What a Sirianni and Steichen offense could look like

Jan 31, 2021

Nick Sirianni has been the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles for a little over a week now and the positions on his coaching staff are beginning to fill up. While there has been some opposed to the idea that a 39 year old first time head coach has been allowed the opportunity to select his own coaching staff . Especially after reports surfaced that Howie Roseman and Jeffrey Lurie held much responsibility over those duties, despite having a Super Bowl winning head coach in the building. Still the group of coaches Sirianni has been able to put in place have the Eagles trending in the right direction. Though Sirianni’s selections have shocked a few people to say the least. Despite much speculation that given the inexperience of Sirianni, the young signal caller would choose to surround himself with a veteran coaching staff. Instead the upstart head coach decided to go in an entirely different direction. Familiarity.

Aside from the hire of former University of Florida offensive coordinator, Brian Johnson, who was bought in as the quarterbacks coach and has some connections of his own to the roster. Many names now featured on Philadelphia’s coaching staff have crossed paths with Sirianni at some point or another in their career. This including three members of the Indianapolis Colts staff that chose to follow Sirianni on his quest to Philadelphia. Yet the most notable coaching acquisition wasn’t a tag-a-long from Indianapolis, instead this hire came from the Los Angeles Chargers, where Sirianni spent five years on the staff from 2013-2017. During this time in Los Angeles/San Diego, it sounds as if Sirianni saw himself in one of his former colleagues. Thus leading to him becoming quite fond of the man now known as the new Eagles offensive coordinator. Shane Steichen, who himself is 35 has a decade of coaching under his belt, most of which at the NFL level; including his most recent stint with the Chargers that saw him rise through the ranks from quality control coach, to quarterbacks coach, and finally the offensive coordinator. When asked about the decision to go with familiarity, Sirianni began to rave about his old friend.

“Shane and I were in every meeting together game planing. I’ve known Shane for four year, so I know Shane thinks about the game the way I think about the game. Shane is a phenomenal offensive mind and [Steichen] has done a great job, his resume speaks for itself. He’s always done a great job with his quarterbacks; did a great job with Philip Rivers, and did a great job with Justin Herbert this year. So obviously Shane and I have communicated this year, bouncing ideas off each other. The way we think about the game is so similar that that’s going to be an easy transition for us. It’s like we’re starting on day 15 instead of day one. And I’ve seen Shane at work… grind… dig for all of the little things on tape to put players in the best position possible to win. I’ve seen Shane communicate with guy. So its just like another four year interview process that I’ve had with Shane and I think the world of him. And I’m so happy to have him on the staff.”

So now with the coaching staff mostly in place, the question everyone wants to know is how will this young upstart staff fix the problem known as the Eagles offense? Well in order to know how Sirrianni and company will fix the offense, we must first known what it will look like. When asked about this during his introductory press conference, Sirianni gave an interesting answer.

“We’re going to be multiple. We can attack in multiple ways. Ill just use the example fro Indianapolis; we had Andrew Luck as our quarterback, that followed up with Jacoby Brissett as our quarterback, and that followed up with Phillip Rivers as our quarterback. Andy hose three teams looked different; they were all different in there own ways in how we attacked defenses and how we played the game. And I think that’s the sign of a good coach, that you’re going to change based off of your personnel, right? We have a certain personnel in place, we’re going to figure out what they can do well and we’re going to play to their strengths. And we’re going to try to keep them out of situations they don’t excel at. And I think that can change, we can look at the tape and think about ‘hey this will look really good, this is how he fits a couples things we’ve done in the past.’ Like that can change based off of practice, maybe then we have to see it in practice and then that can change based off a game. So its an ever changing offensive philosophy, sure we have our core plays and what we want to be good at because that’s what we do. But a lot of that is going to depend on our personnel and utilizing our personnel to its strengths and weaknesses.”

So what exactly are the basis of those core plays and what will a Sirianni/Steichen-led offense look to implement? Well here are a few videos of both Sirianni and Steichen, as they give a bit of an explanation of their offensive ideology and what they like to do to put his guys in the best position possible.

