Adrian Fedkiw
I am enamored by the way Doug Pederson uses his three tight end sets, but hasn’t been able to go to it for the first two weeks due to injuries. The Philadelphia Eagles head coach instead brought in an extra lineman to go along with a pair of tight ends to put eight on the line of scrimmage at times during Monday night’s win over the Chicago Bears.
I can see why you wanted to keep all those extra linemen, Doug!
The three tight end sets are most effective in its deception. It’s primarily a running formation, but the Eagles have pass catching threats in Zach Ertz and now Trey Burton to be able to make the disguise work. Pederson did this with Travis Kelce last season in Kansas City.
Adding that extra lineman is basically giving Pederson that extra man on the line of scrimmage, which he would’ve gotten had Ertz been able to go. There were several times when offensive lineman Matt Tobin saw the field as an extra body on the line of scrimmage and Stefen Wisniewski joined him to make it eight on the line when the Eagles attempted to run out the clock.
Pederson spoke about the package during Wednesday’s press conference.
Well, if you are counting [G/T] Matt Tobin as a third tight end right now? Yeah, it helps you obviously in the run game because you’ve got bigger bodies protecting the edge. But at the same time, you can still throw the football with him in the football game. It’s an advantage. I think sometimes, with [TEs] Trey [Burton], [Brent] Celek or with [Zach] Ertz in there, it creates a little bit of a match-up. You can kind of set the defense based on the personnel and the formation called and that can give you advantage, as well.
The first instance of this came in the red zone on the Eagles’ opening possession facing a 2nd-and-7 at the 16-yard line. Tobin is to the right of right tackle Lane Johnson, with Brent Celek and Burton alongside him to the right. With an overload to the right, it looks like that’s where a run might be taking place. Instead, the Eagles ran a Sluggo Seam play. Dorial Green-Beckham ran a stutter-and-go at the top of the screen, with Celek taking off down the right seam and Burton a wheel route to the back right corner of the end zone. Wentz pumped left to move the safety, opening up the seam, but Bryce Callahan made a nice play on the ball to save a would-be six points.
We saw the same setup again on Philadelphia’s opening play of a series that started at the 11:11 mark of the second quarter. This time, Pederson ran the ball, and not to the right as you might’ve expected. Ryan Mathews took the handoff off the left side of the line for no gain. The center Jason Kelce tripped, which didn’t help, but it was Willie Young getting off of left tackle Jason Peters’ block quickly before making the play.
This time we see seven Eagles on the line of scrimmage instead of eight, that’s because Burton is lined out wide to the left stacked behind Jordan Matthews. Pederson again elects to pass instead of run, using a play-action bootleg with Wentz rolling to his right looking at a three-level concept. Matthews ran a deep crossing route, while Burton motioned across the formation and into the right flat. The run-fake freed up the open space for Matthews’ 22-yard gain because linebacker Danny Trevathan bit on it.
The fourth occasion was the two-yard score to Burton. Again it’s Tobin, Celek and Burton to the right. Burton motions left before going back right and receives a screen with Celek and Tobin leading the way for the easy touchdown.
The fifth time before the Eagles used the package to primarily run out the clock, Mathews broke off this 30-yard run off the left sideline with a nice cut to the inside on the second level to maximize yardage. It was the first time Tobin, Celek and Burton were on the left side next to tackle Jason Peters.
The Eagles used the look five more times down the stretch — all runs — but gained minus-one yards. Philadelphia’s weakness on offense is at wide receiver and if Pederson can continue to get production from this package, it’ll only hide the deficiencies at that position even more.