Eagles Film Room: Concept of the Week – Sail

In addition to writing the All22 offense and defense reviews after each Eagles game this year, I will also write this one called ‘Concept of the Week.’ I will break down a specific concept or play on offense and defense and explain the play in more detail. Hopefully, this will allow you to look out for that play in future weeks. This week, we will look at Sail. The Eagles will run this play again!

Sail

Sail is a three-level flood concept, meaning the offense uses three receivers to attack or ‘flood’ three different levels of the defense. In my writing, I usually call this play a three-level stretch concept. Some guys call it flood. Some call it Sail. One receiver will run deep (usually the outside receiver), then a slot receiver (or tight end) will run to a depth of 10-15 yards and break outside to attack the intermediate level, and then another receiving option (usually the tight end or running back) will run a short route to the flat. This is a simple concept, but it’s tough for a defense to handle because most zone coverages will focus on taking away the deep route and having a flat defender take away the underneath route. This often results in the intermediate route being wide open. This play works particularly well against spot zone coverages. This is how the Eagles’ ran it this week, leading to a big catch for Dallas Goedert.

The cool thing about Sail is that you can run some lovely variations of the same play. I would expect to see some variations of this play, as this is a play that Kellen Moore really likes to run. I mentioned that in my preview of Kellen Moore’s offense in the off-season.

My favourite variation of Sail is running it combined with Mesh! You can do this by having the short route come from the other side of the formation, like this.

You can get funky and run it with receivers coming out of the backfield. This could be something we see with the current trend of running backs running routes through the B-gap.

Or use your star receiver on the Sail route through the B-gap! You have to say, this play is awesome.

Trust the Lions and Ben Johnson (future Eagles’ head coach…?) to run my favorite version of Sail I could find online. I love the idea of Sail with a 4-strong look (4 receivers to one side) and with a wheel attached. This is beautiful. Kellen Moore, if you’re on the hunt for some new plays, this is my favorite.

Hopefully, the Eagles will run Sail after the bye. I was incredibly disappointed that after writing about Mesh last week, the Eagles just decided to banish it from the playbook!

Lastly, I will be doing the same segment on my podcast weekly, so if you want to check out a video explanation in addition to the article, you can do so here!