Bleeding Green Nation
Analyzing Philadelphia’s offensive performance from their Week 11 win over Washington.
What a huge win that was for the Philadelphia Eagles. I had a lot of time to get into the Washington Commanders film over the weekend, so I have a lot of takes this week! Let’s go.
I will immediately get a couple of controversial takes out of the way. I’ve read a lot online, and the consensus appears to be that...
I disagree with both points above, and I’ll try to explain why throughout the article.
Let's start with the first 3rd down of the game. You know a quarterback and receiver are on the same page when they make a play like this. The drag route AJ Brown runs is fantastic against man coverage but pretty useless against zone coverage. AJ Brown does an excellent job slowing down to find an opening and Jalen Hurts throws an excellent ball. The ball is right on AJ Brown rather than in front of him, which allows AJ Brown to turn upfield, avoid the defender, and pick up the first down. This is one of those impressive plays which looks easy, but there’s a lot of good here.
This is such an interesting play to break down. The first time you watch this, it looks like a bad miss on 3rd down by Hurts. He has DeVonta Smith running wide-open across the middle of the field but chooses to try to win with his legs instead. However, after watching it again, I don’t think this is fully on Hurts. Firstly, there seems to be an issue with the timing of this play. Hurts takes a deep drop, which means that the quick throw to DeVonta Smith isn’t as open as it should be. This should be a quick drop and throw. Secondly, check out the safety coming downhill. By the time Hurts hits the back of his drop, that safety has seen DeVonta Smith coming across the field. If Hurts throws this ball, it would result in a huge hit. I can understand why Hurts doesn’t make this throw. He probably should still throw it but this is why the All22 matters. It’s not as bad of a miss as it looks.
I wasn’t going to bother posting this one until I noticed the unbalanced line! That’s cool. Lane Johnson is lined up next to Jordan Mailata, which is a big reason why this works. The Eagles don’t normally line up like this for a tush push, so the Commanders should have realized something was up. It may not work as easily the next time!
I wasn’t going to post this either, but I thought some of you would ask for it. Usually, I know what the offense is trying to accomplish with a trick play. I have no idea what this is. AJ Brown doesn’t fake a...
