How different will the Eagles offense look under Sean Mannion?

Under center, play action and motion – staples of the modern West Coast offense but rarely used concepts by the Eagles – should become common under new OC Sean Mannion.

By Geoff Mosher
PhillyVoice Staff

Eric Hartline/Imagn Images

Will Jalen Hurts be under center more with Sean Mannion as the new offensive coordinator?

Weeks ago, right after the Eagles fired offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo and after head coach Nick Sirianni said the offense needed a new direction, the biggest question about the future of the Eagles was whether they'd look for a new playcaller to spice up the existing offense or take a sledgehammer to the whole operation.

We now have our answer.

After a wide-ranging search for a new OC that included mostly candidates schooled in the modernized West Coast offense, the hiring of Matt LaFleur understudy Sean Mannion, who also played under Sean McVay and other coaches who are branches of the modern West Coast trees, indicated a major philosophical and scheme change coming to Philadelphia.

The Eagles have since brought in more assistants with similar backgrounds and pedigrees, including pass game coordinator Josh Grizzard, who coached under Mike McDaniel (Kyle Shanahan tree) and Liam Coen (McVay tree), along with run game designer and former LaFleur assistant Ryan Mahaffey, and offensive line coach Chris Kuper, who coached in Minnesota under Kevin O'Connell, a former Rams assistant under McVay.

What should be the biggest differences in the Eagles' offense going forward, brought upon by these new philosophies? 

For starters, the offenses Mannion played and coached in are known for incorporating heavy elements of under center and play action, which are staples of both the Shanahan and McVay offenses.

Under McVay, the Rams led the NFL in 2025 in play action at 35.3 percent. Green Bay, where Mannion was QBs coach under LaFleur, ranked fifth in play action usage while the Vikings ranked sixth. 

The Eagles? They ranked 19th.

Motion is also a staple of the modernized West Coast offense, and both the Packers and Bucs were among the NFL leaders in using motion, while the Eagles were bottom five.

So it's safe to believe the Eagles' offense will look radically different next year, at least conceptually, than it has at any time during Sirianni's five seasons as head coach.

Because the Eagles have new offensive coaches from Green Bay, Minnesota and Tampa Bay, here's a comparison of how each team incorporated under center, play action and motion into their offenses in 2025.

The data comes from both NFL Pro and from Warren Sharp's "Sharp Football" analytics:

Under center

The Eagles thrived from shotgun for the first few years of Sirianni's coaching tenure, especially when then-OC Shane Steichen called plays. The offense was predicated on RPOs and capitalized on Jalen Hurts' strengths as a runner and quick-trigger passer.

The league more properly officiated the RPO after the 2022 season and defenses eventually caught up, finally forcing the Eagles in 2025 to experiment with under center usage for the first time under Sirianni and Hurts.

All three other teams used under center much more frequently than the Eagles did, both in total snaps and percentage of their offense. The Eagles actually registered a 0.00 EPA per play (expected points added), which isn't bad, although their sample size is much smaller. Only 10 NFL teams finished with a positive EPA per play from under center; the Eagles ranked 13th overall while the Packers ranked eighth.

The fact that the Eagles had some success in their first foray with under center formations could be a good sign for Mannion's impact, or could show that they simply caught their opponents by surprise.

Here's an example of the Eagles finding a rare run explosive from under center, with some motion sprinkled in:

And here's a memorable one from the passing game:

Play action

Going under center can be the foundation of a strong play action passing game. The Super Bowl champion Seahawks led the NFL in EPA per pass (+0.36) when using play action. It's even more impactful from under center because defenses have to respect the downhill run game more and there's less of a tell on the direction of the run, causing more guesswork for the defense. Not all passes from under center involve play action, but many of them do.

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For whatever reason, Grizzard's Bucs were one of the NFL's least-reliant offenses on play action, but the Packers and Vikings were among the leaders. Of those four teams, the Packers had the highest EPA per pass on play action (+0.28), fourth-best in the NFL, while the Eagles ranked 22nd at 0.00.

Here's a look at effective use of play action from under center by the Packers against the Steelers. Notice the Steelers' linebackers biting hard against the run to leave the middle open enough.

Getting more usage from the middle of the field courtesy of play action should be a priority for Mannion with Hurts, who has typically not used every blade of grass in past Eagles offenses.

Motion

Motion is another mainstay in the modern West Coast offense. The Shanahan and McVay trees are both known for using heavy motion, not just to get tells from the defense but to create "eye candy" with movement that forces defenses into late shifts and late checks.

Many motion-heavy teams also use misdirection to capitalize on those late pre-snap adjustments by the defense created from the motion. 

Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell's low pre-snap motion rate in 2025 is an outlier compared to past seasons – he was closer to 60% in 2024 – but the Vikings were transitioning second-year QB J.J. McCarthy into the starting role and also went five games with backup Carson Wentz, so O'Connell likely simplified his scheme more than usual. And yet, he still used more motion than the Eagles did. 

The Packers and Bucs used motion quite a bit more than the Eagles did, and it's reasonable to expect a major uptick in motion into the Birds' offense in 2026.

The Bucs fooled the Eagles in Week 4 with motion from WR Chris Godwin that led to a 77-yard touchdown catch for rookie WR Emeka Egbuka.

https://www.phillyvoice.com/eagles-west-coast-offense-motion-under-center-play-action-sean-mannion/

This is going to be fascinating to see how this all plays out.

It seems pretty clear with the hirings they’ve made this offseason that they want change on offense. They want a more creative offense. They want a more explosive offense that gets the pass game going.

But can Hurts run that kind of offense? Can he play under centre more? Can he run an offense that uses more motion and play action? Is he willing to go back to running more? And if he can’t do those things do they change the offense back to what it’s been? A fairly simple and boring offense that relies heavily on the run game. A run game that will need an elite OL where our OL coach has left and we have question marks over some of the players.

Sometimes I just don't care what Offensive scheme is ran/employed by any Team.

If you have the right players, the right play calling, and it's executed, then it should be successful. Not all of the time, of course.

I have little faith that a new scheme, for this team next season, will be successful. The first half of the 2026 season could be UGLY.

21 hours ago, LacesOut said:

I have little faith that a new scheme, for this team next season, will be successful. The first half of the 2026 season could be UGLY.

I’d tend to agree here because I’m not sure they have the QB who can run the system. The OL has major question marks. We have no TEs on the roster and there’s questions as to whether AJ will be here.