I think you misunderstand me. When I say the old KC offense, I dont mean what Al Saunders is running right now. That offense bears resemblance if anything to an offshoot of the Martz playbook (a cousin of the Turner playbook) which is why it bears so much resemblance to Miami's.
The old KC offense was Paul Hackett, the current Jets offensive coordinator, running with Elvis Grbac under center. In that offense Derrick Alexander caught a bunch of long bombs, Joe Horn got his start as the 3rd WR, and Grbac tossed for like 4000 yards or something. Thats the offense that the Jets run now, its more west coast with vertical added in. What it sounds like we'll be doing is running a Coryall with some horizontal added in...and there's a pretty big difference I think.
I would say that Montana, and Pennington if you consider the Jets offense to be a true west coast offense (which I don't) are the exceptions. In the WCO you NEED to be able to zip those balls in fast and on the front shoulder, and you also need to be able to hit people deep in order to prevent those corners from sitting on the short and horizontal routes. The reason I think a QB with a good deep strong arm can succeed in the WCO especially if he can make plays with his feet a la Gannon, Favre, Elway, Young, etc is because you do not throw deep that often in the WCO. You might say "huh?" but when you don't throw deep that often, you have to make them count when you do. A strong-armed QB with a deep cannon will keep the defense thinking about those deep shots, no matter HOW often the offense calls for them to be run.
If you toss a Jay Fiedler into a West Coast Offense, you're just asking for the CBs to sit on the short routes and break on passes all day long...because they know that a) Jay Fiedler is bad at throwing it deep, and b) the offense won't challenge them deep that often.
