The Chip Wagon

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. 

Execution? Yes. But How Much is Scheme to Blame?

For the past two weeks, most of this blog's content has been focused on the poor execution of the offensive personnel. This jives with most of what everyone else is saying. The other popular narrative is that Chip's magical innovations have worn off and the entire NFL has caught up. While there may some truth to that, I think it's mostly lazy reporting from the usual analysts who would rather go for the headline grab instead of hunkering down and trying to dig deep down to see where the real issues lie. 

Let me start by saying that I truly believe the biggest issue of the 2015 offense so far has been execution. And it's not just on the questionable starters Barbre and Gardner. As we've shown, the veterans are making tons of mistakes. We've shown numerous examples of where, if the personnel just did their jobs the way they were assigned, the offense would look a lot better. I wish I could say that that's all it is, but I have major reservations about Sam Bradford and we'll have to wait for a bit of a larger sample size to make radical conclusions there. But is it really that simple? Does it really come down to just execution, or does Chip, for the perhaps the first time in his NFL tenure, have to take a long, hard look in the mirror and see if the problem lies within the schemes and gameplans he, Shurmur and others have drawn up thus far in 2015. I do believe that time has come because some of the decisions Chip has made in regards to personnel and scheme just aren't making much sense to me. I thought I'd share a few thoughts heading into the Jets game. 

Time to Mix Things Up in the Ground Game?

The Eagles didn't have as much success on the ground as most of us expected heading into the season opener last week. That said, it seems the majority of the narrative has been that they simply didn't try to establish a running game, or that the Falcons didn't do anything special to slow down the Eagles running attack. In fact, one of my game film idols and film guru Greg Cosell even said that the Falcons didn't do anything to specifically take away the Eagles' inside zone game on the Eye in the Sky Podcast (the best podcast around might I add) this week. I beg to differ as you'll see in a few moments. 

Preseason Week 4: Power Play and Josh Andrews

The 4th and final preseason game is kinda like those recap shows network TV does on popular TV series instead  of airing a new episode. You might have it on in the background, but you are not going to pay much attention to it. For some of the fringe players, this is the last chance to make an impression. 

Obviously not much scheme stuff to talk about in a pretty vanilla gameplan, but we managed to find a few things to talk about.