Eagles Film Room: Concept of the Week – Whip

In addition to writing the All-22 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 the Eagles’ use of Whip against the Bengals, which the Eagles ran on the interception by C.J. Gardner-Johnson.

Whip

The Eagles have run Whip a lot of late. If you can think of a play over the past two weeks where Nakobe Dean has blitzed, there’s a pretty good chance it was Whip. Whip is usually run as a creeper pressure. If you are wondering the difference between a creeper and simulated pressure, it doesn’t matter! Every coach calls them different things, but I usually refer to them as this because I think this is how Fangio does it.

Creeper Pressure = the defense does not show a pressure look before the snap.

Simulated Pressure = the defense shows a pressure look before the snap.

The benefits of running simulated and creeper pressure is that you only rush 4, but you can sometimes get an unblocked pressure or a rusher being blocked by a running back. This is because you rush 4, but don’t rush your 4 defensive linemen. If done correctly, this can result in you getting one-on-one matchups or even a free rusher but still having 7 defenders in coverage.

However, the downside is that one of these defenders in coverage will likely not be very good in coverage! If the offense can spot the EDGE dropping into coverage pre-snap then it makes it very easy for the offense to throw the football. We have seen this too frequently over the past few years as the Eagles have struggled to strike the balance between running pressures and remaining unpredictable.

There are loads of different versions of very similar pressures, but the Eagles have run Whip the most frequently of late. Whip is where you drop the EDGE defender away from the weakside linebacker and blitz the weakside linebacker through the B gap.

If he rushes the A gap, Fangio calls this Wasp. The Eagles have run Whip well and have managed to catch the defense out, resulting in a lot of Nakobe Dean pressure the past few weeks!

This week, the Eagles didn’t get any unblocked pressure, so this play gave us a look at the secondary. Although Whip leaves 7 men in coverage, you don’t want to play a split-safety coverage. This would result in the EDGE defender having to get out to the flat immediately. It is better to run a fire zone coverage (3 deep and 3 under) with the EDGE defending being an extra dropper without any massive responsibility. This leaves the 3 deep defenders to play cover 3. Whip plays out as Cover 3, but the outside cornerbacks are in man-to-man coverage if the outside receiver runs a vertical route as Ja’Marr Chase does against Isaiah Rodgers. Rodgers played it perfectly, and CJGJ did a great job getting over from single-high safety early.

Thank you for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts, so feel free to comment below and ask any questions. If you enjoyed this piece, you can find more of my work and podcast here.