The Chip Wagon

Brains and Brawn- Why Carson Wentz is the Real Deal

When Carson Wentz was drafted #2 overall by the Philadelphia Eagles, there was little to question about his physical attributes and skillset. It seems the biggest question was whether he could transition from FCS to the NFL, adjust to the speed of the game and eventually handle the mental adjustments that are required of top NFL QBs. From the Senior Bowl, to the Combine to private workouts; news started to leak about how impressed organizations were with Wentz's football IQ. For all the positive endorsements Pederson, Reich and DeFillipo have given Wentz since he joined the Eagles, I don't think anyone was anticipating the kind of results we've seen on the field through the first 2 weeks. Before we get to that, let's start with a quick note on the physical attributes. Folks like the irreplaceable Fran Duffy (@fduffy3) have done an amazing job of highlighting some of the jaw-dropping throws Carson has made through weeks 1 & 2. Below is just another example of why Carson Wentz belongs on NFL turf on Sundays. Not every NFL QB can make a throw like this:

Generally when a QB gets picked in the top 5, he has off the charts physical attributes. However the phrase "how does he project" often gets thrown around and is ultimately what makes or breaks a lot of GM and coaches tenures. As we've all witnessed over and over again, there is so much more to a star NFL QB than physical attributes (see Vick, Russell, Griffin III, etc.) As fun as it is to have a QB who makes throws like the one above, by far the most promising thing about Carson Wentz's game is how well he's handled the mental responsibilities of the position. Let's have a look at a few plays.  

The Eagles Ground Game: From Hot Mess to Work in Progress

Needless to say, the Eagles really needed to get the ground game working if we were to expect to see any improvements on the offensive side of the ball. Fortunately, we saw that on Sunday against a tough New York Jets front. Fran Duffy over at Philadelphiaeagles.com did a great job outlining how the Eagles game-planned against that Jets defensive front with a heavy dose of outside running to avoid the interior of the Jets DL. Certainly, after reviewing the All-22 we saw some major improvements in the execution of the run game, but Chip also did an excellent job of moving away from the inside zone and sweep play and introduced a bit more diversity in the run game. In this post, we'll talk a little bit about how Chip mixed up formations and used a heavy dose of outside zone to attack the Jets with some decent success. That said, the Eagles only averaged 3.2 yards per carry on Sunday, and even against a strong Jets front, that is a number that needs to improve moving forward. As you'll see in this post, this group is still a work in progress who now faces another challenge in dealing with Andrew Gardner's season-ending injury. 

The Philosophy and Evolution of the Eagles Run Game Part 12- The Outside Zone

Hi Everyone! First of all, I apologize for the extended hiatus, it's been over 3 months since my last post. The break was in part because of a busy life, but we also had some technical issues on the blog and had to kind of build up the domain from scratch. On that note, if you bookmark or favorite this site, please update your links to http://chipwagon.typepad.com. In short, we didn't notice that our thechipwagon.com domain expired and someone scooped it up before we could notice. The result was a pretty big mess. Anyway, it appears we've sorted through most of those issues, but please let me know if you have any issues access the blog or older posts. 

Moving on, we'll finally get back to finishing up the multi-part opus on Chip Kelly's run game and how it has evolved over the last several seasons. In the first 11 parts we really focused on the inside zone as the basic foundation and the different ways that Chip dresses it up, packages things, messes with formations/alignments, etc. That was worth a lot of content because it really is the Eagles bread-and-butter foundational play. Another play the Eagles focus on is their outside zone run.

The Philosophy and Evolution of the Eagles Run Game Part 1- Why Shotgun?

I came back for a teaser during the Super Bowl week promising a more regular return to blogging. Unfortunately, other things got in the way, but I've also been diving deep into the 2014 film to put together a rather large project to get us through the first half of the offseason. Last year I dove into the scheme and execution behind the Eagles Top 25 plays of Chip Kelly's rookie season with the Eagles. That was a fun project and we might get to it again this offseason, but first with the help of 2 full seasons of Chip Kelly's offense on tape, I wanted to try and put together a more definitive overview of the Chip Kelly Philadelphia Eagles offense. So over the course of the next few weeks (months?) we'll be taking a deep dive into the philosophy behind Chip's offense as well as how it has evolved from Oregon, to his first year with Philadelphia, and through his second year. What works, what doesn't, where we need personnel, and who that personnel might be? Finally, we'll even add some predictions/recommendations for the future based on what else is happening in the college football and NFL world. To be perfectly honest, there's a lot of content to come out and I really don't have a clear vision how I am going to lay all this out in a comprehensive way, but I'll do my best. 

We're going to start the series by taking a deep look into the Eagles run game. Quite honestly, the Eagles run offense is quite simple on the surface. We basically run 4 plays. Inside zone, outside zone, sweep and power. That's it. However, Chip does a nice job of dressing things up in different ways and also incorporating the read-option that has lead to one of the more productive rushing attacks in the NFL the last two years. 

I want to kick off this series with a post that addresses one of the more controversial aspects of Chip's run game philosophy. It's something that has bothered some Eagles fans, as well as players over the last 2 seasons. 

Why Shotgun?

Misdirecting the Cowboys

Heading into the Cowboys game on Thursday on a short week, Chip clearly saw something on tape of the Dallas defense. Most likely he saw a very aggressive defense that attacks in the run game. As a result, Chip tortured the Cowboys defense on the first 2 opening drives by running misdirection plays over and over again. Whether it was tempo or style, the Cowboys looked completely dumbfounded.