While the rest of the NFL spent a lot of time this offseason thinking about the Eagles’ special quarterback sneak — let’s call it Brotherly Shove or Tush Push — the Eagles were thinking about it too.
They thought of ways to protect it.
“Well, you always want to protect your plays, and the quarterback sneak play was a big part of what we did here,” offensive coordinator Brian Johnson said. “You’re always trying to find unique ways to create conflict on defense and add little subtleties that improve your core plays.”
What does Johnson mean by protecting a game? He thinks every wrinkle they add can give defenses additional food for thought. That’s one of the reasons why you make sure you get it on tape, even in a situation that may not seem worthy.
We saw one of those wrinkles come to life in the Eagles’ 38-31 victory over the Commanders on Sunday afternoon.
On a 3rd-and-1 from the Washington 7-yard line with just 1:53 left in the game, the Eagles crowded to the line in what the Commanders expected to be a quarterback sneak.
Only this time, Jalen Hurts handed the ball to D’Andre Swift for a touchdown that put the Eagles up 14 points.
This game wasn’t just about getting the first down. It was about the chess game the Eagles are playing with defensive coordinators in the NFL who are desperately trying to stop a game that has been almost automatic for the past two years.
“When you make a play like we did yesterday, everything has a reaction, right?” said head coach Nick Sirianni. “So the reaction to that is going to be that the next teams we play are going to see this on tape and they might have to pay a little less attention to the quarterback sneak to stop the other things, right?
“That’s why you do these things. That’s the thought process. In everything you do, try to play the game of chess. As a coaching staff, we spent a lot of time on this in the offseason. All of us as a coaching staff, even to the point where you ask the defensive coaches: What would you do to prevent this? Oh, but what if we did this to achieve that?”
While the entire coaching staff works together on plays, concepts and designs, Sirianni particularly singles out senior offensive assistant Marcus Brady in this regard. The former Colts offensive coordinator, who was QB coach while Sirianni was OC in Indianapolis, was hired by the Eagles in an official capacity last offseason.
Brady’s job includes studying a variety of game tapes at the professional, college and even high school levels to look for ideas that could help the Eagles. When he sees a play that he thinks could be helpful, the Eagles research it more and then if they really like it, they work to incorporate it.
“One of his jobs,” Sirianni said, “is to look at the NFL and college football to see if there are interesting things that fit into what we’re doing.”
However, it’s not all on Brady. The entire staff enjoys finding plays, and Johnson said it becomes “contagious throughout the staff.” Hell, he even gets a few trick plays sent to him by people who aren’t on the staff.
What’s the most unusual way Johnson has ever found a piece?
“You see some things – social media really is like a gift and a curse sometimes, right?” Johnson said. “You get some really cool ideas and you get to see some highlight pieces, that’s just the world we live in. So you see a lot of really cool ideas in just a 10 second clip of a piece.
“And then it forces you to do even more research, find the play in the game and then really analyze it, and then you start to figure out how often they run it. The technology that we now have at our disposal to be able to see a clip on the internet and find multiple examples of it and really analyze the piece, call it up and find out more about it is something that makes the job fun.”
This isn’t the first wrinkle the Eagles have added to their signature QB sneak look, nor will it be the last.
Every time they make one of these plays, they capitalize on a great play in the moment and continue to strengthen a cornerstone of their offense.
“Anytime you’ve talked a lot about something like that and it works, you’re excited, the guys are excited and the guys have to go out there and make it happen,” Sirianni said. “Everything can look pretty on paper, but it depends on the people we have and them doing everything in a situation like this. That’s what they did and I have a lot of confidence in those guys.”
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