Eagles film review: Is Jalen Reagor as bad as his numbers indicate?
By Hunter Doyle
Here’s a play that Jalen Reagor and the Eagles would like to have back.
The Eagles are driving with an opportunity to jump back on top with a touchdown and extra point. Spoiler alert: they did and went up 17-16. In the third quarter, it’s 2nd and 8 at the Chargers 15-yard-line. The Chargers go back to fire zone but with a wrinkle. They blitz a linebacker towards the left side of the line and drop a standup edge into the flat to the right side.
The Eagles are in a three-by-one with two receivers (Smith and Watkins) to the left and the running back (Gainwell) to the left of the Hurts. All three run vertical with Gainwell eventually breaking his out route off to the flat. Those vertical stems clear space underneath for Reagor on his drag route. It’s essentially the shallow cross screen they tried to run last year versus the Saints which I’ll talk more about on the next slide.
The late blitzing linebacker in the A-gap in fire zone caused communication issues for the line and left Jordan Mailata in a two-on-one.
He did the right thing and took the inside rusher but when an athletic lineman such as Bosa is the outside rusher it doesn’t really make a difference. That being said, Hurts could’ve made his hot read since the blitzing linebacker left a void in the middle of the field where Reagor was running his route.