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Maybe the Lafayette Leopards Have the Solution to the Eagles’ Woeful Screen Game
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Ryan Paganetti shared this video clip on Twitter. He’s the former Eagles and Jaguars analytics and strategy guy, and his account is a great follow because he circulates random and interesting stuff like this, from Coach Casey:
While watching this, I thought to myself, “yes…. yes, this could be the play that unlocks the Eagles’ abhorrent screen game.”
As you know, the Birds have run seven screens this season for a grand total of -15 yards. They can’t hold these blocks very well in space, so typically what happens is one receiver or tight end whiffs and the play gets blown up for a loss. They’ve had success running that inside/tunnel screen to Dallas Goedert in recent years, but whenever they run anything resembling a bubble screen to a wide receiver the play goes absolutely nowhere.
The solution, perhaps, is to simply line up 20 yards behind the line of scrimmage. This is some Canadian football shit right here, and the play in the video clip above would have gone for 10 yards if the slot receiver cut to the outside.
The Birds should send some scouts up to Easton to check out the Leopards in person and ask if they can steal this one out of the playbook. It’s actually really good timing because Lafayette hosts Holy Cross up on the hill at Fisher Stadium this Saturday afternoon. I wanna see Tank Bigsby get a 20-yard head start before plowing over some fool in Chicago. Even if the receivers totally miss a block, he’ll be running so hard that he will simply bulldoze a defender and fall forward for 2-3 yards.
*I didn’t realize this until the end of the blog post, but this would go down as a running play in the box score since it’s thrown behind the line of scrimmage. But it’s close enough. We’ll call it a screen.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com