The experience for Eagles offensive linemen in the aftermath of a quarterback sneak is a little different for everybody.
Lane Johnson said it feels like being on a submarine. For Jordan Mailata, it is stressful because of the details involved. Guard Landon Dickerson, often involuntarily squished beneath his gargantuan Australian linemate, might have it the worst.
They can mostly agree on one part of the experience, though: There’s plenty of explicit language.
“It’s usually, “Oh, [bleep!]’” Mailata said about what he hears in the scrum. “Landon is usually at the bottom of the pile and all I hear is him going ‘Oh! [bleep] get off me!’”
Dickerson added, “Most of the time, I’m just trying to breathe.”
The Eagles offense has more experience executing the quarterback sneak than any other group in the NFL through 11 weeks and has enjoyed significant success with it. It has become a staple of the team’s short-yardage and red-zone offense and has given coach Nick Sirianni more comfortability being aggressive with fourth-down decisions.
Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts has run 20 conventional quarterback sneaks this season and has converted 19 of them. According to Pro Football Focus, his attempts and first-down conversions lead the NFL and surpass even the “92%” quip he and center Jason Kelce mentioned earlier this season.
“I’m just trying to get that yard,” Hurts said. “It’s a joke that Kelce and I have that it [works] 92% of the time. I don’t know whether that’s true or not, I don’t know what the number is, but I know we have a lot of confidence in it.”
Kelce added, “There’s a reason it’s 92%. It may be a made-up number, I know that we’ve thrown that around here.”
Both Kelce and Johnson said offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland has been a major reason why the team has been so successful on sneaks the last few years, even predating Hurts. Even though Kelce argued that the play should be more prevalent around the NFL on his New Heights podcast, the veteran center said Stoutland is the one who typically lobbies for more sneaks from the Eagles offense.
“I think it’s just such a hard play to stop for a yard,” Kelce said. “The offense has the advantage of knowing the snap count. You’ve got guys in front and guys in the back pushing, it’s going to be a lot of mass moving in one direction. It’s going to be hard to stop that. Teams are making it hard, but as of right now, we’re still getting it.”
Teams have gone to increasingly great lengths to stop the Eagles’ sneaks as the season progresses. Hurts ran 12 sneaks in the first four games of the year, including seven against the Arizona Cardinals on Oct. 9. By the end of the Arizona win, which featured two touchdowns from Hurts on sneaks, the Cardinals were loading up the A-gaps in an effort to stymie Hurts’ ability to drive forward.
To add wrinkles to the age-old concept, the Eagles have used multiple formations and some pre-snap motion to keep the play from becoming predictable. Some have featured wishbone-style formations with A.J. Brown or other receivers lined up in the backfield. Sometimes they’ll motion Dallas Goedert across the formation and then back behind Hurts to give him a boost through the pile.
Against the Houston Texans on Nov. 3, the team subbed in backup center Cam Jurgens at tight end and motioned him from an inline tight-end spot to the slot receiver position before Hurts pushed in for a two-point conversion.
The Eagles also countered the Texans’ overaggressiveness in loading up the A-gaps once with success. Facing a third-and-1, Hurts faked the sneak and leaked out toward the left sideline for a 2-yard gain.
Sirianni said the tight-red-zone meeting that the coaching staff holds every Wednesday is one of the longest, most grueling sessions he holds each week. The coach puts the most emphasis on the details of the installation for when the offense is inside the 10.
“It’s a grind,” Sirianni said. “Where you’re thinking about plays that are really — that you probably get about five to seven of them, and that’s a lot, right? But it’s the grimiest, longest meeting that we have of the week, and I always look forward to that so much. ... When you get down there it’s like, ‘Hey, these are four-point plays.’”
Things like the Jurgens motion, Hurts’ fake out, and the wishbone formations are born out of these meetings.
“We talk about that up in our meeting rooms all the time,” offensive coordinator Shane Steichen said. “Nick is always like, ‘How can we get these different looks, how can we add wrinkles to it?’ So, we’re always looking through those different things to get a yard, and really it starts up front with the offensive line inside. Those guys are just so powerful up front that we feel very confident we can get a yard.”
The Eagles’ offensive front and its experience with quarterback sneaks is a significant part of the reason the play has become such a staple of the offense’s ability to convert on money downs. According to Pro Football Reference, Eagles quarterbacks have attempted more than 80 sneaks since 2018, with former Eagles starter Carson Wentz leading the way with 40 attempts in that time.
One of Mailata’s favorite memories of mid-pileup trash talk actually came last season against Washington.
“Last time we played [Commanders defensive tackle] Jonathan Allen in 2021, he tried to say we chop-blocked him,” Mailata said. “Even when we got the first down, he’s saying as we were falling on top of him, ‘Chop block! Chop block, they chop-blocked me.’ We watched the replay and it’s like, no, we just destroyed you.”
Hurts’ athleticism and his powerlifting background have added to the play the last two years, though.
“Him being a very dynamic quarterback,” Mailata said, “him being able to power lift and squat 600 to 800 pounds, it helps a lot.”
That combined ability has allowed Sirianni to remain aggressive on fourth downs this season. He ranked sixth in Football Outsiders’ aggressiveness index last season, which measures how often a coach goes for it in situations relative to what the analytics would suggest.
The Eagles have found themselves in opposition territory facing fourth down with three or fewer yards to go 10 times this season and have gone for it each time. They’ve converted on seven of those attempts, with four coming on quarterback sneaks. The Eagles are the only team that has gone for it 100% of the time in these scenarios and their 70% first-down rate leads the league by nearly 30%.
That disparity is a result of Hurts and the Eagles’ front, Sirianni said.
“I’ve said to you guys before, it’s not a blind faith thing,” Sirianni said. “It’s like we have confidence because you’re succeeding in it. ... Those guys are just muscling their way through and getting it done because that’s who they are as players. So, you lean on your players in situations like that and they’re going out and getting it done.”
Even though defenses have started to challenge the sneak in different ways, the Eagles offensive line is still welcoming the chaos that often ensues. Against the Commanders, Kelce was miked up and caught saying, “You know what’s coming” just before initiating the pile.
“The more they see it, the more they’re going to drill it,” Johnson said. “They’re going to put all their guys down there, it’s tough stuff.”
What’s tough about it?
“People just laying on top of each other like, ‘[bleep,] get off of me.’”
