The Chip Wagon

#8- The Emory and Henry Formation

#8 gets credit as one of the more bizarre plays of the year. Chip Kelly didn't wait long into his NFL tenure to work a little trickery into his game-planning. In opening week on Monday Night Football against the Washington Redskins amidst a blistering pace on offense Chip Kelly rolled out one of the most bizarre formations you will see in Pro Football:

This formation is called the Emory and Henry formation, and here is some interesting history behind it from Wikipedia:

The Emory & Henry Wasps are credited with inventing an American football offensive formation, named in the college's honor, that divides the offensive line and wide receivers into three groupings of three.^[14] While it is primarily used today as a trick play, it was revived in 2007 as an integral part of theA-11 offense, a high school football offensive scheme that was eventually banned due to the exploitation of loopholes in the high school rulebooks. The offense inspired Steve Spurrier to use variations of it as a trickplay formation at Florida and South Carolina named "Emory and Henry", as Spurrier attended Wasps games as a child growing up in nearby Johnson City, Tennessee.^[15] 

As you can see from the image above, this is the formation the Eagles lined up in that divided the formation up front in 3 groups of 3. 

Here's how the play transpired:

#10- The Packaged Triple Read Option

One of the major things to watch in 2014 in the continuing evolution of the Chip Kelly offense is the evolution of the packaged plays. We've discussed them extensively on the blog and they have been a regular feature on other sites when talking about Chip Kelly's offense. To open the Top 10 we are going to focus on a series of packaged plays which feature a minimum of 3 reads in the same play. As you will see, in these plays there is both a run and "pass" option built-in. The offensive line will block as though it is always an inside zone running play, but there are built in "pass" options. Let's start with this goalline touchdown against the Redskins:

Of course this ends up being an actual running play. However, based on the reaction of certain defenders on the play, Foles has other options. 

Evaluating Explosive Plays- Talent or Scheme?

Well if #18 on the Chip Wagon Top 25 didn't ruin your day on Sunday, Jimmy Kempski over at Philly.com most certainly would have ruined your Monday. 

Jimmy put together a pretty compelling list of statistics suggesting just how much Desean Jackson meant to this offense (SPOILER ALERT: A LOT). And if you really want to make yourself feel miserable check out the excellent work done about a month ago by Brent Cohen at Eagles Rewind. 

Now that I've gotten you properly depressed, it's time to work some magic and cheer you up. Before I do that I think it's important for me to state up front that I agree with the overall points of Jimmy and Brent. No matter how hard you try, no matter how much tape you watch, no matter how much you believe a bad apple can spoil the lot, there is simply no way that releasing Desean Jackson without receiving any compensation makes you a better team. It doesn't. Could the Eagles offense be better in 2014? Perhaps, but then you really have to consider just how much better it could have been with Desean still on the team. He's a special player in this league, so let's start with that:

#25-Bubble Screens and Welcome Back Mac!

Starting off the offseason series, I should mention that when I say top 25 "plays" what I might mean is a collection of plays. Sometimes I will focus on one single play, other times, I will focus on a collection of plays that were a key component of the 2013 Chip Kelly offense. Today, we will talk about the bubble screen and towards the end of the post we will show how newly signed Jeremy Maclin might just be the ideal missing piece from the 2013 offense with this play in mind. 

Chip Delivers Special Packages For XMas!

One of the fun things to watch evolve in Chip's offense this year, have been the packaged plays. We've broken them down a lot here at the Chip Wagon, and we compiled a decent summary during the bye week here. 

Chip Kelly and the Eagles rolled out a chunk of packaged plays last night and the Bears defenders had their heads spinning all night. The power of packaged plays is that it really forces the defenders to make a decision and then makes them pay for it. When executed properly the defense just can't make the right decision.