Dennis Dixon

Finding Success When One Door Closes and Another One Opens

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Can Dennis Dixon Join a List of Players Who Found the Right Situation to Display Their Talents?

By Chris Murray

For the Chris Murray Report and the Philadelphia Sunday Sun

Eagles quarterback Dennis Dixon believes he can be the Eagles starting quarterback.

Eagles quarterback Dennis Dixon believes he can be the Eagles starting quarterback.

PHILADELPHIA—I’ve always been a firm believer in the idea that successful athletes not only have the raw ability and the determination to work at bettering themselves in their sport, being in the right place at the right time or having the right people around you—i.e. teammates or coaches-is also a determining factor.

Covering the Eagles organized team activities for the last couple of weeks, the one player that I see that could be an interesting case of what I mentioned in the previous paragraph is Dennis Dixon, who is competing for the Eagles starting quarterback spot.

So far, he is the one quarterback in Eagles camp that seems to have a firm grasp of head coach Chip Kelly’s. After playing in both Pittsburgh and Baltimore as a backup, Dixon is hoping that he can take that experience in addition to what he learned playing for Kelly at Oregon and be the Eagles starting quarterback in 2013.

“I thought that one thing I’ve learned is leadership and you got to make sure that the other 10 guys are all ready to go,” Dixon said after practice on Monday. “At the end of the day, you got to be able to know your plays.”

Dixon is one of those interesting studies in what if his circumstances were different? During his senior year in 2007 with the Ducks, there was a strong possibility that Dixon would win the Heisman Trophy and be high draft pick in the 2008 NFL Draft.

In the last 10 games of his collegiate career, Dixon had thrown 20 touchdown passes and threw for 2,136 yards before the injury to his anterior-cruciate ligament in his left knee ended his season.  His Heisman hopes died and his draft stock plummeted dramatically.

Pittsburgh drafted Dixon in the fifth round to be a backup to Ben Rothlisberger. Oddly enough, Dixon actually started three games during his tenure with the Steelers and had a 2-1 record.

He left Pittsburgh after the 2011 season and served as a scout team quarterback as a member of the Baltimore Ravens taxi squad.

I think Dixon’s chances are his good of being the Eagles are as good as anybody else’s considering that he knows the offense better than any of the quarterbacks competing for the job. That certainly bodes well for him.

Maybe this is the point where Dixon’s takes off. To be honest, I don’t know if he’s going to win that job or not. But if he does and he performs well, it will be another story of a guy finding the right situation to elevate his career.

That is always the beauty of sports is when players can find the right venue to display their talents.  Of course, there are plenty of instances in sports where talented guys have found themselves in the right situation after being cast aside in another circumstance.

John Unitas was cut by the Steelers in 1955 and playing semi-pro before getting his opportunity in Baltimore.

John Unitas was cut by the Steelers in 1955 and playing semi-pro before getting his opportunity in Baltimore.

Perhaps the most famous story in sports of an athlete finding the right place to achieve success in his career was that of one John Constantine Unitas.  He is one of the all-time great quarterbacks in NFL history.

But when Unitas was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1955, he was the fourth quarterback on a team that wanted to keep three quarterbacks. Even though he had one of the strongest arms in the Steelers camp that year, Pittsburgh head coach Walt Kiesling thought Unitas was not smart enough to be an NFL quarterback and didn’t allow him to take a snap in a game.

When the Baltimore Colts called Unitas in for tryout in 1956, he was living in Pittsburgh and working as a construction worker while playing semi-pro football for the Bloomfield Rams at six bucks per game.

Of course, you know the rest of the story, Unitas, who called his own plays, became the quarterback who elevated the two-minute drill into an art-form, re-wrote the NFL passing records and led the Colts to two NFL Championships and one Super Bowl title.

Eagles fans know the story of Randall Cunningham, who actually had a human highlights film of a career with the Birds. Unfortunately, he didn’t win enough playoff games-one to be exact-and was maligned for being just a running quarterback.

During Cunningham’s time in Philadelphia, he never had a good offensive line, a running game, or a good offensive coordinator. Cunningham was ultimately let go a year into then Eagles head coach Ray Rhodes regime.

After a one-year retirement, Cunningham was back up quarterback with the Minnesota Vikings in 1997 and came off the bench to lead the Vikings to a comeback win over the New York Giants in the NFC Wildcard game.

In 1998, Cunningham became the starter of the Vikings after Brad Johnson went down with an injury. Working with offensive coordinator Brian Billick and armed with receivers like Cris Carter and Randy Moss, he threw 34 touchdowns and passed for 3,704 yards while completing 60 percent of his passes.

