12 personnel

All posts tagged 12 personnel

THE ZACH ERTZ TRADE

Posted by The BEAST on 2021/06/08
Posted in: breakdown, Conversations, Front Office (F.O.), Offense, Players, Rants, Roster, Super Bowl, trade. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

TRADING TE Zach Ertz is stupid. Let me get that on the record right now. I don’t want anybody saying later this season, that I was ever unclear in my language about the move. Trading him, cutting him, doesn’t matter. Ertz being removed from this roster, this year is unwise. Some will argue that 12M$ is too much to spend on an aging player, with diminishing skills.

Okay. Let’s look at that.

His 12M$ cap hit is a large one. That said, the Front Office has already found a way to fit it under our 2021 salary cap. In fact, according to Over The Cap the Eagles are currently 6.4M$ under the cap. So affording Ertz has already been done. That means we can stop trying to make this about money. How about age?

Ertz turns 31 in November. While that is an advanced age for this position, it’s not ancient or even the most advanced age. Current TE’s Travis Kelce, Rob Gronkowski, Jimmy Graham, and Kyle Rudolph are all older than Ertz, (and most Eagles fans would be happy to add any of those).

People bring up age, because they want to either infer, or say outright, that older players will be less durable, miss more games, and thus be less reliable. Last season at age 30, Ertz missed 5 games, due to injury. It was the first time he ever played in fewer than 14 games in a season.

Before suggesting that the misses are tied to Ertz’s age, consider the following: Back-up TE Dallas Goedert, whom the Front Office (and fans) expect to replace Ertz, also missed 5 games with injury. Goedert is 26 years old. Injuries, not age, determines injuries. So quit letting yourself be told, that one means the other.

Well what about Ertz’s diminishing skills? What diminishing skills? Based off of what, the 2020 season?? You go and point out even one, just one, Eagles starter who didn’t take a step backwards in 2020.

Don’t say RB Miles Sanders. He ran for more yards, but his receiving production took a nose dive, and his yards from scrimmage were dramatically down in 2020. Yes, WR Travis Fulgham emerged, but A) He wasn’t a 2019 Eagles starter, and B) He faded badly, down 2020’s stretch. A pandemic of bad offense infected the whole roster. Including Goedert. Including Ertz.

Finally, what on Earth would we be replacing him with? Aside from Ertz and Goedert, the Eagles have five TE’s on the roster. Only one has ever caught a ball in an actual NFL game. One is converting from WR. Another one is converting from QB.

TE Caleb Wilson shows a little promise, and Jason Croom would be a decent #3, but the step down at TE would be huge, if Ertz goes in 2021.

Then again, Head Coach Nick Sirianni isn’t Doug Pederson. He may not like using 12 Personnel (1RB, 2TE), as much as the guy who won a Super Bowl with it, while playing 32 year old TE Brent Celek for a third of the offensive snaps. (Hey! Isn’t 32 older than 31?)

If Sirianni is looking to feature a Slot WR more, then he won’t be using two TE’s very much, and won’t need to have two good ones. That doesn’t help us with talented depth for red zone situations, or insurance vs injury, but you can’t have it all right?

Except right now, we still have Ertz, and his presence is a luxury. Moving him now would be stupid. Just stupid.

GET UNDER CENTER

Posted by The BEAST on 2021/02/28
Posted in: Coaching, Conversations, NFC East, Offense, The 12, X's and O's. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

PLAY-ACTION makes a mobile QB more deadly. However, we have to be better at selling the run, in order to make our play-action more effective. On first and ten or in short yardage situations, we have to make opponents believe that a QB Sneak, a HB Dive, etc. is immediately on the table. All of that is far easier to sell with a QB lined up under Center, vs being in the Shotgun or the Pistol.

When a QB uses play-action from the Shotgun or Pistol, he has to thrust it forward to the RB. Generally with both hands on the ball to prevent a fumble. A defensive lineman who sees two hands on the ball, immediately knows it’ll be a fake. The fake doesn’t sell, and the QB ends up sacked. Sound like something you’ve seen?

From under C, when the QB fakes, he turns his back to the defense. This helps hide the ball momentarily. A defensive lineman has to honor the hand-off, and identify whether or not the RB truly has the ball. That right there, that second’s pause, helps slow the pass rush and gives an offensive lineman a chance to secure his block. (Which we are always thankful for!)

