If you, like us, grew into your NFL fandom by playing the Madden video game series, you probably wondered why some obvious tactics weren’t being used in real life.
One was going for it on fourth down more often – the benefits, if your offence was any good (or if you knew which cheap plays always worked), would almost always outweigh the negatives, especially since you could just turn the console off if you failed.
Nowadays teams are actually doing that, using analytics to figure out exactly when and where it improves your winning odds, and finding success with it.
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“The quarterback can almost trip and fall forward to get the first down,” ESPN’s Booger McFarland said of the sneak.
As The Athletic’s Kalyn Kahler explained last month, the Eagles have become masters of the tactic, partially due to their tactic of pushing QB Jalen Hurts from behind as he reaches forwards.
The NFL actually had to reach out to teams and reaffirm what is legal, and what isn’t, after this play which saw Hurts pushed and pulled into the endzone against Arizona.
From one and a half yards out, Hurts tries to sneak it in, with running back Kenneth Gainwell pushing him from behind. This, as it turns out, is legal – and has been since 2006.
But tight end Dallas Goedert, after starting the play as a blocker, turns around and while falling backwards pulls Hurts with him into the endzone. This is not legal.
The penalty, ‘assisting the runner’, was not called and hasn’t been since 1991. But the growing furore from within the NFL world over the Eagles’ constant use of the tactic forced the league to reach out and remind everyone that pulling (not pushing) is illegal.
“Not one team thinks it’s fair,” an NFL analytics staffer told The Athletic. “Every team has complained, but you’re allowed to push so basically they reinforced the rules so they didn’t have to talk about it again.”
Kahler’s research found the Eagles had run 13 sneaks with two players pushing Hurts from behind, and another three with three pushers.
“They’ve taken it to another level,” Giants defensive line coach Andre Patterson said. “One guy is on each cheek and one guy is behind, and all three are pushing him forward. That makes it real difficult to stop.”
There are no signs the NFL is going to outlaw these current tactics, which make a mockery of the play’s name.
As ‘sneak’ suggests, originally it was considered a mildly under-handed tactic, where the QB almost tricks the defensive line into making a dash past them before they realise what’s happening.
When the Eagles line up with a heavy formation featuring a bunch of offensive lineman and several players behind Hurts, opponents at least have to respect the idea of a handoff to the running back – but are well aware of the Eagles’ trend.
Of course knowing a sneak is going to happen, with a team that’s this good at it, doesn’t mean you can stop it.
The Eagles attempted 33 sneaks across the regular season and converted 29 of them. It was more attempts than any team has made on record (since 2000) – the previous high was 21. So it’s safe to say those 29 conversions were a record, too.
Yet overall when teams needed only one yard, they overwhelmingly opted for a handoff to a running back – 694 times to their 291 sneaks. Yet normal rushing plays work just above 60 per cent of the time; sneaks worked above 80 per cent of the time.
There’s a certain logic to that. A sneak is an immediate act by the player closest to the line the team is trying to reach.
In contrast a handoff requires the QB to step backwards, successfully give the ball to his teammate, and then that running back – using the mild advantage of a short head of steam – can try and smash through. That second or two can be the difference in the trenches between an advantage and a disadvantage.
Now, we’re not trying to say the sneak is perfect – especially if you haven’t practiced it enough. Baltimore’s Tyler Huntley found that out when he tried to reach over the goalline against Cincinnati last month, fumbling and watching the ball be taken 98 yards the other way for a Bengals touchdown.
Huntley had pushers behind him on that play, but he didn’t just use their momentum – nor go along with his offensive lineman, who looked to be getting more push than the Bengals’ defenders – he went for the dangerous reach play.
The Eagles’ act is a bit different because they have clearly practiced it, including the pushing, a whole lot more, and Hurts knows when let his teammates do the work.
“I like the way they are doing it,” Tom Brady said in December.
“They are making it like a rugby scrum a little bit, putting a lot of bodies in there, which is kind of a new take on it. It will be interesting to see how defenses start to defend that.”
That comparison to rugby has some basis in fact, with Dallas’ defensive coordinator Dan Quinn speaking with former England union coach Stuart Lancaster ahead of the Cowboys’ Week 16 clash with the Eagles to get his insight on defending the tactic.
Lancaster quickly recognised it was a similar scenario to that of a scrum.
“It is pretty transparent what is coming, therefore, we need to, man for man, do our best to meet with weight with weight, connections with connections,” Lancaster told Quinn, according to The Athletic.
“They are very tightly connected, so your defensive line needs to be tightly connected. You need to be under their shoulders and you almost need to pick up and get under the chest of the offensive guys and drive them backwards.”
Philadelphia’s gun Aussie offensive lineman and former league player Jordan Mailata, though, knows the extra tactical options available in gridiron make a simple scrum-like defence impossible.
“We see that on film, if they start doing that, then you can throw the ball,” he said.
“So matching bodies for bodies doesn’t help at all.”
There’s a lot of “we know they know, but they know we know” in this – because the Eagles are already at the next level of playing around other teams’ knowledge of the tactic.
Back in Week 14, they lined up for a sneak on a third and 1 against the Giants, with Hurts successfully finding his way past the line – but the play had been blown dead due to an injury.
They replayed the down and the Eagles again lined up in a sneak-like formation; but instead Hurts pitched the ball outside to running back Miles Sanders, and with the Giants focused on the inside, they watched him run for 15 yards on the outside.
This is the brilliance of gridiron – these tactical wrinkles that make what should be a simple play into a battle of wits.
And for the Eagles, it could be what wins them a Super Bowl.
