The Philadelphia Eagles might just have the most dynamic offense in the NFL. They can expose defenses with one single look, and they did just that against the Pittsburgh Steelers defense.
Jalen Hurts ended the day with 285 yards through the air, four passing touchdowns, and their running back Miles Sanders rushed for 78 yards and one touchdown.
A lot of their success on offense came from one look in their run-pass-option scheme.
Hurts will have three options once the ball is snapped. Either throw the ball to the bubble screen in the flat, hand it off to Sanders, or tuck it and run it up the gut. They used all three of these options differently throughout the whole entire game and executed them perfectly.
In the first quarter, the Eagles came out with three receivers spread out to one side of the field and a tight end on the line of scrimmage on the other side.
With the Eagles constantly using their tight ends out in space, it was important for the Steelers’ defense to honor the other side. So, they came out with two safeties over the top and the linebackers over the right side of the offense.
In this first play, Hurts was reading the defensive end crashing down. As the defender played the handoff, Hurts kept the ball, resulting in a huge gain.
It was important that the Eagles started off this play call with a quarterback keep. It gave the impression that Hurts would be using his legs throughout the game. This forced the linebackers to honor that.
So, when the Eagles ran this same play again, the Steelers linebackers now separated:
One linebacker went to the flat and one crashed to the middle. When Hurts handed it off to Sanders, he ran between them, resulting in another huge gain.
Now, the next time the Eagles came out in the same look, they added a receiver to the opposite side. This spread out the secondary thin by pulling one of the safeties to the opposite side of the field.
When the Eagles ran the underneath bubble screen, the defense had to have someone else get into the flat, and since the Steelers had to change up the responsibilitied, both defensive backs crashed down, resulting in a busted coverage.
Each time the Eagles ran this same play, the Steelers defense attempted to adjust. So, it was inevitable that they would have miscommunications.
Once again, the Eagles came out with the same play, this time to the opposite side, testing the Steelers’ adjustments and communication.
The receivers showed that same bubble screen underneath, but this time, they fake the blocking to the outside and sent A.J. Brown deep.
The Eagles perfected all the progressions from this one single look, which all stemmed from the Hurts keep in the first quarter.
Hurts had this to say after the game, “You get into a point where you get different looks, and they try and get you, but you just want to try and be ready for all of those looks and have an answer for it. That’s a testament to the preparation and the people I have around me.”
There is no better feeling for an offense when you force a defense to make adjustments and then exposing those adjustments. It seemed like for the entire game the Eagles offense was just one step ahead of the Steelers defense.
This game showed us how deadly the Eagles RPO defense really is! We shouldn’t be surprised when offensive coordinator/play caller Shane Steichen wins the Offensive Assistant coach of the Year — and perhaps a few head coaching opportunities.