How the Eagles can dismantle Gus Bradley’s Raider defense

Here’s the biggest key for the Eagles to attack Bradley’s unit.

The primary way to attack Gus Bradley’s defense is to run the football. This seems like a weekly conversation, doesn’t it?

Despite bringing a safety into the box the majority of the time, Las Vegas is allowing the seventh-highest yards-per-carry average of any NFL team. It’s difficult to believe that Nick Sirianni will commit to giving Miles Sanders the football, but if he has any plans of bucking his trend, this would be the week to do it.

Last week, the wide zone runs out of the shotgun worked well to combat the Buccaneers’ simulated pressures at the line of scrimmage on the final offensive drive. The problem was that, during last week’s game and in Week 5 versus the Panthers, Sirianni realized this, but by the time he did, it was too late.

The Raiders won’t load the line of scrimmage like the Panthers and Bucs, but the Birds could still run some wide zone to open up cutback lanes for Sanders. Maybe the Eagles could even mix in some pro-style offense with Sanders taking carries from Hurts under center. Maybe they can get Sanders out to the edge with a few pitches.

The options are there with the running game (pun intended), but one thing is certain. The Eagles need to do something different and give Bradley’s defense something else to think about other than knowing that they’ll need to defend zone reads and RPOs.