Earlier this week Chip Kelly was asked about his "QB-Friendly System":
"You try to make a friendly system for the quarterback, running back, wide receiver, offensive line — that's your job as a coach," Kelly said. "If it's not a quarterback friendly system, it's not a good system."
Later, Kelly explained that the only difference in the offense will be that they might add a throw or 2 that Mark likes. One play, that Nick Foles clearly loved was route combinations that include a snag concept. This was covered brilliantly by @SheilKapadia and @Coach_Flinn during the season last year. This concept has once again been a major staple in the 2014 offense and is a good example of the friendly reads the offense gives the QB in Chip's offense.
Perhaps more notably, this concept and route combination is almost always featured in our opening drive of the game. We've run this snag concept in 6 of our 8 opening drives this year. Chip likes to run it with various personnel and with different route combinations. The snag route is the one common thread as it represents a nice quick and easy throw for the QB to get started. Let's have a look at a few. The Eagles have 2 WRs lined up on the bottom of the screen. Jeremy Maclin will run the snag route and Zach Ertz runs a post. McCoy completes the combination by going to the flat:
Here's another combination in week 2 against the Colts which resulted in a big play from Zach Ertz. Here we have 12 personnel with 3 WRs at the top of the screen. This time Celek runs the snag route, Maclin runs the flat, and Ertz will run the deep corner route:
per Coach Flinn:
"It’s an easy read for the quarterback," Flinn said. "He’s always gonna read deep first, so we look at the corner route first. His back leg hits the ground on his drop, he looks corner. His feet move, he looks snag. He shuffles his feet again, he throws the ball to the flat. So it’s a hi-lo, look deep first, then make your read, then throw it to your checkdown in the flat."
and Nick hits Zach Ertz over the top:
Week 3 against the 49ers we ran the same concept 3 times on the opening drive alone. The first one was only a 2 man route combination with Jordan Matthews running the flat and Maclin running the snag route:
We went right back to it on the next play and the safety jumped the snag and almost picked it off. We went back to it one more time, this time with the 3 man route combination. Matthews to the flat, Celek on the Deep Corner, and Maclin on the snag:
Foles had Celek on the deep corner route, but slightly overthrows him:
Opening drive against the Giants. One of the advantages of running the 3 x 1 set is you will often draw one-on-one coverage on the lone receiver on the other side. That's what happens in this case. Celek runs the flat, Matthews runs the deep corner, and Maclin the snag route. Cooper is matched up one-on-one on the bottom:
As the play develops, it looks like Foles could have had Matthews over the top on the corner route. Instead he elects to go to Cooper in one-on-one coverage:
Opening drive against the Cards. McCoy gets wide open in the flat:
Opening drive against the Texans. The Eagles run the 2 man combination again with Maclin running the snag and Jordan Matthews running a wheel route this time:
Here, Brooks Reed drops in coverage to take away the snag route enabling the safety to stay deep to help on Matthews over the top. Nick is forced to take the sack on one of the only instances where this combination doesn't have a receiver open:
Will this be one of the "comfort plays" that remains in the Mark Sanchez playbook? Based on the frequency in which we run it and the easy read progression it has for a QB, I suspect so. Just for good measure, here are the Eagles running it with Sanchez at the helm last week:
Looks like Sanchez had a shot at hitting Maclin on the deep post corner. Instead he tucked the ball down and scrambled for a positive gain:
Keep an eye out for this concept tonight. There's a good chance you'll recognize it in the opening drive.
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