The Philadelphia Eagles are one of four teams in the NFL with a 10-3 record, but they’ve lost two straight games, and to two of those other teams — the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys (The Baltimore Ravens are the other 10-3 team). Neither of those games were remotely close, and the Eagles have scored a grand total of two offensive touchdowns in those two contests.
There’s a lot wrong with an offense run by head coach Nick Sirianni and coordinated by Brian Johnson. The run game and the pass game are not as tied together by the quarterback run game with Jalen Hurts as it was last season. Hurts’ connections with his receivers have not been as consistent. The run game has not been as dynamic, and the coaches coming up with the plans have been less able to confound defenses with different wrinkles pre- and post-snap. The Eagles primarily use two personnel groups — 11 personnel 71% of the time, and 12 personnel 18% of the time.
Perhaps most interesting/frustrating is the Eagles’ insistence on shying away from pre-snap motion. Overall, per Sports Info Solutions, the Eagles have used motion on 25% of their plays, which ranks last in the NFL. But their Success Rate when using motion is 12th in the league.
“We motion for a very distinct reason,” Sirianni said in 2021. “We’re going to motion if we can create an advantage, if we can figure out what defense they’re in, if we – yeah, majorly those two things. [Also,] if we can get a guy in position to do his job better.”
The Eagles also don’t use a lot of shifts in stacks and bunches to set a defense on edge, while several other offenses have excelled with this concept.
The Rams WRs alignment and releases (Nacua and Kupp's high-low start from the outside two spots) mess with how the Ravens sort out their coverage. Leading to a wide open Nacua. pic.twitter.com/1b4RmNoiwQ
— Nate Tice (@Nate_Tice) December 14, 2023
Motion report, updated through Week 13!
League-wide offenses are showing an advantage using motion at the snap on both run and pass plays (still true even if we exclude Dolphins, too).
Data via @ESPNStatsInfo video tracking team. pic.twitter.com/Y1G1LmXDBm
— Seth Walder (@SethWalder) December 7, 2023
Overall, this has become a highly static offense, and that’s true in both the run and pass games. And when the Eagles do use motion, it’s not often as impactful and creative as it could and should be.
When you think of the NFL’s most productive motion teams — the San Francisco 49ers, Miami Dolphins, the Green Bay Packers, and the Los Angeles Rams, you see the benefits to all levels. Because there are different reasons to use motion.
- There’s motion to define, which allows the quarterback to better understand when it’s man or zone coverage.
- There’s motion to disrupt, which happens when you either move a player to a vulnerable defensive spot, or give him a head-start into coverage off the snap.
There doesn’t seem to be a real plan to Philly’s motion concepts. For instance, you would think that receiver DeVonta Smith would excel in the kinds of “head-start” motions the Dolphins use to get Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle into matchup advantages with enemy defenders.
Instead, Smith’s motions are less impactful for the most part. And when the Eagles do get one of their receivers rolling in that fashion, there doesn’t seem to be a connection to the quarterback. Against the 49ers in Week 13, there was a nice plan to get receiver A.J. Brown across and out to the boundary, where he was single-covered by safety Tashaun Gipson in Cover-0. Smith was covered by cornerback Ambry Thomas. But because Hurts got unblocked pressure to his backside on a six-man rush, there wasn’t time for things to play out.
Where the Eagles really aren’t using motion — and where they really should do it more often — is in the run game. Through Week 14, Philadelphia has run the ball with motion on 97 attempts, which is last in the league, and by a wide margin — the Cardinals rank second with 124 attempts. To put that in perspective, the San Francisco 49ers lead the league with 308.
One reason the Eagles should run more with motion is that they’re pretty good at it. On those 97 attempts, they’ve amassed 394 yards, 232 yards after contact, 4.1 yards per carry, and 2.4 yards after contact per attempt. Motion especially helps Hurts when he’s part of the designed run game. Philly’s quarterback has 26 rushing attempts this season with motion for 153 yards, 5.9 yards per carry, 2.8 yards after contact per attempt, and one rushing touchdown.
On this 11-yard run against the Cowboys in Week 14, the motion from running back D’Andre Swift moved Dallas’ run strength, and gave Hurts an easy opening for a big play on second-and-5.
Hurts got himself a 12-yard touchdown run against the Bills in Week 12 with a very similar concept.
In this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” the guys get into the specific issues with the Eagles’ offense as they prepare to face the Seattle Seahawks on Monday Night Football, and how some variance on the play sheet would be helpful.
You can watch this week’s “Xs and Os,” featuring Week 15’s biggest NFL matchups, right here:
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