Patrick Causey, on Twitter @PhillySportsPMC
10-10, 121 yards, three touchdowns (on three drives), 156.7 passer rating.
Had I known that Sam Bradford was going to turn in a performance like this, I would have waited to do my scouting report and All-22 piece on him until this Friday. (For those that missed it, you can read it here.)
But such is life. Preseason caveats aside, Bradford turned in as impressive of a performance as one could have hoped for given the circumstances. Indeed, one would not fault Bradford if he was still digesting the playbook and shaking off the rust from his near two-year layoff due to consecutive acl tears.
But Bradford announced loud and clear that the rust which so obviously affected his game against the Baltimore Ravens was a thing of the past; turning in a performance that has set Philadelphia abuzz with anticipation and excitement. It was almost as if Bradford just needed to see that he could survive a hit (or two) in order to finally let it rip.
And rip he did.
Bradford's performance becomes even more impressive when you look at the game tape. Yes, he seamlessly ran Chip Kelly's fast break offense and hit the open receivers when needed. But dig a little deeper and you could see his football intelligence on full display, with Bradford manipulating coverages with his eyes and delivering passes with pinpoint accuracy.
Let's do a mid-week All-22 of Bradford's most impressive plays from Saturday.
Let's start with arguably his best throw of the game, the wheel route touchdown to Darren Sproles. The Eagles are running a staple in Kelly's offense — the drive route — that has been around football for years but was largely refined by San Francisco 49er's legend Bill Walsh. (For a detailed explanation of the drive route, see Chris Brown's excellent piece on SmartFootball.com).
The concept of the drive is to use two to three deep routes to create space for a shallow drag route across the middle. The receiver running the drag route naturally breaks open thanks to the picks that occur from all the traffic over the middle. This gives the quarterback an easy throw over the middle to a (usually) open receiver with room to run.
Here, the Eagles have Nelson Agholor (top of the screen), Miles Austin (bottom), and Brent Celek, running the deep clear out routes. Given that the Packers are playing man coverage with a single high safety, Bradford can look to these routes for a quick strike if he likes the one on one matchup.
Matthews is lined up in the slot running the drag/shallow route. As you will see in a moment, the play works perfectly, as Matthews ends up open coming across the face of Bradford.
But there is one other wrinkle to this play that modern spread offenses have incorporated: a wheel route from the running back out of the backfield. Here, Darren Sproles is matched up man to man with a linebacker — big mistake — and is able to take advantage of the space created by Austin's clear out route towards the endzone.
The linebacker didn't stand a chance.
Bradford delivers an absolute majestic strike, putting the ball only where Sproles can catch it for the score. Here it is in gif format:
The Eagles turned to the drive concept again on their third drive of the game, this time lining Sproles up in the slot. Sproles is again covered by a linebacker, but instead of a wheel route, this time he runs the shallow route to the far side of the field.
The downside to this play is that it takes time for the shallow route to get open, so your offensive line better give the quarterback time. They were able to do that here, and Sproles was able to exploit the open field created by the two vertical routes for a big gain.
It was an encouraging sign to see Sproles being used in multiple facets of the passing game. Last year, it felt like the Eagles got away from exploiting his swiss army knife like qualities, keeping Sproles on the sidelines to pacify LeSean McCoy's ego driven need for more touches. Hopefully the Eagles continue to use Sproles like this during the regular season because, as Mike Mayock said during the broadcast, you simply cannot cover this guy.
Another play we saw the Eagles run repeatedly (four by my count) is known as the snag, stick or triangle read concept. Why is it called a triangle read? As you can see below, the trips wide receiver route concept creates a — you guessed it — triangle read for the quarterback to make.
The beauty of the triangle concept is that is stretches the defense both vertically and horizontally, creating an easy read for the quarterback to make regardless of what defense he is facing. If the defense is in man, you create a natural pick play for the running back to the flat (since his defender likely gets caught by the corner and curl routes). If the defense plays Cover 2, it becomes mathematically impossible to cover the three receivers. The corner is put in a catch-22: cover the flat and the quarterback will go over the top to the open corner route; stay at home and the flat is there for easy taking. And if the defense is in Cover 3, the curl route can usually find an opening in the zone for an easy pitch and catch.
Here is a gif of the Eagles running this play during their second series of the game. Notice how they incorporate a route combination on the backside of the play — Agholor running a deep in while Murray runs to the flat — to safeguard against the defense having enough defenders to cover all three routes on the far side of the field.
Bradford could not put this ball in a better spot to Matthews. He hits him on the outside shoulder and in stride, enabling Matthews to turn up field and pick up some yards after the catch.
When the Eagles coaching staff raves about Bradford's accuracy, this subtle ball placement is what they meant. Al Pacino wasn't lying when he said football is a game of inches. Had Bradford thrown it too far to the inside, the defender would have had an easier opportunity to knock the ball incomplete or bring Matthews down immediately. Putting this right on the money let Matthews turn a big gain into an even bigger one.
In the third series, the Eagles run the identical play and again find Matthews for a first down inside the red zone.
Again, watch the ball placement. Matthews has a defender draped on him, so Bradford puts it high and to the outside shoulder giving Matthews the opportunity to use his size advantage to box out the defender.
On this play, the Eagles run a crossing route concept that has been a staple in Chip Kelly's offense. The idea is to create enough of a traffic jam over the middle to break one receiver free from his man coverage. Cooper and Celek run crossing routes from the outside, while Burton runs the crossing route underneath in the opposite direction.
While the route concept worked to perfection, the Packers almost blew the play up by sending an extra man on the blitz. Bradford has to make a quick and decisive throw under pressure or it would have been a turnover on downs.
As I covered before, Bradford has struggled mightily under pressure, completing only 38% of his passes in 2013. Whether that was simply a byproduct of playing behind a leaky offensive line with no skill position players worth their salt, or whether it was a sign of a deeper seeded issue with Bradford remains to be seen. But the touchdown pass to Trey Burton was a thing of beauty, and was an encouraging sign given Bradford's past struggles when under pressure.
Here is a better angle of the touchdown throw. You can see Bradford release the ball before Burton even finishes his route. That anticipation and poise under fire is a very encouraging sign.
The last play I wanted to cover was Bradford's last throw in the game. While the throw itself isn't anything spectacular, Bradford's manipulation of the safety was very impressive. It highlights another quality about Bradford we have heard Kelly and Pat Shurmer praise often: Bradford's football intelligence.
The Packers are playing a Cover 4 zone defense, meaning they have four defenders drop to cover the back of the end zone. The Eagles are attacking this zone with four deep routes designed to exploit the holes in the zone.
But watch Bradford's head in this clip, you can see how he stares to Riley Cooper's side of the field which forces the safety to gravitate towards Cooper's side of the field:
Without manipulating the safety with his eyes, Celek likely would not have been open for the touchdown.
What separates the good quarterbacks from the great ones is the ability to master the nuances of the game: perfect ball placement, manipulating coverage with your eyes, checking into the right blocking schemes. Many talented quarterbacks never became profficient enough in those tiny details to take their game to the next level. While it is far too early to reach any concrete conclusions as to whether Bradford is ready to make that jump, these are encouraging signs that he is headed in the right direction.
Now he just has to stay healthy.
