While the rest of the NFL spent a lot of time this offseason thinking about the Eagles’ special quarterback sneak — call it the Brotherly Shove or the Tush Push — the Eagles were thinking about it too.
They were thinking about ways to protect it.
“Well, you always want to protect your plays, and the quarterback sneak play has been a huge part of what we've done here,” offensive coordinator Brian Johnson said. “You always try to find unique ways to create conflict for the defense and add little wrinkles that make your main plays better.”
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What does Johnson mean by protect a play? He means that any wrinkle they add to it can give defenses something extra to think about. That’s part of the reason you make sure you put it on tape, even in a situation that might not seem worthy.
We saw one of those wrinkles come to life in the Eagles’ 38-31 win over the Commanders on Sunday afternoon.
On a 3rd-and-1 from the Washington 7-yard line with just 1:53 left in the game, the Eagles crowded at the line for what the Commanders expected to be a quarterback sneak.
Only this time, Jalen Hurts handed the ball off to D’Andre Swift on a sweep that went for a touchdown to put the Eagles up by 14.
Running that play wasn’t just about picking up the first down. It was about the chess match the Eagles are playing with defensive coordinators around the NFL who are desperately trying to stop a play that has been near automatic over the last two years.
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“When you run a play like that, like we did yesterday, then everything has a reaction, right?” head coach Nick Sirianni said. “So, the reaction to that is going to be the next teams we play are going to see that on tape and they may have to devote a little less attention to the quarterback sneak to stop the other things, right?
“That's why you do those things. That's the thought process. You're trying to play the chess match in everything that you do. We spent a lot of time on that in the offseason as a coaching staff. All of us as a coaching staff, even to the point where you're asking the defensive coaches, what would you do to stop it? Oh, but what if we did this to do that?”
While the entire coaching staff collaborates on plays, concepts and designs, the one guy Sirianni singled out in this respect is senior offensive assistant Marcus Brady. The former Colts offensive coordinator, who was the QBs coach while Sirianni was the OC in Indianapolis, was hired in an official capacity by the Eagles this past offseason.
Part of Brady’s job is to study a bunch of game tape at the professional, college and even high school level in search of ideas that might help the Eagles. If he sees a play he thinks might help, the Eagles research it more and then if they really do like it, they work to integrate it.
“That's one of his responsibilities,” Sirianni said, “is to study around the NFL, study around college football to see if there are any interesting things to mesh with the things we're doing.”
It’s not all on Brady, though. The entire staff enjoys finding plays and Johnson said it becomes “contagious throughout the staff.” Heck, he’ll even get sent some trick plays from folks who aren’t on the staff.
What’s the most unusual way Johnson has ever found a play?
“You see some stuff — social media is really sometimes like a gift and a curse, right?” Johnson said. “You get some really cool ideas, and you get to see some highlight plays, just that's kind of the world we live in. So, you see a lot of really cool ideas on just a 10-second clip of a play.
“And then it forces you just to go do some more research of you try to go find that play in the game and then just really dissect it and then you start pulling how many times they run this. The technology that we have now to be able to see a clip on the Internet and be able to pull from it and go find multiple examples of it and really dissect and call and learn about the play is something that makes the job fun.”
This isn’t the first wrinkle the Eagles have run off their signature QB sneak look and it won’t be the last.
Every time they pull off one of these plays, they get the benefit of a great play in the moment and they continue to strengthen a staple of their offense.
“Any time you've talked a lot about something like that and it works, you're excited, the guys are excited, and the guys have to go out and execute it,” Sirianni said. “Anything can look pretty on paper, but it's about the guys that we have and them going out and executing it in a situation like that. They did, and I got a lot of faith in those guys.”
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