After months of looking and waiting for a new Head Coach the New Orleans Breakers have finally found their new leading man John DeFilippo. Let’s get into some things fans may want to know about Coach D (Yes I say let’s call him Coach D).
Background
It is hard to believe that at the young age of 44 years old that John DeFilippo has been coaching for the better part of 22 years. Coach D comes from a coaching family as his father was the offensive coordinator for Youngstown St for 4 years in the mid 70s.
John DeFilippo got his start in coaching back in 2000 when was the Quarterbacks coach for the Fordham Rams just for a single season before enrolling and spending two seasons as a grad assistant at Notre Dame helping coach WRs under Bob Davie and QBs under Tyrone Willingham. DeFilippo began to bounce around from place to place after that.
One of John DeFilippo’s first real NFL opportunities came in 2007 when then Raiders coach, Lane Kiffin, named him QBs coach. He would leave the Raiders after two years but returned for another two year stint from 2012-2014.
Coach D has been an offensive coordinator in the NFL on three separate occasions. In 2015 with the Browns, 2018 with the Vikings, and 2019 with the Jaguars. So he is no stranger to calling plays. During his time as an OC his offenses ranked either middle of the road or towards the bottom but if you look at the rosters he had to work with you’d understand.
What John DeFilippo is most notable for in recent memory is his work with Carson Wentz and Nick Foles during the Eagles Super Bowl season in 2017. Carson Wentz was playing his best football under the tutelage of DeFilippo and of course Doug Pederson. Breakers fan may know this already, but he worked briefly with recent Breakers QB Kyle Sloter during their time with the Vikings so maybe something to keep in mind.
It seems to me that John DeFilippo’s specialty is Quarterbacks. Which is a great thing especially in a league such as the USFL and even for a team such as the Breakers who are in desperate need of an upgrade and help in the QB room.
Scheme Expectation
After looking over all of John DeFilippo’s tenures as offensive coordinator I have tried my best to sum up what offensive scheme we can expect Coach D to run. It seems to me that he likes to run a ton of one back/singleback and shotgun heavy formations. So nothing too out of the ordinary, but I also think that it will most definitely depend on offensive personnel on which scheme he will run. I expect not much of a difference from the college style system we saw used by the Breakers last season. We already have heard to count on a complete overhaul on the offensive staff.
If I had to make a prediction on what you will see on offense is a lot of one back and a very Shotgun forward offense. Not my favorite kind of offense, but in a league such as this an offense like that is pretty common.
If Coach D wants to run a variation of a One back, Shotgun heavy offense he will need the right QB to help run and execute it to perfection and of course and whether that is Kyle Sloter is to be determined. But just in case you want to know who I think would make great candidates (unless the XFL swipes them before) check out this column from a few weeks ago on Breakers quarterback candidates.
Thank you for reading. Be sure to check out all my other Breakers articles and all future Breakers articles coming out very soon. Be sure to also check me out on twitter @thesoulman57. Thank you and GEAUX BREAKERS.
What are your thoughts on John DeFilippo joining the New Orleans Breakers as head coach? Let us know down in the comments below orm join the conversation on Discord.
