What to expect from new Eagles coach Nick Sirianni’s offensive scheme | Early Birds

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The Eagles are hiring Nick Sirianni as their next head coach presumably with the hope that the former Colts offensive coordinator can help revert Carson Wentz to his former self. The 39-year-old coach doesn’t have play-calling experience, but he’s shown an ability to mold an offensive scheme to help a quarterback. More on that later.

The next step for the Eagles will be officially announcing Sirianni’s hiring and then filling out the staff under him. It will be interesting to see which coaches from Pederson’s staff, particularly Jeff Stoutland and Duce Staley, will be retained by Sirianni.

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In Sirianni, the Eagles likely hope they’ve recouped what they lost in Frank Reich in 2017. The Eagles’ new head coach spent a total of five seasons with Reich, with the Chargers and, more recently, the Colts.

Since Reich is the play-caller and the architect of the Colts offense, it’s hard to know exactly what Sirianni has in mind for his first chance to sculpt an offensive scheme. Still, there are a couple of hints from which to draw.

In a film breakdown published on the Colts’ website in 2018, Sirianni talked about three things the Indianapolis offense valued: two-tight-end sets, using running backs creatively in the pass game, and getting playmakers in space with underneath throws.

Sound familiar? It should. Even during the breakdown, Sirianni dissected two plays called by Doug Pederson during the 2017 season with Reich on the Eagles sideline. The first was Zach Ertz’s touchdown catch against the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LII, pointing out the favorable matchup Ertz had against a Patriots safety because the Eagles were in 12-personnel.

“When you play in this type of personnel ... a lot of times it forces a bad matchup for one of the defensive backs,” Sirianni said. “It’s something that Frank and I have really tried to exploit, the mismatches that you get when you have two skilled tight ends on the field.”

The Colts didn’t use nearly as much 12-personnel last season as the Eagles, who led the league by running 37% of their plays out of the look, but they were still middle-of-the-road in usage of two-tight-end sets, using them 21% of the time.

Sirianni’s second clip, a Chargers play featuring Philip Rivers, highlighted the effectiveness of underneath throws to get receivers in space. It’s worth noting Rivers had some of his best production on underneath throws during his lone season with the Colts, completing 68% of his passes shorter than 10 yards for 11 touchdowns and three interceptions. Rivers last season posted his best passer rating on throws shorter than 10 yards to the right side of the field, an area he’d struggled with at times.

Considering the Eagles added Jalen Reagor, John Hightower, and Quez Watkins last offseason and could add another first-round receiver this year, the tendency to get speed receivers space with underneath throws could become an important part of the Eagles offense.

Sirianni also broke out the Eagles’ 2017 tape to talk about the value of using running backs lined up at receiver to create mismatches, showing a clip of Darren Sproles catching a pass from Wentz in 2016. Similar to the Ertz play, Sirianni explained that the Colts offense, like most to be fair, was set up on finding and targeting mismatches in coverage. This time, the matchup he was highlighting was Sproles against a linebacker in coverage.

While this is a start, there’s still plenty uncertainty surrounding what the Eagles offense will look like under Sirianni. What we do know is that he shares a lot of the same philosophies as Pederson and Reich, and that he’s not a part of the wave of play-action-heavy play-callers hailing from the Mike/Kyle Shanahan coaching tree.

Over the course of the season, the Colts offense heavily featured RB Jonathan Taylor. Do you see Miles Sanders playing a similar role in a Sirianni offense? — from Art Vandelay via email

Good question, Art. The Colts had a running back around the 200-carry mark in each of Sirianni’s three years as the offensive coordinator. Marlon Mack had 195 carries in 2018 and 247 in 2019 before rookie Taylor came in and took the lion’s share of carries by the end of the year. Nyheim Hines consistently had between 60 and 80 carries to go along with about 60 catches.

Sanders would presumably see an increase in carries with Sirianni if for no other reason than the Colts ran the ball more often than the Eagles, but it will be interesting to see if Boston Scott earns the role that Hines carved out. Hines’ ability to catch the ball became an important factor for Indy, similar to the way Sproles was used with the Eagles during Reich’s tenure. Scott might have a similar stature to Sproles, but he isn’t quite the receiver Hines is or Sproles was. He’s had 25 catches each of the last two seasons. It’s possible Sirianni can just add those responsibilities to Sanders’ workload, but the team could add a receiving back to the mix.