Doug Pederson’s fake field goal was one of the more bizarre decisions he’s made in his four-year Eagles tenure.

It was 4th and four, ball at the Minnesota 21, with 20 seconds remaining in the first half. No timeouts for the Birds, who were trailing 24 to 10.

Jake Elliott took the direct snap and looked for Dallas Goedert, who was covered, so he kept the play alive and tried to hit him anyway, tossing an interception:

Ugly!

Here’s Doug’s explanation of the decision post game, via Daniel Gallen at Pennlive: 

“We had the look we wanted, tried to take advantage of it, get a little bit closer opportunity to maybe shoot it in the end zone after that,” Pederson said postgame. “They made a great play.”

Pederson laid out his thinking: The Eagles could get the first down and potentially have time to take one or two shots at the end zone before having to settle for a shorter field goal.

“That would have been the idea, yes. Complete the pass,” Pederson said. “We were going to get out of bounds. The play was designed to hit Dallas Goedert and then get out of bounds. We were on the short side of the field.”

That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me since the Eagles had zero timeouts at that point. I’d think you just take the three points, go into the half down 24-13, and then get the ball back to start the third quarter.

Here’s a Dallas Goedert post game quote via Dave Zangaro at NBC Sports Philadelphia:

“I was the only receiver there,” Goedert said. “We had the look that we wanted. The linebacker played over towards my side a little bit more. It still might have been there, but it obviously wasn’t exactly how we wanted it to go. In hindsight, those three points would have been nice.”

This morning then, Pederson gave a more nuanced day-after explanation on Angelo Cataldi’s show, when asked if he would call the fake field goal again:

I would. I know you guys don’t get the coach’s copy (film) or the TV copy or whatever you get. The field goal that we kicked previously in the first half, they gave us the look on that one. And the safety, number 41 actually, went to the field side. So he gave us the proper look that we were looking for. (Special teams coach Dave Fipp) came to me and I said ‘let’s do it,’ let’s get ourselves what would have been a big play. We got the look again, and what happened was when Dallas released, when they saw the ball snapped to Jake, the end guy was on Dallas, he did rush like he was supposed to, but he wheeled back and got in position, so it was a good play by then.

(Goedert) scores, gets out of bounds, or more than anything he gets the first down and gives us another opportunity to shoot it to the endzone.

Here’s a still frame of the first field goal that Doug mentions, where #41, Anthony Harris, drifts to the strong side (field side) when the ball is snapped:

Look at the hash marks there. Elliott is on the right hash and Harris slides to his right, towards the other hash.

Then on the fake, the Eagles were lined up on the left hash, so they understandably thought Harris would again go to the strong side, which this time is on his left.

But he didn’t he went to the weak side instead:

 

It makes sense, and I understand that they saw something they liked on the previous field goal attempt. I just think sometimes less is more; take the points, cut the lead, and go into halftime with some momentum. Aggressiveness is what Doug is known for, but without any timeouts there, I just don’t know if that situationally made a ton of sense, since you would have had time for maybe one end zone shot before kicking the field goal again from an admittedly shorter distance.