A Beautiful Mind

Posted: September 15th, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | Comments Off on A Beautiful Mind

Sean McVay is the hottest offensive mind in the NFL. Doug Pederson just won the Super Bowl, but I think he’s seen more as a collaborator than a singular offensive guru. McVay did amazing things with the Rams last year and deserves to be praised.

In case you didn’t see this, it is amazing.

https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1040042380186009605

We don’t know if Pederson has that kind of a memory. We do know that he has a good memory. Just look at some recent play-calls.

https://twitter.com/NFLFilms/status/1039944548800192518

In the Super Bowl, the Eagles ran Philly Special. There’s no way they’ll ever run that again, right? Sort of. In the season opener, they ran Philly Philly, a similar trick play and one they stole from the Patriots, who ran it unsuccessfully in the Super Bowl.

The Eagles used a brilliant running play to Nelson Agholor in the playoff win over the Falcons. Pederson knew the Falcons studied that play for the past six months so he ran a variation of it in the opener, once again catching them off guard.

That is exactly what you want in a play-caller. You need someone who can come up with a great idea and get his players to execute it in a big game. They you need to be able to add a wrinkle to it for the next time you play. You can’t repeat a special play. You need to build off it.

The Eagles haven’t played Tampa in several years so there’s no history involved in this gameplan. Still, Pederson knows the Bucs have studied the past few Eagles games. He knows they will have certain expectations. It is up to Pederson to decide what plays to put in for this week.

Pederson normally has a special play or two for each game. He doesn’t always use them. Philly Special was put in for the NFC Championship game against the Vikings. That game turned into a blowout so quickly that the Eagles never needed it. They kept the play for the Super Bowl and things worked out pretty good.

You can bet Pederson has had his staff looking for a play or two that could help jump start the offense if things are stagnant once again this week. Let’s hope Foles and the offense move the ball well enough in the base offense that they can save the tricks for a later game. We do know they’ll be in the gameplan in case they are needed.

*****

One thing that will help the Eagles offense is that the Bucs are a beat up defense. Jimmy Bama has the details here.

Their top two corners are out.

JPP might play, but…

I was not impressed with him in the opener. He looked slow. We’ll see what he can do on Sunday.

If the Bucs can’t cover and they struggle to rush, Foles and the passing game have no excuse for not moving the ball consistently. Don’t expect the Eagles to go score 48 points, but they sure as heck better put up more than 132 passing yards. Ugh.

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