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They’re Saying that Sean Mannion Turned Malik Willis into a Respectable NFL Quarterback
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We don’t know too much about Eagles offensive coordinator Sean Mannion. He’s never called a play and has only been coaching for two years, spending 2024 as a Packers offensive assistant and then 2025 as QB coach.
He worked with Jordan Love, who threw for 3,381 yards and 23 touchdowns, bringing his interception number down from 11 to six. Love finished with a 66.3 completion percentage and 101.2 QB rating on a Green Bay team that lost to Chicago in the playoffs and had some key injuries on both sides of the ball. They really should have been a divisional round team, but alas, they were not.
What’s interesting though is GB fans pointing out how good backup Malik Willis played during a contract year:
Willis was a mess down in Tennessee. He played 11 games for the Titans and didn’t throw a touchdown. He tossed three picks while completing 53% of his passes and logging a 49.4 QB rating. He came to Green Bay last year and in two seasons backing up Love finished 70-89 for 972 yards, 6 touchdowns, zero interceptions, and a 134.6 rating. He ran 42 times for 261 yards and three touchdowns and fumbled the ball three times.
Mannion is naturally getting a lot of credit for this turnaround. And the bottom line is that Willis and Jalen Hurts aren’t dissimilar, at least in what we think they should be and how they should play. Willis’ 2024 and 2025 tape shows a lot of nice things. There’s read-and-pull stuff out of the shotgun, QB powers, play action, and a number of frozen ropes and darts. They seemed to do a good job moving the pocket and letting him make plays on the run. There are even a handful of scrambles where the guy looks like prime Michael Vick. A lot of what you see in the Willis tape is what Jalen Hurts did in his first couple of seasons, and hopefully starts doing again.
If nothing else, just having a fresh perspective is going to be good for this offense. Someone with a different voice to come in and prioritize, to point out what works, what doesn’t work, and what needs to be added and removed from the playbook. Mannion comes from that Matt LaFleur and Sean McVay/Kyle Shanahan tree, and we’ll see how much that rubs off on the Birds’ offense in year #1.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com