Sports

Published: Sunday, Sep. 13, 2009

NFL: Chris Gocong settles in as Eagles linebacker

Former Cal Poly standout has learned to play new position

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PHILADELPHIA — It was impossible not to notice Chris Gocong when he played college football at Cal Poly. He was the guy constantly planting the opposing quarterback into the ground.

In 41 games, he had 42 sacks, including a DivisionI-AA record total of 231⁄2 his senior season, when he won the Buck Buchanan Award as the nation’s best defensive player. All that dirty work was done from the defensive end position.

And then, after being taken by the Eagles in the third round of the 2006 draft, Gocong arrived at the NovaCare Complex and was informed by defensive coordinator Jim Johnson that he was now a linebacker.

“He’s a smart guy,” Eagles coach Andy Reid said. "He had great change of direction and quickness, so we thought we could develop him into an outside linebacker. And then he had the pass-rush ability. We felt like we could use him as a blitzer, too.”

Fast forward to 2009 and Gocong, 25, is indeed a starting outside linebacker. To be more precise, he is the Eagles’ strong-side linebacker, which is perhaps the least glamorous defensive position on the field.

“I would almost compare it to being a fullback,” Gocong said. “I could have a great game and have two tackles. But if I have a bad game, everybody is going to know it. I do know that being a linebacker is essential to this defense because we really keep things together between the defensive line and the secondary.”

General manager Tom Heckert doesn’t disagree with the view that the strong-side linebacker has become something less than glamorous in the 21st-century NFL.

Because teams “are playing so much more nickel,” the strong-side linebacker “is coming out of the game,” Heckert said. “It used to be that you’d only be in nickel on third down, and every other down you’d be in your base package. Now, you see a lot of teams go to nickel on second down because of what the opposing team is doing.”

Sean McDermott, who has replaced the late Johnson as defensive coordinator, said he intentionally left Gocong on the field in the second preseason game, against Indianapolis — even in situations where he’d normally go to the nickel package.

“It was the only way we could make sure our strong-side linebackers played enough,” McDermott said.

Adaptation has been the theme of Gocong’s four seasons in the NFL. His transformation from defensive end to linebacker started with hours and hours of film study. He spent his rookie season on injured reserve after suffering a preseason neck injury.

“It was tough changing my mind-set,” he said. “As a defensive end, you really have a one-track mind: get the quarterback.

Becoming a linebacker, you have to learn how to think and move and communicate. That was the hard part.”

His primary teacher was Steve Spagnuolo, the St. Louis Rams’ head coach who was the Eagles’ linebackers coach the year the team drafted Gocong.

“Spags had me watching tons of film,” Gocong said. “If I wasn’t doing my rehab, I was in watching film. I watched route combinations, learned about cover three and cover two and man coverage in certain routes. They’d show me indicators like formations. They’d tell me when I should be looking for crossing routes. It was brand new to me. I had to learn how to watch film as a linebacker.”

Despite his extensive classroom education, Gocong couldn’t truly learn how to play linebacker until his second NFL season, when he finally got on the field. He was immediately thrust into the role of starting strong-side linebacker.

“There is definitely a lot more thinking at that position than at defensive end,” Gocong said. “It’s hard to play when you’re thinking, and it’s something I had to get rid of. I had to learn to stop thinking and just react.”

Heckert said he started to see a more instinctive Gocong near the end of last season.

“The difference is glaring,” he said. “As the season progressed last year, he got better and better, especially with the coverage stuff. It’s just more natural to him now.”

Covering running backs and tight ends while also defending against the run is the primary role of a strong-side linebacker, and during Johnson’s 10 years as the defensive coordinator, nobody did it better for the Eagles than Carlos Emmons.

“I think a lot of people mention, and Jim used to mention, Carlos Emmons as a prototypical strong-side linebacker,” McDermott said. “For years, we worked to find a guy that kind of personified Carlos’ skill set.

“With Chris, I think we’ve found a very solid strong-side linebacker who can both stop the run and play in the passing game, and come off the edge in a blitz capacity for us. It’s a three-pronged approach to the position.”

There may be three prongs to Gocong’s position, but the blitz prong is the one least used.

“Maybe four or five times a game,” he said. “When we’re in our regular defense, I’m thinking about the run. And if I’m covering a fullback in the flat, I have to make sure I give a shot to the tight end because we have some great tight ends in our division.”

At times during his second season, Gocong lined up as a defensive end in the Eagles’ nickel packages. He still practices that part of his game on occasion, but was almost never used that way last season. Consequently, the sacks have been few and far between: Gocong has three in 32 career games.

“We know he can do it, but we have other nickel rushers on the defensive line and they are guys that do it all the time,” Heckert said.

The Eagles’ primary pass-rushing defensive linemen last season were Trent Cole and Chris Clemons at end, with Darren Howard and Victor Abiamiri at tackle.

Four years into his NFL career, Gocong thinks more like a linebacker than a defensive end, but buried deep in his engineering mind remains the kid from Cal Poly who used to put his hand on the ground, pin his ears back, and chase down opposing quarterbacks.

“The defensive end is buried down in there,” Gocong said. “They might have to call it back every once in a while, but I definitely watch film as a linebacker. I would say I’m a full-blown linebacker now. But I would like to get more sacks, and that’s the end in me. As a linebacker corps, I think, we need to get more balls out. We want more forced fumbles this season.”