Murphy: Eagles' scheme no longer ignores NFL reality

On Thursday afternoon, after the Eagles completed their first full-squad workout of training camp, a reporter wondered aloud to Sam Bradford whether Doug Pederson's offense might provide for a bit more flexibility in pass protection, perhaps in the form of a running back or tight end staying home to assist against a blitz or a particularly dangerous defensive end. At times, the reporter suggested, it appeared Chip Kelly's disregard for such considerations enabled defenses to tee off on the quarterback without much adjustment.

A slight smile crept across Bradford's face.

"Really?" he said in a no-please-tell-me-more kind of tone.

For the record, his answer was yes. Yes, Pederson's offense makes heavy use of its running backs in pass protection. Yes, it deploys two- and even three-tight-end sets in order to give opposing fronts different looks. And, yes, perhaps more than anything, it gives the quarterback and center enough time to read and react to what they see across from them.

"I think that is one of the advantages of huddling and going slower this year is the fact that we're going to try to get into the right plays, the right protections, especially if we know a blitz is coming," Bradford said. "We'd like to get protected and take advantage of what's in the back end. Obviously, they're limited when they bring more than four [pass rushers]."

Therein lies the fundamental flaw in Kelly's scheme. It simply isn't sustainable at the NFL level, where the coaches are smarter, the players are faster, and the hits are more brutal. Kelly liked to blame faulty execution for various negative plays, but he never seemed to consider that the guys on the opposite side of the ball were trying just as hard to disrupt that execution. Nor did he seem to understand that some NFL games, particularly late in the season, when the injuries accumulate and the weather turns, need to be won ugly, and that his scheme wasn't always conducive to winning those kinds of games.

Last year, one of those games came in Week 10 against the Dolphins, when starting left tackle Jason Peters was out with an injury, forcing Lane Johnson to move from the right side and Dennis Kelly to step in. Ten times during that game, a defender knocked Bradford to the ground, most of them quite loudly. According to my unofficial count, the Eagles kept an extra blocker in on just two of the 25 passes Bradford attempted. Compare that to the Chiefs' 33-3 win over the Chargers the following week, when the Reid/Pederson offense kept an extra blocker in on five of Alex Smith's 12 first-half pass attempts (again, an unofficial count).

In the Eagles' eventual loss to the Dolphins, the play that typified Kelly's blind spot occurred with 17 seconds left in the first half, when the Eagles regained possession on their own 19-yard line. Eighty-one yards from the end zone, just before halftime, Kelly nevertheless went full throttle. On the first play from scrimmage, Bradford was walloped as he threw. The play drew a roughing-the-passer penalty, but it also left Bradford slow to get up while shaking away some cobwebs.

In the third quarter, it was business as usual. Bradford took three more hits, the last of them knocking him out for the rest of the game and the next two starts with a separated shoulder and concussion.

Maybe it isn't a coincidence that Eagles quarterbacks missed six games due to injury in 2013 (Foles one, Vick five), eight in 2014 (Foles), and two in 2015 (Bradford).

Last year, Eagles quarterbacks took 97 hits, according to NFL.com, 13th most in the NFL, while Chiefs quarterbacks took 78, ninth fewest. In 2014, they took 64, which was the seventh fewest (Chiefs: 78, 13th fewest). In 2013 that number was 79, which was the 18th most (Chiefs: 75, 12th fewest). And when you consider the number of snaps they took, it looks even better.

It isn't necessarily the number of hits, but the magnitude of them. Throughout the turmoil of last season, Bradford remained the consummate professional, declining to offer even a hint of dissatisfaction with Kelly's tempo or scheme. Perhaps he understood the system's merits; he did, after all, finish the season with numbers that far exceeded his career averages in virtually every meaningful statistical category, from completion percentage to yards per attempt to yards per game. Yet when plays ended poorly, they tended to end really, really poorly, and it isn't hard to see why. Kelly's offense operated on the premise that the offense should always dictate to the defense. The tempo and the barrage of five receiver route combinations served this end. It often forced linemen onto their heels, and defensive backs into man coverage in open space. Yet when a defense was able to win those one-on-one battles, or when it was able to correctly diagnose a particular play, all that open space sometimes worked against the offense, and its quarterback.

The Reid/Pederson offense is much more attuned to the realities of the NFL, where defenses do things that must be countered on the fly. On Thursday, offensive coordinator Frank Reich said that the scheme demands more from its running backs in terms of pass protection than any of the others he's been involved with. Those running backs are also utilized extensively as pass catchers. Reich also pointed to the amount of flexibility the scheme gives a quarterback to check to a run, either via handoff or keeper, the latter of which Alex Smith used with much success in the Chiefs' hard-fought playoff loss to the Patriots.

One of the reasons the Eagles fell in love with Carson Wentz was his ability to tuck the ball and run. Bradford, Reich acknowledged, brings a different set of skills to the table.

But, he said, "you don't have to pull it a lot. Most guys will tell you all you've got to do is pull it once a game or once every couple games and get something positive. Because of the threat, defensive coordinators have to prepare for it."

At times under Kelly, the Eagles' offense did not appear to possess that kind of malleability. There were plenty of positive results. But also some painful ones. Just ask the quarterback.

@ByDavidMurphy

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