Philadelphia Eagles: 5 ways to fix the offense over the bye week

Complicate the playbook.

With how miserable the offense has looked as of late, a lot of people have thrown out the idea that Doug Pederson and the Philadelphia Eagles need to simplify the playbook. Resort to a more “vanilla” type offense.

I couldn’t disagree with this idea more.

At the moment, the Eagles have one of the most basic offensive schemes in all of football, and it’s one of the main reasons they’ve struggled so much in terms of scoring points. They run the ball up the middle a ton, they like to stick to 12-personell (2 TE sets), and they have very strictly defined WR positions. They rarely run pre-snap motion, and they almost never employ any sort of creative play designs.

I’m not necessarily vouching for trick plays, more so just plays that routinely create space and keep defenses off guard. Lining up Reagor at RB, having Hightower take a WR end-around out of the slot, fake screens, designed QB runs, etc. Whatever the case is, Pederson needs to add a whole new layer to his playbook, because his current sets just aren’t creating enough easy yardage.

Fixing the offense is no easy task, and it’s going to take more than just Wentz and Pederson elevating their game. Miles Sanders needs to get back on the field, Dallas Goedert needs to take on the role of the team’s #1 tight end, the offensive line has to play better, and guys like Jalen Reagor and John Hightower need to give the offense more than 2-3 catches a night.

It’s a whole lot to address in just one week of practice, but the clock is most definitely ticking. It’s time to figure this stuff out now before it’s too late.