The Evolution of the Inside Zone: Tight Ends

One of the biggest stories from the win against the Cardinals 2 weeks ago, was the emergence and play of the tight ends Brent Celek and Zach Ertz. As we showed here at the Chip Wagon, Kelly focused on using the tight ends to create mismatches and to also neutralize the blitzing of two of their ILBs Dansby and Washington. 

The statistical output of the tight ends wasn't nearly as significant, but their contribution to the Eagles offensive success in the 2nd half against the Lions played a huge part in the win. 

Everyone knows about Chip Kelly's bread and butter play, the inside zone read. We've written a lot about it. The idea behind that play is to leave an edge defender unblocked, and gain an extra blocker on the playside. I am not entirely sure if this was part of the plan coming in, or whether it was weather related, but we are starting to see the evolution of this inside zone play to add a few additional wrinkles. 

For one, we are starting to block that edge defender. Several times in the 2nd half when we started to get our running game going, we left the TE, most often Celek in to block. Check out the hole in the C gap opened up by Johnson and Celek on the edge:

 

And again:

Here, at the top of the screen, he does a great job of sealing his man off inside:

 

One more here:

Big hole for Bryce, and a big play:

And then sometimes, we would leave the edge defender unblocked and read him:

And even when they play it perfectly, much like Shady did in the 4th quarter against Green Bay, he slips away:

In addition to just straight up blocking on the edge, we also employed the sift block as outlined by Sheil in the game against the Cards. Here we use James Casey to come across the formation and take out that edge defender. Here it is on a short yardage conversion for Polk as Casey demolishes his man:

And here it is again to the top of the formation. Casey clears the way for the Polk TD:

Finally, you are the edge defender. You've had Celek in your face for the whole 2nd half. When he isn't there, you've had an H-back come across the formation to take you out. We've also left you unblocked and "read" you. How about one more wrinkle?

Celek appears to be staying in to block on pass protection. Check out the 3 Lions on the second level focused on the play-fake. Celek peels off his block, all 4 Lions defenders go after Foles. Celek sneaks out the back for a big play that ices the cake:

Your move Alan Williams.