter collapses.

Castillo is Fired Mid-Season

During the Eagles Bye Week, Castillo became the first coach to be fired midseason by Andy Reid.

Two weeks before he was fired the Eagles Defense would allow the Steelers to rally in the 4th quarter and steal the game away, losing 14-16.

The next week in his last game as DC, the Defense had an even bigger meltdown in the 4th quarter, giving up a 10-point lead with less than 4 minutes to go and losing in overtime (26-23) to the Detroit Lions dropping the Eagles to 3-3.

Every game up until the bye week except for 1 was decided by 3 points or fewer:

• Week 1: W vs Cleveland 17-16
• Week 2: W vs Ravens 24-23
• Week 4: W vs Giants 19-17
• Week 5: L vs Steelers 14-16
• Week 6: L vs Lions 23-26 (OT)

Reid decided that blowing 4th quarter leads needed to be fixed, and no better time to make the change than during their bye week.

He figured that the team he still had a chance to turn their season around, as 1-2 plays differently could easily have them sitting at 5-1 instead of 3-3.

In Castillo’s place, Todd Bowles took over as the Defensive Coordinator.

However, it ultimately didn’t matter as the Eagles only won 1 more game the rest of the season finishing 4-12, and missing the playoffs.

After 14 years, Andy Reid was fired on December 31st, 2012.

The next year the Eagles hired Chip Kelly... and boy oh boy that disaster might also be worth writing a newsletter about.