Why Do the Eagles Rarely Have Jalen Hurts Under Center? - Nick Sirianni Talks About Frozen Backsides
Saw this from Shane on Twitter:
One of these days the #Eagles will throw a pass from under center and it will be a 60-yard TD, because right now everyone knows that it’s a run if the Eagles aren’t in shotgun. Through 14 weeks, Jalen Hurts has attempted 1 pass from under center.
But, for now, everyone on the… pic.twitter.com/iztZ88iLqm
— Shane Haff (@ShaneHaffNFL) December 20, 2023
Great stat there. Going through the SportRadar data, it says that the Eagles have only run 7.2% of their plays this year from under center, which is dead last in the league. And guess who’s #31? Shane Steichen’s Indianapolis Colts. They’ve only gone under center 9.1% of the time, because they’re running the same base offense. You look at those numbers, then think about how many Brotherly Shove plays the Eagles have tried this season. That comprises a huge chunk of the Eagles’ under center plays, because they’re a shotgun offense and rarely come out of it.
For some further context, San Francisco goes under center 41.7% of the time, which is 5th-most in the league. Kyle Shanahan schemes up all kinds of play-action and short tosses and things like that. The Birds and Colts are working off that de facto RPO/zone read base instead.
“Jalen can do anything. He can play from under center, he can play from the gun, he’s a special player. There are parts of you that have an identity. It’s easy to say ‘go under center,’ or ‘go in the gun’ if you’re an under center team. But one thing we know is that the backside of defenses are completely frozen by Jalen, and this isn’t something you see and can always point out, but the backside of defenses when we are in the gun, with Jalen having the option to hold the ball on his own read, it can freeze the back side. And it does a lot of the time, freezes the back side or opens up different things in the running game, or RPO game, or RPR game, and that’s an advantage we have because the style of quarterback Jalen is. Can he go under center, sure? Cause he’s a great football player and can do anything. But that’s where our identity is, and what we do, and the counters we have off of the plays we’re running are from the gun…”
Yeah, so he’s basically saying that shotgun is their identity because that’s the tree trunk from which the various QB run and option plays stem from. That’s their bread and butter, but recently the bread is burnt and the butter is unsalted. So people ask, hypothetically, if they can fix some of those issues by adding wrinkles to the under center sets, or just going there more often.
We’ll find out on Monday night.