Now that Kelly’s Eagles have found success — they led the NFL in rushing and yards per carry and finished second in total offense in 2013 — the conversation has shifted away from whether his offense would work in the NFL to whether that success is sustainable, and particularly whether defenses will have figured out the attack over the offseason. This line of questioning misses the mark, however: Kelly’s offense isn’t unique because of specific schemes; it’s unique because of how he organizes and implements them.
“I’ve said it since day one: We don’t do anything revolutionary offensively,” Kelly said recently. “We run inside zone, we run outside zone, we run a sweep play, we run a power play. We’ve got a five-step [passing] game, we’ve got a three-step game, we run some screens. We’re not doing anything that’s never been done before in football.”
Instead of drawing up a new play to get that one-on-one matchup for that seven-yard pass, Kelly, like some football hacker, is attacking the very logic of defenses by deploying two-on-one, three-on-two, and four-on-three advantages, whether in run-blocking schemes or pass patterns. This is why the Eagles led the NFL in plays of more than 20 yards last season. Kelly is actually trying to break defenses.
