Kellen Moore on middle of field, play action and more

The Eagles won on Sunday against the Browns but it wasn’t exactly a stellar offensive performance.

They scored 20 points on 372 yards of offense in a tight 20-16 win.

When the Eagles brought back Nick Sirianni for the 2024 season, they did it with the thought that Kellen Moore would be able to freshen up an offense that had become way too static toward the end of 2023. And during training camp, it looked like that was going to happen.

But it was hard to watch the Eagles’ offense on Sunday and not think it looked an awful lot like that offense we watched last year. Sure, the Eagles won and they got big plays from A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith, but the whole hope was that they wouldn’t just have to rely on their star power to bail them out.

At his press conference on Tuesday, Moore was asked several questions about elements of the offense that seemed to be missing on Sunday:

Middle of the field

One of the more interesting nuggets to surface in that ESPN story about the relationship between Jalen Hurts and Sirianni was that Hurts “believed the Eagles were overly reliant on vertical routes and not utilizing short-to-intermediate throws, particularly to the middle of the field where (A.J.) Brown has thrived in his career.”

Take a look at Hurts’ passing chart from Sunday:

Yeah, not much in the middle of the field.

According to ProFootballFocus just six of Hurts’ 25 attempts on Sunday were in the middle of the field and just one of them came in the intermediate/deep range.

“I think against Cleveland, the way their coverages played out, they kind of packed the middle a little bit and had some isolations outside a little bit more one-on-one,” Moore said. “Within the tempo offense, we were able to find the one-on-one opportunities. And so, something our guys have put a ton of investment into. They feel comfortable with it. They do an excellent job with it. Would we love to attack the middle of the field as time evolves? Absolutely. And we'll continue to find spaces for that.”

Under center

The Eagles are never going to be a heavy under-center team, but they didn’t run much of it at all on Sunday. In fact, here’s a breakdown, per NFL Next Gen Stats:

Shotgun: 46
Under center: 7
Pistol: 5

“I think there's an element of game plan and flow with that,” Moore explained. “There are times where under center can be very advantageous for us. Trying to put ourselves in the best position to be successful as far as an offense, and with Jalen's ability to run, there are some components to being in the gun and the pistol that kind of keep that threat alive in some of those cases. But that’s something that we put some time and effort into this offseason to utilize and we'll continue to find different spaces to do that.”

Play action

The play action usage is obviously somewhat linked to the Eagles’ lack of under-center snaps but, according to PFF, they had just two play-action dropbacks on Sunday. Two!

That’s extreme even for Hurts and the Eagles’ offense. This season they have had 10, 6, 13 and 6 play-action dropbacks through the first four weeks of the season.

It’s worth noting that the 34-yard pass to Grant Calcaterra came from play action. One of the biggest plays of the game and they didn’t really go back to it.

So what gives? 

“Really based off the tempo operation and just getting specific looks based off them,” Moore said. “I think, again, we felt like we had some indicators based off looks we could attack them in specific ways, and it became a little bit more of a drop-back emphasis in those situations. We'd love to have the play-action numbers go up, and we'll continue to find opportunities for that.”

Pre-snap motion

The use (or lack) of pre-snap motion during the Sirianni Era has been a big topic in Philadelphia. It’s not like using motion is going to solve all their problems but there’s a reason NFL offenses use it and the Eagles were dead-last in the NFL in this category in 2023. When they used motion on Sunday, it seemed to work, but they didn’t use a lot of it.

Based on training camp and the first couple weeks of the season, it seemed like motion was going to be a big part of the Eagles’ offense but it has since dried up.

Here’s a look at the Eagles’ motion rates, per NFL Next Gen Stats, in their five games this season:

Week 1: 48/74 (64.9%)
Week 2: 44/68 (64.7%)
Week 3: 34/67 (50.7%)
Week 4: 22/56 (39.3%)
Week 6: 27/62 (43.5%)

“I think it's by game plan, putting ourselves in the best position to be successful,” Moore said. “This game, we used a lot more on the ball. Just the way they were structured, we felt very comfortable with playing a little bit on the ball, where we can control the game with the line of scrimmage a little bit more.

“And some games are going to be different than that. Certainly, we felt like that was a good thing for us. We were able to get to a couple plays on the ball where you can get a particular look, and so we felt very comfortable with that going into this thing. We like motion, absolutely. There's definitely a place for it and so we'll continue to find spaces for that.”

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