The Eagles' wide receivers are either going to love or hate Nick Sirianni. He sat down for a film session with one of the Eagle's media staffers and went into great detail on how he wants routes run. "No banana routes!" was a recurring theme. (A banana route is a route where the receiver basically just curves his way to the endpoint of the route instead of making a sharp cut.) Nick wants routes run exactly like they're drawn on the board. You go straight down the field then plant your foot and make a ninety-degree cut away from the defender and go.
In the West Coast/Doug Pederson style of offense, it doesn't truly matter how a route is run as long as the receiver is in the right place at the right time. The QB is throwing the ball to a specific spot at a specific time. The receiver's job is to simply be there at the right time, And that can work pretty well when everyone's on the same page. When you have no real practice time and every receiver gets injured, that tends to fail rather badly. A receiver could be a tenth of a second slow and the ball's too far out in front of them. They may arrive a tenth or two late and the ball's behind them. They may cut the route short and the ball's overthrown. They may run the route longer and the ball's underthrown. Some receivers get a bit lazy too and focus too much on just getting there and not on how they get there. Getting there with a defender draped all over you isn't good.
In Nick's system, the QB sees the receiver come open and then throws the ball. It's less timing and rhythm-based. It requires the receiver to be able to do his job though. There's less room for free-styling. They need to run a route in a very specific manner. Everything's set up to get a specific receiver open by using other receivers to clear out the area. If a defensive player doesn't follow the guy clearing out an area, then that guy's open and you get a big play down the field. It's very hard for a defense to cheat on a system like Nick's. But, and this is a big but, the receivers have to buy in. They have to run their routes right and not just go through the motions.
There's no more ending up in the right place at the right time. You still need that in general, but you also need to get there in the right manner. If the route calls for you to make a sharp ninety-degree cut at twelve yards, you make that sharp ninety-degree cut at twelve yards. Defenders are then reacting to what you do and they're going to be a tick slower. When you just arc your way (banana route) to where the ball should be, the defender just follows along and is in a position to make a play.
It'll be fun to see how well the receivers buy into what Nick is selling. They need to start doing the right things in practice then carry that into games.
Fly!!! Eagles!!! Fly!!!
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