Kellen Moore can help the Eagles improve against the blitz

As I mentioned within the final Kellen Moore put up, I’ve watched a lot movie on the brand new Eagles offensive coordinator that I’ll flip all of the clips I recorded right into a sequence of posts, slightly than only one lengthy article. Each will deal with a number of totally different facets of Kellen Moore’s philosophy. When you haven’t checked out final week’s put up then please learn that earlier than this one!

Half 1: Run Sport, PA Bare Bootleg and Movement

Final time I spoke so much about tendencies, we checked out varied numbers. We are going to discuss movie this week and have a look at three areas that stood out to me when watching Kellen Moore’s cross sport. There is just one place to start out…

Dealing with the Blitz

The Eagles’ season collapsed as a result of they couldn’t deal with the blitz. It’s fairly unbelievable simply how unhealthy they have been towards stress final 12 months. When you have been to remove the blitz, the Eagles’ offense was completely fantastic. It ruined the Eagles’ season and definitely annoyed the hell out of all of the gamers.

You’ll be able to argue that the Eagles’ largest precedence was choosing a brand new offensive coordinator who may plan for the blitz. Nicely, I’ve excellent news. Kellen Moore’s movie towards the blitz may be very promising within the video games that I watched. And the stats again me up.

So, what does Kellen Moore do towards the blitz? I’m sorry to disappoint however, he doesn’t do something radical. I feel his groups are very nicely coached and so they do the fundamentals proper again and again. In case you are anticipating to examine a model new revolutionary offensive strategy towards the blitz that can blow your minds, then I sadly can’t offer you what you need. However I can present you what a great teaching employees can do to organize a crew to face stress.

In quite simple phrases, Kellen Moore’s groups are well-coached to have a variety of sizzling routes or built-in solutions to stress. In case you are a correct scheme nerd like me, please take a look over a number of the performs within the Cowboys’ 2021 playbook which proves that Moore is concentrated on dealing with stress.

I gained’t bore you with the specifics, however almost each play appears to be like just like the one above. You’ll continuously see the phrases ‘Scorching Constructed-In’ or ‘Bandit Construct-In’ (Bandit is a sight adjustment telling the receiver to regulate their route and get open shortly if an additional blitzer comes from that aspect). If you wish to get higher towards the blitz, you’ve gotten to spend so much of time getting ready for it all through the low season. It’s essential to have solutions on each single play to lots of stress. It takes time. It takes preparation. It takes consideration to element. You’ll be able to see the solutions on movie.

Firstly, the sort of play is what you see so much on movie. You’ll be able to see that the quarterback and his receivers are on the identical web page. Moore’s offenses didn’t try to take deep photographs towards stress just like the Eagles tried to do. They simply saved the chains shifting by throwing into the realm that was vacated by the blitzer. Soccer will be easy generally, can’t it?

The opposite factor you are able to do is design performs that offer you an perception into what the protection is perhaps doing by utilizing shifts and movement. The Chargers right here use shifts pre-snap to establish the zone stress look and Herbert throws into the aspect bringing the overload. Additionally, Moore’s offenses weren’t afraid to go away backs and tight ends into block if wanted. The Eagles have struggled with their operating backs in cross safety the previous couple of seasons and that is an space that they should deal with.

You’ll be able to see a theme, can’t you? Easy throws, the place the quarterback and receivers are on the identical web page. It appears to be like simple, however these things takes lots of preparation.

Everybody can get somewhat too obsessive about sizzling routes, and the fact is that generally constructing an offense with quite a lot of routes at totally different depths can present lots of solutions towards stress. The bottom line is giving the quarterback simply sufficient time, which implies no free rushers! Even when the Eagles designed performs towards stress final 12 months, they simply couldn’t maintain up in cross safety as they have been outnumbered.

Quads/Journeys Formations

One of many largest issues I seen from Kellen Moore’s offenses was the usage of quads and journeys. Get able to see lots of formations subsequent 12 months that isolate one aspect of the sphere. AJ Brown goes to like this offense. He’s going to be remoted so much and moved across the formation so much. CeeDee Lamb is a celebrity, and I feel Kellen Moore goes to attempt to isolate AJ Brown like he did with Lamb.

I like seeing the usage of quads formations and ‘quick 4’ however the actuality is that these things solely works in case you have a receiver that may win these one-on-one matchups. AJ Brown can win one-on-one matchups.

These things occurred so much within the movie I watched. Rather a lot. If Jalen Hurts actually ‘can’t throw it to the center of the sphere’ like some individuals consider then we’ll discover out this 12 months.

It seems that Kellen Moore’s been doing this for just a few years too…

If you wish to get actually excited, Kellen Moore has additionally lined up offensive linemen in journeys to run display screen performs. Jordan Mailata blocking out in house? Signal. Me. Up.

Vertical Pictures

Pay attention, you didn’t actually assume the Eagles have been going to rent an offensive thoughts who didn’t wish to push the ball down the sphere, did you? I do know a few of you’re fed up with an strategy that focuses on explosive performs, however everyone knows that explosive performs are important for an offense to succeed. The difficulty with the Eagles final 12 months was that many performs felt prefer it was explosive play or bust as a result of they’d be vertical photographs to a coated receiver, and we might merely hope that the star receiver would come down with the soccer. Moore’s offense isn’t like that.

Moore makes use of a number of totally different formations to try to create explosive performs. His Cowboys’ offenses weren’t afraid to take lots of vertical photographs. They did it in a barely totally different solution to the Eagles final 12 months although. The Eagles would use isolation routes on the skin to throw go routes to benefit from one-on-one matchups. The Cowboys and Chargers used extra ideas resembling Mills, Put up-Cross, or Double-Put up Cross like beneath to try to get gamers open. This labored so a lot better with the Cowboys as a result of they may use the run sport to get a protection to be aggressive towards them. Please, go and skim the first article I’ve written on Moore as a result of I’m going into lots of element on why the important thing a part of his offense is the run sport.

The Cowboys line up beneath with 12 personnel and pistol so the protection is pondering run.

This can be a magnificence. The performs are sometimes nicely designed and you’ll see that there’s a built-in reply to stress if the protection blitzes. Once I consider the Eagles going vertical the previous couple of years, I consider go routes and 50/50 throws. I didn’t see that from Kellen Moore’s offenses, however as at all times, this may very well be right down to personnel. I noticed lots of deep crossing routes and posts, slightly than straight-go routes, to create explosive performs. These double put up ideas are actually good towards the quantity of split-safety coverages we’re seeing at the moment. Observe the late shift and place of the receiver right here to create exterior leverage from the cornerback… we spoke about this at size final week!

That’s all for this one. Subsequent time up, we’ll have a look at just a few extra options of Moore’s philosophy and I’ll additionally summarize my private opinion on the rent by way of positives and negatives.