All-22: Breaking Down Chip Kelly's Screen Game

One of the somewhat overlooked aspects of Chip Kelly's offense this year has been the explosive nature of the screen game. Yes, everyone has covered the bubble screens a great deal. But what about some of the more traditional, WCO-type screens?

Though the first half of the season, Chip and Pat have installed a pretty potent screen game to combat some of the pressure and man coverage that we are facing. It's been a fun evolution to watch as Chip throws out multiple looks, multiple personnel packages, and multiple packaged options. Let's take somewhat of a chronological look.

On this play, the Eagles are in 11 personnel with 3 WRs. McCoy is in the outside zone read formation. He's going to come across the field on a fake of the outside zone read. Jackson and Celek are going to run clear outs on the bottom of the screen. With the 2 WRs on the top, the Eagles are setting up a bubble screen. This is one of the packaged elements:

Vick immediately looks to the bubble screen on the top. Because the Giants are playing press man, it's not a great option:

You can now see Lesean leaking out of the backfield and the OL starting to work their way downfield:

Vick dumps it to Lesean with a lot of running room and blockers in front. Would have been nice to see Desean block his man though:

One of the key things to note on this play is for the defense that is studying the film, they may think they know what is happening out of this formation. But it could be an outside zone read, it could be a bubble screen to the top, it could be a screen pass to McCoy, or you could have Vick drop back as all the receivers go downfield.

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Against the Buccaneers we revealed a different look that has stuck through the successive weeks. This time we run 11 personnel but Desean shares the backfield with Lesean. We'll motion him out to draw attention to the top of the screen:

Lesean is going to leak out on the screen at the bottom and blockers get set up:

Lesean goes on a big play on the first play from scrimmage:

To relate this to my earlier point about the packaged element and familiar formation and motions. Check out the same formation and same motion from Jackson later in the game:

But this time, it's an inside zone read run play to McCoy:

It should also be noted on the play above, the additional packaged options. Because this is an inside zone read, Foles has the option to keep if the DE crashes, but additionally he'll have the option to pitch to Desean who is motioning out of the backfield. So this is essentially a triple option out of the same formation that we ran an explosive screen on.

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This one isn't technically a screen, but it is worth showing. Against the Cowboys we gave yet another personnel look with the very rare 20 personnel (2 RBs, 3 WRs, 0 TEs). On this play, McCoy motions out of the backfield. Here Nick has a pre-snap read and a post-snap read. This is a packaged play. On this one, Nick is reading the safety in the box Scandrick. If he comes up against the run, the motioning McCoy has a 3-2 matchup on the bottom of the screen. If he follows McCoy, it's a hand-off to Brown:

Here Scandrick blitzes into the backfield, and Foles quickly gets it out to McCoy with 2 blockers in front of him for a nice gain:

Same play, but this time we flip it and Sean Lee is the read. Same principle applies. He follows McCoy, it's a hand-off...he plays in the backfield or stays in the box, Foles gets it to McCoy.

Lee follows McCoy and Foles hands off to Brown:

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Back to the old '11' personnel grouping. Against the Raiders we now motion McCoy out to an empty backfield:

Nick is going to fake the quick pass to McCoy:

Celek appears to be staying into block above. But after the fake to McCoy, Foles turns around to a waiting Celek on a TE screen. Check out the brigade of blockers he has in front of him, for yet another explosive screen play.

Does that above play look familiar? It should, because we ran the exact same thing against the Redskins for an explosive play:

Again with a caravan of blockers:

On a related note, just to mess with defensive coordinators heads a little more. Just when the Raiders convinced themselves that Lesean was playing a decoy motioning out of that empty set:

Foles throws to him for a TD in embarrassing fashion:

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Finally, Brad Smith joins the party, playing the part of Desean Jackson in the 2-back set. He motions out, Foles fakes the pass to him, and comes back to Bryce Brown on the screen:

Again, with a nice set of blockers:

To quote Forrest Gump, Chip Kelly's offense is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get.

You can find us at the Chip Wagon for daily breakdowns and follow us on twitter@ChipWagoneer

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