Nick Sirianni:

Shane Steichen:

A few noticeable things from the videos are how both Sirianni and Steichen put an emphasis on finding ways to create a mismatch. Weather it be by using personnel, scheming guys open, or making the defense defend all 11 players on the field. You can also see a connection with things both coaches like to do and things that the Eagles already do well up to this point. You saw Sirianni go into detail on how he and Frank Reich loved to use 12 personnel to get their athletic tight ends on islands with a preferred match up. While Steichen and the Chargers only used 12 personnel on 12% (140 snaps) of their offensive snaps during his first complete season as the offensive coordinator, both the Colts and the Eagles have ranked in the top ten in 12 personnel usage in two of the last three seasons. Obviously with Philadelphia tied with Tennessee for the league lead in the formations usage at 35% (366 snaps), in an offense that features top high quality targets at the postition, the Eagles are no strangers to two tight end sets. It will be interesting to see if there is any sort of drop off in the amount of passing attempts Philadelphia will try from the set. Last season the Eagles looked to pass on 217 of their 366 snaps in 12 personnel; where as last season saw Indianapolis fall out of the top ten in the set usage for the first time of Sirianni’s tenure ranking 16th in the league. However unlike the Eagles, Indianapolis tended to run more frequently out of the 12 personnel as 155 of the 232 snaps in the set were rushing attempts.

Another area both coaches seemed to focus on was the players abilities to make an impact with the ball after the reception. During the video Sirianni broke down scheme allowed the Chargers to work players open solely by putting players in the perfect position and watching them execute just as practiced. In this case the Chargers come out in an empty set with the running back split out wide. Upon the quarterback gauging what is the base defense, Rivers motions the back into the backfield, turning the set from an empty, to a 3×1. The motion allows the quarterback the chance to see if he’s dealing with man or zone coverage, in this case its zone as no one follows the motion man to his new position and the defense shifts. With this knowledge read one becomes the lone receiver at the top of the screen as he runs a crossing pattern to essentially no one because the receiver in the trips set at the bottom of the screen are basically decoys used to draw the defenders out of position. Now you have one of your better athletes in space; lets say Jalen Reagor for Eagles purposes, who is at their best with the ball in their hands with room to operate.

This leads me to another Sirianni special, known around the league as the triangle read; in this instance the goal here is to put the underneath defender in a position where he has to choose weather he wants to follow the underneath crossing pattern or drop back into coverage on the deep crosser. Another instance of Sirianni utilizing the middle of the field to get his quarterback easy reads and to get his athletes into spaces.

A place where Steichen and Sirianni seem to share the same philosophies at least on tape, is the utilization of the running back in the passing game. It is no secret that when he was available Herbert, relied heavily on running back Austin Eckler; who has produced just under 1,400 receiving yards over the last two seasons. This has also been something that the Colts have gotten some production out of recently both with Jonathan Taylor and Nyheim Hines, as the two combined for 781 yards through the air. Here is a really good breakdown on how Sirianni and Reich looked to get Hines involved in the passing game in a variety of ways.

In this instance instead of out wide, the Colts had Hines inserted as the slot receiver which, garnered him a matchup on a linebacker. Something that the coaching staff had to be salivating over once they identified the matchup.

The damage Miles Sanders was able to do in the passing game as a rookie is well known, and though he seemed to regress a bit in that department in 2020, surely Sirianni and Steichen look to be exactly what the third year back needs in order to take the leap in development, so many expected him to take this year. Speaking of Sanders and taking the next step; is it possible that we can finally see him become the workhorse on an offense? Probably not as history shows, both Sirianni and Steichen have shown a willingness to get multiple backs involved in play calling. Still with Colts running back Jonathan Taylor eclipsing 1,000 yards rushing in 2020 and the forgotten man, Marlon Mack rushing for 1,000 yards in the 2019 season, Sirianni has shown that he is not afraid to feed the hot hand, if it is working.

So with the knowledge we have on a Sirianni/Steichen led offense, as well as what we know about the Eagles personnel in its current state; just how much of a step in the right direction should we expect the Eagles offense to take in 2021? We for starters it will be a pleasant sight to see mesh concepts, or any sort of crossing route back in the fold of the Eagles offense. The intermediate game is something Carson Wentz thrived at prior to his regression this past season and the mesh concepts are a staple of Lincoln Riley’s offense at Oklahoma and something Jalen Hurts excelled at during his time in Norman. Either way, this is something that is sure to help whoever is under center for the Eagles come week one. In a quarterback friendly system that is based around making quick decision with the football and allowing your athletes to handle a bulk of the work, instead of relying on long developing routes (the Eagles led the NFL in vertical routes ran) and receivers that lacked the ability to create any semblance of separation. This years Eagles offense is in a much better position to play to the strengths of the players currently on the roster. Of course with a whole off-season in front of us, there is a so much room for improvement for this roster but if the front offices plan was to find a coaching staff capable of getting the most out of what is supplied to them (especially given the recent drafting history), aside from the overwhelming amount of youth on the coaching staff, it’s possible Philadelphia could have assembled the best possible staff in terms of the X’s and O’s standpoint. Still while it looks good on paper, there is still football left to be played and just like Coach Sirianni has made it known, what happens on the field can change the entire perception.

What a Sirianni and Steichen offense could look like

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