The Eagles had their best offensive performance of the 2024 season against the Bengals and it seemed like Kellen Moore opened up the offense a bit in the 37-17 win.
One notable difference in Week 8?
There was definitely a pronounced uptick in snaps under center with quarterback Jalen Hurts.
“I think it does a lot,” Hurts said after the game. “I think we’re able to be the imposers. I think that says a lot about what you are offensively.
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“There are multiple ways to impose. You can do that from a gun. You can do that in the pass game. You can do that in the run game, in the action game — whatever it is — as long as you’re in full control. So I think that’s more so mentality that we’re trying to develop and push. It’s about what we do, not about what anyone else does. It’s easy to do that when you go out there and everybody’s on the same page and having a like-minded vision. I think it was a great showing on the road.”
The Eagles are probably always going to be a predominantly shotgun team with Hurts as their quarterback but on Sunday they ran 21 plays under center (33 in shotgun, 5 in pistol). That’s the highest total and percentage all season and the most snaps under center for the Eagles in a single game since Week 13 of the 2021 season, according to NFL Next Gen Stats.
In fact, there has been a rise in under center snaps in each of the last few weeks:
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Week 1: 7/74 (9.5%)
Week 2: 7/68 (10.3%)
Week 3: 3/67 (4.5%)
Week 4: 6/56 (10.7%)\
Week 6: 7/62 (11.3%)
Week 7: 13/65 (20%)
Week 8: 21/59 (35.6%)
“Yeah, a little bit of that is just the way the game is played out and different situations that happen in the game,” head coach Nick Sirianni said. “I think we’ve had some big leads here the last couple of weeks that probably make that number balloon even more.
“But it’s good to just be multiple in some different things but still do what you do well. And I think we’ve had a lot of success being in the gun and also can have some success here under center. Different personnel groupings give you some different under center opportunities as well. So yeah, I think it’s a little bit of everything.”
It’s worth noting that five of those under center snaps came on the Brotherly Shove so that did skew the number a bit.
And Sirianni brings up a good point that the Eagles have been playing with leads the last two weeks so they have been running the ball more late in games. But they also had some big leads in the 2022 season and still didn’t go under center as much as we saw on Sunday.
Of the Eagles’ 21 plays under center, they had 19 runs and 2 passes. It’s where Saquon Barkley saw a lot of his success. Barkley ended up with 22 carries for 108 yards on Sunday and did most of his damage lining up behind Hurts under center. His two biggest runs came from an under center look.
Barkley from under center: 10 carries for 79 yards
Barkley from shotgun/pistol: 12 carries for 29 yards
“By game plan and by situation, there’s certainly some really good value to it,” Moore said on Tuesday. “The run game and the potential of (play) action game as we go. So there has been some good stuff in the run game that has allowed us to get downhill the last couple weeks. We'll see where it takes us.”
The Eagles’ pass play to Jack Stoll in the third quarter also came on an under center, play action snap. The play ended up going for 6 yards but it could have been a touchdown if the play went to A.J. Brown, who was open and clearly wanted the football.
That’s where Moore’s bringing up play action comes in. The Eagles were able to find success with play action on Sunday: Hurts was 6-for-7 for 142 yards and a touchdown on play action snaps.
While most of those plays didn’t come from under center, it seems like the Eagles will have the ability to set those up. Barkley has been so good this season that defenses are going to have to load the box to stop him and it should continue to open up opportunities for Brown and DeVonta Smith in 1-on-1 situations.
It’s not like going under center is going to be some magic pill for the Eagles’ offense but it’s encouraging to see Moore mix things up a little bit more. One of the problems with the 2023 offense was that it became to static and predictable. The less predictable they are the rest of 2024, the better.
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