Kellen Moore breaks down situational smorgasbord of the marathon drive

The Eagles are always trying to prepare for every aspect of situational football.

It’s just rare for all those situations to pop up on one drive.

But during the Eagles’ marathon drive to finish off their 27-13 win over the Steelers on Sunday afternoon at the Linc, they faced a bunch of different situations.

It was a unique drive for offensive coordinator and play-caller Kellen Moore.

“It started with a backed up scenario, got a few first downs, played some third-down football,” Moore said on Tuesday. “And as we approached that midfield line, that’s where 4-minute football kind of started to present itself. Obviously, we had to make those adjustments and now we’re playing the clock and all those situations. 

“I thought it was a really good job by our guys of understanding there’s a lot of circumstances that played out through that whole drive. A lot of situational football that kind of happens on the fly. To have it all in one 21-play drive is very rare.”

The drive ended up being 21 plays, 99 yards and it burned the final 10:29 off the clock.

It was the Eagles’ longest possession by plays since at least 2001, their longest by time since 2018 and the longest drive to end a game since at least 2001.

It was something special.

Here are the three situations from the drive that Moore brought up on Tuesday:

Backed up

Thanks to a Jalen Carter penalty, the Eagles’ drive started at their own 3-yard line and then a false start from A.J. Brown backed them up to their own 2. After an incompletion to Brown, Saquon Barkley picked up 5 yards on 2nd-and-11. The Eagles got out of their backed up situation by completing a 21-yard pass to Brown on 3rd-and-6. They stayed aggressive to get a first down.

Third downs

That completion to Brown was the first of six third downs the Eagles faced on the 21-play drive. They converted 4 of 6 but the final one was a kneel down and the last play of the game.

Here’s a look at all the third downs:

3-6-PHI 7: Pass short left to Brown for 21 yards, first down.
3-2-PHI 36: Barkley left tackle for 7 yards, first down.
3-13-PIT 42: Pass short left to DeVonta Smith for 12 yards.
3-1-PIT 19: Hurts up middle for 1, first down. 
3-2-PIT 10: Kenny Gainwell left tackle for 2, first down.
3-9-PIT 9: Hurts kneels, game over.

The only third down the Eagles tried to convert and didn’t was that 3rd-and-13 but they still picked up 12 yards. They then went for a 4th-and-1 from the Pittsburgh 30-yard line with a QB sneak and converted.

4-minute offense

When the drive started, the Eagles weren’t thinking about their 4-minute offense. There was still 10:29 on the clock. But Moore said as they crossed midfield and got to about 5 minutes left in the game, they started to think about burning clock.

The Eagles crossed midfield when Hurts hit Smith on a 22-yard pass from the Eagles’ 39-yard line. The next play came with 5:33 left in the game.

During the last few years, the Eagles’ 4-minute offense has been really good at ending games and that happened toward the end of this game. The Eagles could have punched in a meaningless touchdown but instead they just suffocated the Steelers.

Moore said all these different situations meant that there was a ton of communication between coaches.

“I thought our guys did an excellent job,” Moore said. “Obviously we’re trying to run the football, we’re trying to run the clock, but we’re still throwing it, we had some critical third-down conversions in there, some big-time catches. To have a 2nd-and-really-long and A.J. (Brown) makes a completion, him and Jalen, that’s big time. Big-time football out there for us.”

By the end of this drive, the Eagles ran 21 plays — 7 passes, 11 runs and 3 kneel-downs.

It was a thing of beauty. And while edge rusher Josh Sweat jokingly complained that the didn’t get to rush the passer at all in the second half, the Eagles’ defense loved watching it.

“I had my pom-poms out and was cheering them on,” defensive coordinator Vic Fangio said. “And kept saying, ‘One more first down’ and then kept getting them. It was really a great job by them.”

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