PHILADELPHIA – Yes, you will see changes in the Eagles’ offense this season.
An early look at things under new offensive coordinator Kellen Moore in last week’s 70-minute on-field OTA session was highlighted by far more motion than usual and liberal use of 3×1 bunch formations instead of the typical 2×2 look Nick Sirianni and his former stewards, Shane Steichen and Brian Johnson, were asked to employ.
The changes can be traced back to the struggles at the end of last season when Sirianni was forced to take the political stance that his offense grew stale.
Because the NFL is a public-facing industry, you need to succeed on the field and dress it up nicely so that the consumers watching believe in what they are seeing.
Lost in Moore’s introduction to Philadelphia was his explanation of the most important thing for him as a play-caller.
“Clean operation,” the former NFL quarterback said. “As far as for me, just keep a clean operation for the quarterback. Hopefully we’ve prepared the right way. We understand that adjustments have to be made during games. There’s always those elements. You’ve got to be a clean, steady, operation for the quarterback. He deals with a lot during games. Understand that aspect of it.
“Hopefully I can provide that.”
That means seamless communication, no pre-snap penalties, ball security and execution, the same things that define any great offense in the NFL.
It’s somewhat ironic that things like motion are called “eyewash” or “eye candy” by opposing defensive coordinators because it’s become synonymous with complexity on offense.
Moore’s belief in motion rewinds back to his youth.
“It probably goes back to how I grew up around the game with my dad being a high school coach, then being in college at Boise State, we kind of used it a lot,” Moore explained. “It’s always kind of stuck with me.”
There are tangible advantages to using motion.
“There’s some things that you’re trying to gather information for the defense, and there’s other times you’re simply stressing the defense,” said Moore. “So I think there’s those two elements.”
One team source believes Sirianni leaned too much on his past with Philip Rivers, a savvy veteran QB who preferred static looks because it suited him. Rivers, though, had 16 seasons under his belt when he and the current Eagles head coach got together in Indianapolis for the 2020 season. That experience of reading defenses with formational tricks is not something you can pass along to anyone.
Stressing the defense is also something that can’t be dismissed because testing defensive discipline is paramount in the modern era where practice time is limited.
Those kinds of things are always secondary tactics to the fundamentals of that aforementioned clean operation, however.
“Ultimately you’re trying to build packages and create things so that the run and the action game and the drop-back game,” Moore said. “So there’s alignment and similarities with the presentations that allows us to stress the defense with those different looks.”
A well-educated offense that executes, practices good ball security, and stays on schedule will be successful no matter if it’s accompanied by aesthetics or the Sean McVay-coined “illusion of complexity.”
The Eagles want the best of both of those worlds with Moore.
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