It was the best statistical year of his career. You have to wonder what would have happened if Cunningham had good offensive assistant coaches like Billick who could have really tutored him in perfecting his passing skills earlier in his career.

Equally as important, if Cunningham in his Eagles days would have had a running back like Robert Smith, a more mature Carter (who played with Cunningham in Philadelphia earlier in his career) and a superstar like Moss playing wide receiver, I think could have been an even better quarterback for the Birds.

For the first three years of O.J Simpson’s career in Buffalo, he was considered a bust with a propensity to fumble and could not catch a pass out of the backfield. It looked as if he was going to become another Heisman Trophy winner who couldn’t make it in the pros.

In 1972, the Bills brought in Lou Saban to coach the team. Thanks to a couple of offensive linemen, Saban built Buffalo’s offense around Simpson. He was arguably the best running back in the NFL from 1972 to 1976.

Simpson became the first running back in NFL history to gain over 2,000 yards in one season. Saban recognized Simpson’s talent as a ball carrier and transformed him from a guy who was going nowhere fast to a player who ran his way into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The Chicago Cubs gave up on Lou Brock, who went on to have a Hall of Fame career in St. Louis.

The Chicago Cubs gave up on Lou Brock, who went on to have a Hall of Fame career in St. Louis.

In the middle of the 1964 season, the Chicago Cubs were unhappy with rightfielder Lou Brock, who had trouble fielding his position (especially in Wrigley Field) and wasn’t the home run hitter the team had projected him to be.

So the Cubs traded him to the St. Louis Cardinals for pitcher Ernie Broglio, who had 18 wins the previous season. At the time, people covering baseball felt that the Cubs got the best of the deal.

When Brock arrived in St. Louis, Cards manager Johnny Keane moved Brock to left field and told him to focus on using his speed instead of trying to knock the ball out of the park. Brock took Keane’s advice and was the catalyst to the Cardinals run to the 1964 World Series.

Needless to say, Brock finished his career as the all-time leader in stolen bases. He has also had over 3,000 hits with a career batting average of .293. Meanwhile, Broglio won just seven more games for the Cubs before retiring in 1966.

Brock has a statue and plaque highlighting his accomplishments in Cooperstown. One team’s bust becomes another team’s success story.

 

Nothing Wrong With a Little Swag and Self Confidence From Your Quarterback

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By Chris Murray

For the Chris Murray Report and the Philadelphia Sunday Sun

Matt Barkley tells reporters he believes that he can start for the Eagles in 2013.

Matt Barkley tells reporters he believes that he can start for the Eagles in 2013.

PHILADELPHIA—Shortly before the 2011 NFL Draft, soon-to-be Carolina Panthers  quarterback Cam Newton declared to the world that he wanted to be an “icon and an entertainer” as a starting quarterback in the NFL.

Of course, a lot of us sportswriter types, especially one from CBS Sports.com, got their collective panties in a bunch when Newton said that because they thought he was being arrogant and immature.

Apparently, Newton’s youthful bravado and self-confidence unnerved an uptight sports media establishment. Now the whole icon thing was a bit goofy on Newton’s part, but you had to admire his self confidence at the time.

Do you really want your quarterback to be unsure of himself? I saw Newton’s icon declaration as a silly expression of youthful exuberance, but I admired his uncompromising belief in himself. Self confidence in a 22-year-old quarterback or a sports writer is a damned good thing.

When Eagles fourth-round draft pick and former Southern Cal star Matt Barkley rolled into the Eagles rookie minicamp last Friday he said he expects to be competing for the Eagles starting job. That declaration raised a few eye brows among fans and media, especially with experienced players like Michael Vick, Nick Foles, Dennis Dixon and G.J Kinne all fighting for the starting nod.

At the end of the day, I’m not mad at Barkley for coming into camp with that kind of attitude and neither is Eagles head coach Chip Kelly. Barkley has a chip on his shoulder and wants to prove that he was better than a fourth-round pick.

“I would hope anybody that came into this place isn’t sitting here and saying I think I’m going to be a really good, solid backup,” Kelly said.  “I want our guys to come in here and show us everything that they can do, and our job as a coaching staff is to put the best guys on the field the first game against Washington that will help us win, and if that’s Matt, that’s Matt, so we’ll see how that goes.”

That’s the thing you have to like about this Eagles quarterback competition is that you have bunch of guys that are unafraid to claim it for themselves.  Vick came into the pre-draft mini camp saying that it was his job to lose, especially after last year’s tough season.

“It’s still my team, still my job and that’s the mindset you gotta have,” Vick said. “I believe in myself and my abilities and I believe in the guys on this football team.”

