Philadelphia Eagles: Shane Steichen calling plays is a good thing

Did you notice a big difference in the Philadelphia Eagles‘ offense during the second half of the season versus the first? Maybe they went from throwing the ball early and often with a widely desperate run-to-pass ratio to something more balanced, with the ground game actually earning more reps than the pass on a few occasions?

Well, there’s a reason for that: Shane Steichen.

That’s right, while Nick Sirianni remained the Eagles’ head coach and was the chief architect of the team’s offensive playbook, the rookie head coach handed off play-calling duties to Steichen midway through the 2021 NFL season, and suddenly, Philly’s offense took off to an incredible degree.

So naturally, with a new season rapidly approaching, folks wanted to know who would be calling plays this fall, Sirianni, who now has a few very interesting weapons to scheme for in the passing game, or Steichen, who unlocked the run and helped the Eagles win six of their last eight games during the regular season.

Fortunately, the Philadelphia Eagles have made their intentions clear as to who will call plays this fall, and it’s a very good choice indeed.

Shane Steichen worked his magic on the Philadelphia Eagles last season.

2021 wasn’t the first time Shane Steichen was handed the clipboard for a team over his decade-long run at the NFL level.

No, Steichen was actually given the rains to the Los Angeles Chargers’ offense on an interim basis in 2019, when Ken Whisenhunt was fired midway through the season and was then promoted to full-time offensive coordinator in 2020. Running a scheme that was far more focused on setting the tone on the ground and throwing screens than a high-flying vertical passing game, Steichen’s 2020 offense ranked ninth in rushing attempts, sixth in passing attempts, and ninth overall in total offensive yards, even if the team’s points differential ranked 20th and their win-loss percentage wasn’t much better at 17.

Now granted, that 2020 Chargers team was wildly mediocre and resulted in the entire team being handed their walking papers when the season came to an end, but after bottoming out with a 5-11 record in 2019, it’s hard not to like at least some of the things Steichen brought to the table in his first full season with the clipboard.

Fast-forward to 2021, and the Eagles Steichen’s run-first philosophy was on full display; only then, he had a certified rushing weapon as his quarterback in Jalen Hurts instead of Justin Herbert, who ran the ball 84 fewer times than his South Philly counterpart. On the season as a whole, Hurts and company ran the ball the second-most times of any team in the NFL – trailing the Tennessee Titians by one attempt – and through his team ranked dead last in passing attempts, they did finish 25th in passing yards, which is objectively better.

With a more complete passing offense now featuring A.J. Brown and Grant Calcaterra, the Eagles should be able to expand the number of passing concepts they call in each game, manufacture better, easier completions when the ball is thrown, and continue to command the time of possession game with an elite rushing offense featuring basically the same cast as a season prior.

Throw that all together, and there’s a lot to be excited about indeed.

You know, one really has to give Nick Sirianni credit; he’s anything but rigid. While other coaches would harden around their scheme even when it wasn’t working and start to blame everyone around them for a lack of success, Sirianni did what Doug Pederson never could bring himself to do and handed off in-game play-calling duties to his offensive coordinator in order to get some fresh ideas onto the field and to streamline his responsibilities on game day. And the best part? It actually worked. With a chance to reevaluate his decision over the offseason, the Philadelphia Eagles head coach decided to stick with what was working and keep the clipboard in Shane Steichen’s hands, which, in my humble opinion, was the correct choice indeed.