Special teams remain a mystery to many fans and, sadly, to almost all broadcasters. Nonetheless, special teams plays are plays and they have design and execution. They have personnel. And they have coaches. The Eagles have been fortunate to have had two of the best ST coaches in the league,... Continue reading

Best game of the year by far by the O line, judging not just by results, which of course were very good, but by how they played together. As a unit. Take the third play from scrimmage. The base formation. Strong right, showing IZ to the left. The IZ is... Continue reading

Josh Huff has taken a lot of heat this week for the punt return by Green Bay. Other than saying that he did what the coaches told him to do, he made little comment, named no names, and blamed no one else. So, let's take a look. Huff was the... Continue reading

Ryan has given you a beautiful piece on Brent Celek. With that in mind, here's more on the Eagle TEs and how Chip uses them. As you might expect, I'm more interested in blocking than that other stuff. We'll start with a first quarter play featuring Zack Ertz. Ertz sifts... Continue reading

Combination Blocking: Almost all IZ plays begin with a combination block, where two linemen block one defender. Two on one, as Chip says, this is a power play, not a finesse play. Going back to our base formation: And we saw: Here, the doubled defender is the NT. Kelce gets... Continue reading

STEPS This is an endlessly fascinating subject for about .05% of the population, so I won't belabor it here. There are a number of really fine sites on the Internet that discuss steps in great detail and I urge you to check them out. Here's one. There are a few... Continue reading

Who Blocks Whom? A Tutorial When the center gets to the LOS, you always see him pointing at somebody, right? Who? He’s pointing at the defender who has playside A gap responsibility, what Chip calls the “0 (as in zero) defender.” He might be a down lineman, an LB, or... Continue reading

Covered or Not Covered The first thing the lineman must sort out is, “Am I covered or uncovered?” “Covered” means there is a man lined up over you on the LOS, what you might call the first level. It does not mean nose to nose, although that would certainly qualify.... Continue reading

The Mesh Point Note that the QB stands square to the LOS at the snap (something Vick could never get down - a simple thing like stance) and, unless he chooses to throw quickly, he opens up with a hop-step to be at a right angle to the line taken... Continue reading

The Inside Zone- Understanding Playside and Backside The IZ is the most basic of all the Eagles running plays and the cornerstone of the entire offense. It’s been run forever, in one form or another, with roots in the old dive play and the cross buck. It attacks the middle... Continue reading

The Eagles Running Game Offensive Line Blocking Introduction There's a lot of stuff out there about the Eagles' run game, some of it really good, some of it not, but all of it, IMHO, incomplete. There's precious little on how or why things are done as they're done and almost... Continue reading