And then you have the case of Dennis Dixon who has a 2-1 record as a starting quarterback and has been struggling to find a place in the league after a season-ending knee-injury late in his senior year at Oregon.

After being a backup in Baltimore and Pittsburgh since his rookie year in 2008, Dixon believes that he can be a starter with the Birds.

“Anybody in their right mind would love competition and that’s what we have,” Dixon said. “And I’m quite sure that Michael Vick and Nick Foles would say the same thing as well. We’re excited. We’re just excited to work and let the chips fall where they may.”

Foles and Kinne will also have something to say in the outcome of this competition as well. They both believe that they will emerge as the starter when the dust settles.

It’s always given that you’re starting quarterback is a guy with a strong, accurate arm and has the ability to read and pick apart a defense.

You also want your quarterback to have some swag and an unshakeable belief in himself even when times are bad on the field.

I remember the first time I covered an NFL game as a reporter back in 1985, I saw then Washington Redskins Joe Theismann at his locker after a tough loss to the Eagles. He confidently answered every tough question, looking every reporter in the eye as if he welcomed the scrutiny.

No quarterback comes into any situation whether he’s a highly-touted rookie, a journeyman, a high-price free agent or a guy just trying to hang on for another pay check, hoping to be the starter.

I can never get a mad at a rookie quarterback or any position when he comes and says he’s going to be the man for a team.

“But if anybody came in here and said they were really vying for a backup job, then they would probably be on the bus down 95 pretty quick,” Kelly said.

Nuff said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eagles OTAs: Birds Get Acclimated to Kelly’s Way of Doing Things

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By Chris Murray

For the Chris Murray Report and the Philadelphia Sunday Sun

(From left to right): Michael Vick, Dennis Dixon and G.J. Kinne take turns throwing the ball during the first day of OTAs. Photo courtesy of PhiladelphiaEagles.com.

(From left to right): Michael Vick, Dennis Dixon and G.J. Kinne take turns throwing the ball during the first day of OTAs. Photo courtesy of PhiladelphiaEagles.com.

PHILADELPHIA—If you drive by the Eagles NovaCare practice facility in South Philly and you’re hearing Nicki Manaj or hearing “What is Love,” a song made popular by a Saturday Night Live skit, you’re not driving by a nightclub nor is there a special on Margaritas.

It’s the 2013 version of Eagles organized team activities for new head coach Chip Kelly who has definitely put his own unique stamp on the team’s culture. As the team goes through its various drills, mostly dance music with a few rock songs thrown in for good measure is being pumped in through loud speakers.

Some players see the music as a way of getting used to cheering crowds on the road while others are experiencing it the way they experience on their I-pods or in the weight room when they’re working out. Eagles wide receiver Eagles DeSean Jackson said the music is forcing him to concentrate even more on what he’s doing on the field.

“It’s almost like a football game where you have the crowd, everybody screaming and all that other stuff,” Jackson said. “You just have to go in there and focus in, you can’t worry about the music.”

In between the different drills, a computerized voice blares over the loudspeakers and simply says: “Period 20 Teach.”  That’s when the coaches walk through the various schemes that they just ran on the field.

Meanwhile, if you’re trying to get a reading on who’s ahead in the race to be the Eagles starting quarterback, Kelly’s not going tell you anything just yet. At Monday’s practice, the quarterbacks were working with a mixture of starting and backup running backs and receivers.

“It’s May 13th and we’ve got a long ways to go before we set a depth chart or do anything like that,” Kelly said during his post-practice press conference.

Last week at a team charity event, wide receiver Jeremy Maclin said Michael Vick got most of the reps during the pre-draft minicamp last month and appeared to more than few people that he was getting most of the work at Monday’s practice.

“He hasn’t,” Kelly said. “Count them up. Someone charted them, I would imagine. (Vick) and Nick switched to different groups. We’re just trying to get the reps off and trying to get film and look at it.”

Relying on the eyeball test based on the idea that Kelly wants his quarterbacks to make quick decisions with the football. Vick seemed slow in going through his progressions, but was accurate with his passes.

Dennis Dixon, who worked with Kelly at Oregon, seemed to be the most comfortable with the offense in both the seven-on-seven drills and the 11-on-11drills.

Former USC star and seventh-round draft pick Matt Barkley did a good job of getting the ball out and quickly finding the open receiver. He doesn’t necessarily have the strongest arm in the world. According to Kelly, Barkley has done a good job of learning in the offense in the four days he has been with the team.

“Matt has been really good. Really thought he picked up things quickly,” Kelly said. “He’s an extremely hard worker. He’s every morning at six a.m. working at whatever it is to work on.”

