The Chip Wagon

The Philosophy and Evolution of the Eagles Run Game Part 13- The Sweep

Warning! This is going to be a long one. Primarily because it is perhaps my favorite foundational running play that the Eagles run. What you will see in this post is how the Eagles take one of the oldest plays in football, execute it to near perfection and then continue to layer different concepts on top of it to keep defensive players guessing. 

Before we dive deep in with lots of screenshots, one of the other reasons the Eagles sweep is one of my favorite plays is because it is so damned pretty. Some people love to see the long bomb, some love the one-handed catch, some love the big hit over the middle. Me? I love to see big ass offensive lineman get down the field and take out linebackers and safeties. In short, this is why I love the sweep and this is why I love Jason Kelce:

The Philosophy and Evolution of Eagles Run Game Part 10- The Split Zone

In Parts 8 and 9 we highlighted how the Eagles started to run more plays under center in order to not tip their hand on the direction of the inside zone playside. It will be interesting to see how much this continues in 2015 now that we’ve had a complete overhaul of our RB corps. As pointed out by Sheil Kapadia:

According to ESPN Stats and Information, Murray is second among free-agent running backs in yards-per-rush out of the shotgun over the last two seasons, behind only new backfield partner Ryan Mathews.

However, in 2013 and 2014 one of the Eagles very favorite plays is the split zone. The split zone is a very common variation on the inside zone that many different teams run. The general idea is to run inside zone with your 5 OL to the playside. This will often involve leaving the backside edge defender unblocked like we do in our inside zone from the Shotgun formation. However, on this play, the QB does not “block” the edge defender because he’s under center and will turn his back to the defense. This defender now becomes the assignment for the H-back who starts lined up on the opposite of the formation. Let’s take a look at a few examples.

Everybody Blocks

The Eagles got the running game going again yesterday. I wish there was some new wrinkle or new scheme change they made that allowed them to jump start the running game. However, their success yesterday came down to one thing: Execution. Quite simply the Eagles did a much better job up front and as a result, McCoy looked a lot more like the 2013 version. In addition to great OL play in the run game, the Eagles receiving corps put forth an excellent day blocking downfield which lead to some of McCoy and Sproles' bigger runs. But by and large, this was the same scheme and same play calls. Inside zone, outside zone, sweep read and power play. Let's have a look at a few. 

A Look at the 4 Verticals Concept

By my count, Sanchez and the Eagles are a perfect 7 for 7 in the red zone since he's taken over the starting job. The Eagles are doing a much better job at scoring TDs instead of field goals once they get into the opponent's territory. However if you evaluate what the Eagles are doing schematically, it really isn't any different than what they have been doing the last couple of years under Chip. Chip continues to do a great job of scheming one-on-ones as we get closer to the opponents end zone and the major difference the past 2 weeks is that the players are executing better. Earlier today, we wrote about how the Eagles are finding TD success with the 3 x1 formation.  From a schematic standpoint another concept that has really stuck out is 4 Verticals.

This is a concept that was covered very well by @SheilKapadia and @Coach_Flinn over at  Birds 24/7. Let's take a look how the Eagles have used this concept the last couple of weeks to lead to score TDs instead of FGs.

On the Eagles first offensive play from scrimmage against the Panthers, the Eagles went with the 4 vertical concept. The really interesting thing is how the Eagles dress it up. This is 1st down and the Eagles are in their 12 personnel on what appears to be a run-heavy package with James Casey and Brent Celek. Seeing this formation, you almost expect the split zone with Casey coming across the formation. To counter, the Panthers keep 8 defenders in the box to defend the run which leaves only one deep safety

Read more here. 

 

Why Chip Loves Him Some TEs

Ryan has given you a beautiful piece on Brent Celek. With that in mind, here's more on the Eagle TEs and how Chip uses them. As you might expect, I'm more interested in blocking than that other stuff.

We'll start with a first quarter play featuring Zack Ertz.