After all the preseason chatter and the crazy hype that ensued after Bradford's preseason performance against the Packers we got our first "real" glimpse at the Sam Bradford-led Philadelphia Eagles. As always, I'm looking forward to seeing the All-22 before making any bold conclusions. Bradford seemed to settle for the quick reads and underneath stuff. From a schematic standpoint, after a rocky start, Bradford seemed to settle down well in the scheme that, not surprisingly, really doesn't look much different than the offense Foles and Sanchez have run. lots of familiar concepts to break down.

In a preview from yesterday, I broke down the Eagles 4 verticals switch concept that they ran against the Seahawks Cover 3 in last years matchup. I expected to see it last night, and we certainly did. You can see 10 Falcons on the TV feed below. They are playing with one deep safety who is off the screen. As described yesterday, the outside receivers, Cooper and Agholor, in this case will run in-breaking routes while the inside receivers will run a wheel route to the sidelines. This really tests the one deep safety look from the Falcons and sometimes can create natural rub routes:

Note Ryan Mathews will also go out in the flat which often times will draw an underneath defender:

This play was not as wide open as we saw against the Seahawks last year, but Bradford makes a very impressive tight window throw into Jordan Matthews:

We saw a similar switch concept down in the red zone a little later. Pay attention to the top of the screen. Again, note the Falcons playing a single-high safety. Matthews in the slot will run to the sidelines as Cooper runs an in-breaking route:

Unfortunately, Matthews and Bradford don't appear on the same page here. Matthews is looking back once he comes open as if he's expecting a back shoulder throw and slows down his route a bit. Bradford throws it over the top to the corner of the end zone:

The corner plays it well, but I'd like to think that Matthews should have run to the corner and might have had a chance with the size advantage to leap for the ball. These are the types of things that should develop over time.

Here's a nice little wrinkle on a popular play call from last year. The Eagles loved to run a roll-out, play-action crossing route to Jordan Matthews last year. You see it hear with hard run action to the right:

Ertz and Barbre do a nice job getting their men on the ground as Bradford rolls to his left with Jordan Matthews coming out on the crossing route. Above you can see the Falcons deep safety and he has a bead on this cross route. But as Ertz finished his block, he leaks back out. Watch the two Falcons edge defenders chase Bradford:

Bradford has a chance to try and fit the deep ball into Matthews on a tight window into double coverage, but has the much more conservative option with Ertz underneath. Nice wrinkle and play design from a staple play from last year as the Eagles convert a big 4th down.

Let's have a look at Bradford's first interception. The Falcons run a stunt with the DT looping to the outside:

Peters downblocks on the penetrating DE and loses the DT running the stunt who comes unblocked down the barrel into Sam Bradford:

Bradford needs to get rid of the ball, however, from this view you can guess that Bradford simply didn't see the dropping LB behind the referee:

He unloads under pressure and throws the pick. Peters needs to do a better job and perhaps Bradford didn't see him, but he needs to be aware of where the middle defender is. Dangerous throw under pressure up the middle.

We'll finish with one of the most well-known passing concepts the Eagles run. The Wheel Route and Mesh Concept. We've covered it extensively on this blog. The running back will run a wheel route out of the backfield and the Eagles will run 3 receivers on a variety of shallowing crossing routes looking for natural picks or "rubs".

A couple of things to highlight on this first one. One of the challenges with a mesh concept is if the wheel route doesn't come open immediately, the shallow crossers can take a little long to develop putting the QB at risk. Here the Eagles add Ertz running a seam route down the middle. This is a nice first/second read if it comes open quickly. If it doesn't the QB should see the shallow crossing receiver coming second later into the same passing window. That's what they do here:

Off the snap, Ertz immediately comes free and Bradford quickly fires it to him for a big gain:

Unfortunately the play gets called back due to an offensive pass interference call on Nelson Agholor. As mentioned, the play is designed to create a "natural" pick or rub. Agholor overdoes it here and it's a costly rookie mistake. Agholor actually turns his shoulder and bangs into the DB. An easy call for the ref:

The Eagles go back to this later on what I still think, was a Jordan Matthews TD:

Lots of traffic in the middle of the field and Matthews comes wide open on the crossing route:

Overall, a decent debut for Bradford. I hope the rust is officially knocked off and he can hit the ground running from here on out. He seems comfortable with the offensive concepts, gets the ball out quickly and for the most part made very good decision and flashed accuracy. We didn't see any deep down the sideline throws. Not sure if that was by design or he was a little gun-shy. As always the All-22 should tell us more tomorrow. Stay Tuned.