During a real hand-off, what happens? The QB clears out of the way, and no one really chases him because they’re chasing the ball. When it’s a fake, the QB can take his clearing momentum and turn it into a bootleg. This gets him far away from pressure, and gives him a clear view of the field. In which case he can throw it, or pick up some quick yardage with his legs.

Lining up under C makes play-action more dangerous, because it is the most legitimate alignment to run from. Again, your QB Sneak, your HB Dive, yadda and so forth. This is especially true for teams that run 12 Personnel (1RB, 2TE). With the Eagles being a team that is still rumored to favor such a package, lining up under C needs to be the rule and not the exception.

FOUR THINGS: EAGLES/VIKINGS

Posted by The BEAST on 2016/10/22
Posted in: Coaching, Conversations, Defense, Four Things, Offense, Players, Roster, X's and O's. Tagged: , , , , , , . 1 Comment

 

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LET me be honest with you. I’ve been afraid of this game since QB Sam Bradford was traded to Minnesota. Either we’d beat a so-so QB, or we’d lose to trash. Like winning a fight against a girl, there was never going to be an upside to this game for Philadelphia. Then something weird happened. The Vikings went 5-0.

So NOW it’s a big deal if we win, right? RIGHT? Wrong.

Though the Vikings (5-0) are undefeated, they are by no means a complete team. While their defense does get after QB’s, they have yet to be seriously challenged vs the run. Speaking of running the ball, Minnesota can’t. The cop-out answer is that it’s because RB Adrian Peterson is injured. However, prior to being hurt, he’d run for 50 yards on 31 carries. That’s a whopping 1.6 yards per tote. So the issue isn’t his injury.

Just like our win over the Steelers came with lame media excuses on Pittsburgh’s behalf (“Yeah, but there was no LeVeon Bell!” , “Ryan Shazier got hurt during the game!”, “Nooooo! They wasn’t ready!”, etc.), you can bet that a win over the Vikings would include similar lame excuses. For example: “Kyle Rudolph’s new twins won’t let him sleep!”, “The Vikings are a cold weather team.”, “LeVeon Bell didn’t play in this game either!”. Etcetera, etcetera, ad nauseam.

We either get to lose this game and get talked about like idiots for “giving away” Sam Bradford; or when we win, it’ll get spun as us beating a team that isn’t as good as their record. Nothing less than utterly dismantling the Vikings will earn the Eagles any form of acknowledgement nationally. This is a pitfall game.

Still though, a win beats a loss.

So let’s talk about the Four Things we need to look for, Week 7 versus the Minnesota Vikings :

1) Use less 12 personnel and more 21. If RT Halapoulivaati Vaitai is going to start, we have to find him effective help. Call me crazy, but I’d like to see us make an attempt at not getting Carson Wentz murdered during his rookie season. (I’m weird that way.) Vaitai is heavy-footed, so he lacks the ability to recover. That’s why last week’s attempt at using an in-line TE to help him, fell flat. Going from 12 personnel (1 RB, 2 TE 2 WR) to 21 personnel (2 RB, 1 TE, 2 WR), would leave a RB blocking to delay a defender, and give Wentz a chance to use his legs to run, or use his eyes and dump off the ball to a close RB. 

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2) Shorten the strong-side read time. This has to be said: A couple of the sacks from last week came from Wentz just holding the ball too damned long. This is our fault because we don’t throw enough short passes along the hash marks to the TE. That kind of pass forces Safeties to declare early whether they’re going outside to help with the WR, or staying in the middle to take away the TE. Using this pass will get our strong-side WR clearer one-on-one match-ups, and help Wentz can get the ball out quicker.

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3) Get QB Sam Bradford running. Bradford is completing 70.4% of his passes, which tells you right away that he’s not airing it out. Take away Captain Checkdown’s short options, and force him to throw on the move. We’ve seen firsthand what it looks like when defenses do that to him.

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“Minnesota is that way!”

4) Don’t fall into the trap, and run the damned ball! The Vikings have the NFL’s 4th best run defense. Sounds impressive until you realize that it’s because they are DEAD LAST in rushing attempts against. They allow 3.7 yards per attempt, but teams just don’t test them much. Given that they aren’t a very big defense on the ends, punishing them with the run is clearly be the best way to de-fang a unit where 4 players have at least 3 sacks apiece. We didn’t do this last week, and we got BUTCHERED for it. Let’s learn a lesson.

Executing quickly is the name of the game this week. If we get the ball from Wentz to other skill players quickly, we’ll own the game. Anything else plays into Minnesota’s hands.

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