When putting together an offense comprised of Texas Tech football alums based on their NFL careers, there would be plenty of firepower across the board.
The NFL has undergone an offensive revolution in the last two decades. And just like in the NCAA game, the Texas Tech football program has had a huge hand in the evolution of the sport.
The best evidence is Kliff Kingsbury. The current head coach of the Arizona Cardinals was hired to head up an NFL franchise in 2019 despite being in the coaching profession for just a decade and having never coached in the NFL.
The fact that he was able to land one of the 32 most coveted jobs in the football coaching industry despite going just 35-40 as a head coach in the college ranks ruffled some feathers of those who still subscribed to the old school way of looking at the profession.
Many people still believe that an NFL head coach should have to pay his dues and work his way up the ladder through years of toiling away as an assistant in the league. They think that the process of going from an analyst to a position coach to a coordinator and then to a head coaching position is what makes the best and most well-rounded coach.
But that way of thinking is starting to be replaced. Around the league, teams are beginning to target coaches because of their expertise and innovation rather than their experience and reputation. And almost all of the coaches to fit that mold are offensive innovators.
For instance, in 2017 the Los Angeles Rams hired 30-year-old offensive guru Sean McVay to be the youngest head coach in NFL history. Though he did have eight years as an NFL assistant on his resume (including three as the offensive coordinator of the Washington Redskins), he would never have been given a shot to lead a franchise at the age of 30 had he been coaching two or three decades ago. But because of his offensive mind, he was given a shot and in the years since he’s led the Rams to an NFC championship while becoming one of the most respected coaches in the game.
In fact, it was McVay’s instant success that opened doors for Kingsbury in the NFL. After all, Kingsbury said last offseason that he would have never been hired as a head coach were it not for McVay.
Though the Cardinals managed to go just 5-10-1 in Kingsbury’s debut season of 2019, it was not because of the offense. Some analysts even suggest that Arizona’s offense was the most improved in the NFL last season after adding Kingsbury and 2019’s No. 1 overall pick, QB Kyler Murray.
It was another chapter in the continued story of how Texas Tech has been at the forefront of football’s offensive revolution across all levels of the game. And though the last two decades have seen the Red Raiders’ influence only grow more prevalent thanks to the spread offense craze that has swept across the football landscape, the truth is that fantastic offensive players have been coming out of the Texas Tech football program for generations.
Thus, it might be fun to think about what an all-time NFL offensive team comprised of Red Raiders might look like. As we put that list together, we will give the nod to players that had better professional careers rather than simply going on how big of a legend they may have been in Lubbock.
So let’s take a look at the all-time Red Raider NFL offense. And where else should we begin but with the best player on the planet?