Nick Foles looked comfortable in the offense and made some decent throws, but made some bad throws, too.  He also made some good reads when he handed the ball off in the running game. G.J. Kinne was about average, nothing to write home about.

Speaking of the running game, LeSean McCoy said the tempo of the offensive is a good thing for the running game and that there will be more touches for the Eagles running backs in this offense.

“There’s definitely a difference,” McCoy said. “Being able to run the ball a lot more because if you look at (Kelly’s) track record, a lot of his backs touched the ball quite a bit.  Sometimes, a big hole may be happening when a guy (on defense) might be out of place. With the backs we have here you don’t need that much room to get going.”

One of the features of Kelly’s up-tempo offense is that the players, as they are going up to the line of scrimmage will be getting the plays signaled in from the sidelines similar to the way it was done at Oregon.

“I think the game is about making quick decisions,” Kelly said. “The difference here that we didn’t have in college is we can communicate to the quarterback and there’s a lot to put on him, so there’s a whole system involved in that. We can talk to him.”

 

In the Mix: A Confident Dennis Dixon Is Ready Take On All Comers for Birds QB Spot

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The Eagles might be Dennis Dixon's best opportunity to be a starer.

The Eagles might be Dennis Dixon’s best opportunity to be a starer.

By Chris Murray

For the Chris Murray Report

PHILADELPHIA–If you look at his career statistics in the NFL, there’s no reason to give Dennis Dixon a snowball’s chance in hell to be the Eagles starting quarterback.

In just three career starts, he’s 2-1 with a quarterback rating of 71.4 and has been mostly a backup during his five years in the league. In 2012, he was a practice-squad quarterback with the Super Bowl-champion Baltimore Ravens.

But Dixon’s heyday as a quarterback was at Oregon when Eagles head coach Chip Kelly was his offensive coordinator.  In his senior year in 2007, he passed for 2,136 yards with 20 touchdown passes and four interceptions in 10 games before tearing up the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.

While Dixon is intimately familiar with Kelly’s offense, he believes that his experience backing up Ben Roethlisberger and playing the scout team quarterback on the Ravens practice squad will be a great asset in the competition with Michael Vick and Nick Foles.

“I was fortunate enough to work around some good defenses from the Pittsburgh Steelers and to the Ravens,” Dixon said. “Just practicing with them made me better overall. I just want to be able to show what I’ve learned and hopefully it’s good enough.”

Even though he hasn’t logged in the time on the field that Vick or even Nick Foles has, Dixon is confident that he has just as big a chance to be the Birds starting signal caller.

“Anybody in their right mind would love competition and that’s what we have,” Dixon said. “And I’m quite sure that Michael Vick and Nick Foles would say the same thing as well. We’re excited. We’re just excited to work and let the chips fall where they may.”

Of course, we all want to know if Dixon is best equipped to run Kelly’s fast-paced, no-huddle, read-option offense the way he did at Oregon.  Dixon said he’s not expecting to Kelly the exact offense he ran his senior year.

“(Kelly) can tailor his offense to whomever is presented at that given time and it’s good to see,” Dixon said. “If you have a dual threat quarterback, everyone will say they want to throw the ball first because you never want to have that stigma of you just being a running quarterback. Chip Kelly has made it known that he wants to throw the ball and mix up the run and the pass.”

Looking at how things evolved in his professional career over the five years since that season-ending knee injury during his senior year at Oregon, Dixon hasn’t had the best of breaks and has strived to make the best of a bad situation.

For the first 10 games of his senior season with the Ducks, Dixon was mentioned as a Heisman Trophy candidate and possibly a high-round draft pick.  With the injury, Dixon’s stock dropped significantly. The Steelers drafted him in the fifth round as a backup to Roethlisberger.

Dixon started his first game for the Steelers in 2009 against the Baltimore Ravens when Roethlisberger and backup Charlie Batch went down because of injuries. He completed 12 passes for 26 for 145 yards with one interception and ran for 27 yards on three carries with one touchdown.

With Roethlisberger suspended for the first four games of the 2010 season, Dixon defeated the Atlanta Falcons and completed 68 percent of his throws for a career-high of 254 yards. But he got hurt in the next game where he tore the meniscus in his left knee.  The Steelers released him after the 2011 season.

For all setbacks and the fact that he could only get a practice squad job in Baltimore, Dixon refuses to feel sorry for himself and views every situation is an opportunity to show what he can do.

“As far as getting a starting job, I had an opportunity with (Pittsburgh) and I came out on top. I was excited about it,” Dixon said. “Unfortunately, it ended the way it did. But I’m moving forward. I did have an opportunity and now another opportunity has come. I just want to be ready when it comes.”