Jim Owczarski

jowczarski@enquirer.com

The great offensive systems are no more, at least as they once were.

Too much time has passed. Too many have grown up in one, bounced to another and come back again. Hundreds of coaches re-imaged them, lifting concepts from one and integrating them into another.

One was the vertical passing offense, popularized by Don Coryell in San Diego in the 1980s, which utilized a single running back, a pass catching tight end, heavy motions and formations and the deep ball.

The other was Paul Brown’s offense in Cleveland and in Cincinnati, popularized by Bill Walsh in San Francisco in the 1980s, which featured split backs formations and a horizontal passing game with short drops by the quarterback.

More than three decades later, the distinct systems of “Air Coryell” and the “West Coast” have been not been wholly eliminated, but synthesized with pieces of each now operating with one another.

“Everyone thinks the wheel gets reinvented every 15 to 20 years in this league – it doesn’t,” said former St. Louis Rams offensive coordinator and head coach Mike Martz. “It just kind of gets recycled.”

Modern offense is about finding a unique look within that amalgam. Perhaps there is no greater example of that than in Ken Zampese’s offense in Cincinnati.

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When Marvin Lewis was hired in 2003, one of the reasons he retained Bob Bratkowski was because the offensive coordinator was connected to Coryell having worked under Tom Flores in Seattle.

Lewis looked at his young receivers, especially Chad Johnson, and thought elements of that downfield offense would be beneficial. Lewis and Bratkowski then brought in a 36-year-old coach out of St. Louis, who was the passing game coordinator and worked closely with Martz and his “Greatest Show on Turf” – Ken Zampese.

The Rams had set numerous offensive records from under Martz, and with Zampese on staff from 2000-02, Marshall Faulk and Kurt Warner won back-to-back Most Valuable Player awards and went to a Super Bowl.

“Knowing that Ken had that background and understood that way of doing things was really a benefit,” said Bratkowski, who is now the wide receivers coach in Tennessee. “But then, regardless of where he came from or what background he was in, he’s smart enough, he’s detailed enough to be able to adapt to anything.”

By 2005, the Bengals had Carson Palmer, Johnson and then T.J. Houshmandzadeh, Kelley Washington, Chris Henry and running back Rudi Johnson, personnel Lewis felt meshed with the Coryell style.

From 2003-10, the Bengals recorded three top 10 offenses; three top 10 passing attacks and one top 10 rushing attack. Bratkowski said Zampese was often called about coordinator jobs, but his contract status often didn’t allow for interviews. Zampese did interview for the Chicago Bears’ offensive coordinator position in 2010.

“I really relied on him a lot,” Bratkowski said, noting Zampese’s creativity in the red zone and in third down packages. “He had great ideas. He had ways of presenting things that we thought would be successful and were. Many of the good things that we came up with when I was there, Ken had a big part of that.”

But when the Bengals personnel – especially at quarterback – were about to turn over prior to the 2011 season, Lewis pivoted.

He looked at the success of the “West Coast” offense, leaned on personal relationships to find out what might work best for his team – and went with Jay Gruden. Jay had worked with his brother Jon, a Super Bowl winning coach steeped in the “West Coast” offense.

To run this new attack, Gruden wanted quarterback Andy Dalton, who directed a similarly styled offense at Texas Christian University. And to help Dalton transition to the NFL, Gruden kept Zampese in the quarterback room.

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Yes, Zampese grew up watching “Air Coryell” up close and personal, but his NFL coaching career started on the Walsh tree.

Zampese was brought to the NFL in 1998 under former Walsh assistant and Philadelphia head coach Ray Rhodes and offensive coordinator Dana Bible. Bible coached the quarterbacks under Sam Wyche in Cincinnati in 1990-91. And Wyche played quarterback under Brown and coached under Walsh in San Francisco.

After a year in Philadelphia, Zampese moved to Green Bay with Rhodes where he worked with Packers offensive coordinator Sherman Lewis and quarterbacks coach Mike McCarthy, more “West Coast” disciples off the Walsh tree.

Then, in 2014, the Bengals pivoted again as Hue Jackson was hired as the offensive coordinator. Jackson had a deep history with the Coryell system, dating back the start of his coaching career at USC.

The personnel had changed, too.

Jackson recognized Dalton had the arm strength and accuracy to push the ball downfield to Green and Marvin Jones. Tight end Tyler Eifert was a game-changer, in the mold of the pass catching tight ends often highlighted in Coryell-style systems, like Kellen Winslow and Jay Novacek. Giovani Bernard and Jeremy Hill also gave the coordinator new options.

“So here we are, we’re a mix of both,” Zampese said in the run up to the Bengals’ Monday night game in New York.

As such, Zampese can’t say he belongs truly in either the Coryell or Brown/Walsh systems.

“It really is just blended in,” he said. “It’s more the uniqueness of the offensive staff and how they put it together for their players that creates a different look than it is the system itself.”

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Continuity was a word Marvin Lewis used when talking about Zampese’s promotion to the coordinator role this summer. The coaches who Zampese has worked for feel it’s only a matter of time before that continuity leads to ingenuity.

“He’s going to create his own niche, so to speak,” Martz said. “We all did. But it kind of goes back, it emanates from the same base. The really good ones, and I think he is, take advantage of the talent that they have.”

That talent is the overriding factor in what you see the Bengals do well thus far in 2016, which is smart, precise, and constant movement of players to put them in successful situations.

“You’re also seeing an offense that’s evolved,” said Dallas head coach Jason Garrett, who played for Norv Turner and Ernie Zampese with the Cowboys.

Green and Eifert aren’t limited to one side of the field, or at certain splits off the line of scrimmage. The running game is often engineered first with motion, and then a single back following pulling linemen.

If there is an identity under Ken Zampese through eight games, it’s has been his ability to make that blend of systems his own. The Bengals are No. 6 overall in the league in offense – fourth in passing, seventh in rushing.

“They do a lot of things formationally that a lot of teams in the league don’t do,” New England head coach Bill Belichick said, noting how thin his defense was stretched in preparing for Zampese’s varied looks.

“It’s hard to predict a lot of that.”

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Watching the Bengals from his home in California, Ernie Zampese, now 80 years old, marvels at the offensive talent. He says those players are who dictate the formations and packages unveiled every week. He said that was the case when he had Dan Fouts, John Jefferson, Kellen Winslow, James Brooks and Chuck Muncie in San Diego. Martz concurred – Warner, Faulk, Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt allowed him to advance that offense into the 21st century.

Now, Ken Zampese is putting his signature on this new blend of offense.

“You’ve got to do what your guys are good at, whatever that happens to be,” Ernie Zampese said. “That’s what Ken is trying to do.

“Obviously it comes back to having the players that can do those things. If you don’t have the players that can do ‘em, then you can’t do ‘em. That is so important.”