Adaptation

Doug Pederson did some interviews on Tuesday. He mentioned that two themes for 2020 are “trust” and “strong together”. Those certainly make sense given the current situation in the world at large.

After listening to him and watching the team’s moves this offseason, I feel like adaptation is an even bigger theme.

All 32 teams must deal with conditions thrown upon them by the Covid-19 situation. Teams that adapt well to the situation will be at an advantage. Pederson said the team is entering their fourth week of the offseason program. He holds virtual staff meetings twice a week. He holds virtual team meetings twice a week.

The assistant coaches have virtual meetings with the players multiple times a week. The strength and conditioning staff has virtual meetings with players.

Football coaches are notoriously control freaks. It would be easy to imagine a coach saying “This is too much. Call me when my guys can come to the facility and we can have a normal program.”

Pederson and the Eagles have embraced the situation. They are trying to be creative in the meetings, to get the players coached up as best they can and also to keep the players focused and motivated. If malaise sets in, that can be tough to break. Skip a meeting here. Skip a workout there. Maybe don’t focus as much. That doesn’t sound like a big deal, but chances are that it would show in August when the team hits the field.

The Eagles are doing their best to adapt to a virtual offseason.

This is the fifth year of the Pederson era. Teams know the Eagles playbooks pretty well. The coaches are making adaptations to their schemes to try to improve the offense and defense.

Pederson brought in several new assistants. We talk the most about Rich Scangarello, partly due to his ties to Kyle Shanahan. This makes total sense when you see that the Niners were second in scoring and fourth in offensive yards in 2019, despite not having elite offensive talent. Shanahan did a brilliant job of using his personnel and calling plays. That offense is worth studying.

Pederson did say that the offense will largely be the same. He’s not changing his base scheme, but rather making tweaks that will improve some of the areas where the Eagles were weak.

The Eagles also adapted on offense by focusing on speed. The front office and coaching staff watched the offense march down the field methodically last year. They saw a team that got old and slow in a hurry. That had to change so they brought in Marquise Goodwin, Jalen Reagor, John Hightower and Quez Watkins. Those guys can all fly. Reagor and Hightower combined for 59-641-4 as runners in college. You can throw it to them or hand it to them and they can make plays.

Jalen Hurts will give the offense a weapon to use creatively. I firmly believe he was drafted to be a QB, but I’m sure it wasn’t lost on the Eagles coaches that the top offenses last year did some creative things.

The Ravens led the league in scoring and ran a very creative offense, led by a brilliantly talented dual-threat QB. The Niners had WR Deebo Samuel run the ball 14 times. They faked to him 114 times (felt like it, anyway) and that made it tough on defenses. Niners receivers were 2-2-51 with a TD when they threw the ball. The Saints used Tayson Hill as an effective role player. Both SEA and NE scored TDs on trick plays against the Eagles.

There are times when you must be able to really open up the playbook. The Eagles have better schematic ideas on how to do that, but also better personnel to do that.

The defense obviously needed help. The Eagles are making a few adaptions on this side of the ball. First, a focus on youth. Veterans Nigel Bradham and Malcolm Jenkins are gone. Both were solid players and forceful leaders. The Eagles did trade for a veteran in Darius Slay, but he’s an outstanding player. Aside from him, the additions were young. Javon Hargrave, Jatavis Brown, Will Parks and Nickell Robey-Coleman are all in their prime.

The Eagles also seem to be adapting by adding or focusing on versatile players. Parks can play NB, S or possibly even LB in some sets. Davion Taylor was a hybrid LB at Colorado. He can be used creatively by the coaching staff. K’Von Wallace can play all over the back seven. Genard Avery is a LB/DE tweener. The team drafted Casey Toohill, also a LB/DE tweener.

Holdovers like Jalen Mills and Avonte Maddox get new roles. Mills is set to take over for Jenkins at SS. Maddox will take over for Mills at CB. These guys can play S, NB or CB.

Jim Schwartz will have the potential to be creative with his defense. He can blitz more. He can be more creative with his coverages. Schwartz would rather stay simple and have his DL dominate up front, but he can be creative when that isn’t happening.

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