Stanford head coach David Shaw thinks his former quarterback landed in a good spot. The Kansas City Chiefs drafted Kevin Hogan in the fifth round last April and Shaw said recently at the Pac-12 media days that he’s in a good spot.
“Oh, I'm so excited for him, for many reasons,” Shaw said. “Number one, Andy Reid is one of the better quarterback guys in the league.”
I remember when the Chiefs first hired Andy Reid that I was excited because they had a guy who was good with quarterbacks. So far with Alex Smith in Kansas City, that’s been proven right. Andy has gotten the most out of Alex.
Shaw also pulled back the curtain a little bit on his version of the West Coast offense.
“They have a similar scheme,” Shaw said. “It's not exactly the same, but if you think about the branches of the West Coast offense where of course it starts with Bill Walsh and Sid Gillman and then goes from Bill now down to Mike Holmgren, and on Mike Holmgren's staff was Andy Reid and Jon Gruden. I worked for Jon Gruden. Most of our offense is directly down from the Jon Gruden line, whereas Andy Reid has got his own line, so it's really, really similar but just some different nuances, and a lot of it is familiar to Kevin.”
I wonder if his familiarity with the scheme will matter this year. I’ve kinda assumed that Tyler Bray and Aaron Murray are the only candidates for the No. 2 job this year while Hogan will fit in someplace down the line.
“I mean, he's very excited,” Shaw continued. “I think he's got an efficient, intelligent, athletic quarterback ahead of him, so a guy that he can watch every single day and try to emulate, and I know he's excited about being behind Alex and really watching Alex grow this year.”
Alex is probably a pretty good leader in that quarterback room. He can communicate well and he seems willing to help. Physical limitations aside, this is a good spot for Hogan.