The Chip Wagon

The Philosophy and Evolution of Eagles Run Game Part 9- Counters and Crackbacks

In Part 8 we focused on the number of ways the Eagles mix up their formations as to not give away the playside direction of the run. One of the examples was lining the QB under center with the running back directly behind him, thus not dictating the direction of the run play. In addition to this wrinkle, the Eagles liked to run counter from this formation. They absolutely destroyed the New York Giants in the first game with this concept.

There are several main elements with the counter play off inside zone. The OL blocking assignments are essentially the same as inside zone. The image below shows that the Eagles will block inside zone to the right. Standard zone blocking:

The Philosophy and Evolution of the Eagles Run Game Part 3- Bubbles and Constraint

In part 1, I covered the basic philosophy and advantages of running the football from the Shotgun. Part 2, we touched on how the dynamics of those advantages are increased if your QB is a threat to run. One way teams have adjusted to try and regain that advantage in the box is to have a force defender (usually a safety or CB) cheat in and defend the backside run from the slot position. 

 

The Philosophy and Evolution of the Eagles Run Game Part 2- The Need for Speed

Yesterday, I kicked off this series with a detailed explanation of why Chip Kelly uses Shotgun as the formation of choice for his running game. In that post we highlighted how the shotgun gives the offense an arithmetic advantage against the defense and also touched on the importance associated with the QB being able to keep his eyes on the defense the whole time.  Of course one of the major things the shotgun formation opens up for the running game is the ability for a QB to read and essentially block a defender with his eyes. This gives the offense the numbers advantage we talked about yesterday. Certainly we have covered the read-option exhaustively on this blog over the years, but it's worth discussing a bit more here for the context of this series. 

No Cris Collinsworth, This is not the Read-Option

During the telecast on Sunday night, Chris Collinsworth referred to the Eagles running the "read-option pass" during a 3rd down conversion to Zach Ertz in the red zone. It is evaluations like this that make people conclude that the Eagles offensive scheme is simple and predictable. Yes, it is based on a smaller set of simple concepts, but the beauty and the complexity of the scheme is in the various options, various looks, and the different ways Chip dresses his plays up. Chris Brown has written some great stuff about "constraint plays". Chip Kelly is a master at drawing up various combinations of his plays and creating different options to catch defenses off guard who think they recognize a given play off film. 

Time for Foles

I may as well get the topic of the week out of the way early. We should hear today the results of Foles' latest X-Rays and whether he is able to return to full practices. Even if the result is positive, I don't expect Chip Kelly to announce Foles as the starter today. He'll likely wait it out and see how Foles looks in practice, but more importantly, why not make the Redskins gameplan for both QBs in a short week?

Let's face it. QBing in the NFL is not easy. Good QBs are hard to find, and more often than not, when you are forced to go to your back-up QB you can't expect them to dominate. The Mark Sanchez era in Philly got off to a nice start as Sanchez moved the ball and looked comfortable in the fast-paced offense. But as more teams got film on the new back-up, they slowly started to take away his comfort reads and he would have to evolve into a better QB over time. A few weeks back the discussion was whether Sanchez's career has been rejuvenated, or whether his success was coming from the system he was playing in. After his 6th start, it appears the jury is out. Mark Sanchez is what he is and always was. A flawed QB who doesn't make smart decisions and struggles with accuracy and consistency. That was on full display last night against the Cowboys: