MINNEAPOLIS — To finish off a season full of aggressive fourth-down decisions and creative play designs from Doug Pederson and the Eagles’ offensive coaching staff, it was fitting that the Birds captured the city’s first Lombardi trophy due in large part to a play that was characterized by both of those things.
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All season, Pederson kept his foot on the gas pedal. All season, Pederson schemed up big plays for Carson Wentz, Nick Foles, or whoever else was handling the ball. So, why should Super Bowl Sunday have been any different?
The Eagles had a 4th-and-goal at the New England Patriots’ one-yard line with 38 seconds left in the first half. They were up 15-12, but Tom Brady and the Pats offense were moving the ball up and down the field at a historic pace. Bill Belichick elected to kick on a 4th-and-1 in Eagles territory earlier in the game, but Pederson didn’t change up his style on the game’s biggest stage. Belichick got zero points out of his decision due to a botched snap, while Pederson ended up with seven. Those two calls could have swung the Super Bowl in the Eagles’ favor.
The play that will live on in the Delaware Valley for as long as the Eagles are playing football is called “Philly Special.” It’s like 4th-and-26, except with a championship attached to it.
Foles appeared to be audibling at the line of scrimmage when the ball was snapped directly to running back Corey Clement. The Eagles ran a reverse to tight end Trey Burton, who was originally recruited to the University of Florida as a quarterback. Burton threw the ball to Foles sneaking out into the flat for an easy score. Simple pitch and catch after a decidedly tricky play.
YUP. Nick Foles is catching TD passes.
In the @superbowl.
Unbelievable. #SBLII #FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/NGNpIrrshO
— NFL (@NFL) February 5, 2018
There were about 20 other critical plays made by the Eagles in their 41-33 win over New England, but no Eagles fan is ever going to forget “Philly Special.” Here is everything we learned about the play, in the Eagles’ own words.
The coaching staff had Philly Special in their game plan for the NFC championship game against the Vikings. There have been a few different variations of the play — ironically, Brady and Danny Amendola burned the Eagles a few years ago on one — but the Eagles were focused on the play that old friend Matt Barkley and the Chicago Bears scored in the same exact end zone at U.S. Bank Stadium.
Frank Reich: “We drew it up a couple weeks ago, sitting in coach’s office just working through that. We’ve been practicing it and then this week, we just spent a lot of time on it.”
Doug Pederson: “Part of having a great offensive staff is every week we look at different plays around the league and the collegiate ranks, and things that over the years that might fit what we do. We found this one that fit, and we’ve been working on it for the last couple of weeks and tonight was the night.”
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Reich: “We saw it on film and there are several different variations of that play that we’ve seen people run. We were, in particular, copying the Bears version of it and we’ve just been working on it. Really, the part that you work on is not so much the execution, but the acting part of it and the timing of it and then get it to perfection.”
Alshon Jeffery: “We called it, ‘Clemson Special’ [in Chicago]. Clemson, I know I’m a Gamecock, but Clemson had run it that way.”
The Eagles had worked on the play for a few weeks, and the throws from Burton were generally successful … although there were some differing accounts.
Trey Burton: “It always worked. You guys don’t realize how athletic Foles is. If I just throw it up there and put it anywhere, I could probably still throw it up there and have confidence he would get it.”
Torrey Smith: “He messed it up one time. … They were always all pretty accurate. But there was one time where we was like, ‘Ooohhh, that play …’”
Stefen Wisniewski: “We ran it like eight times in practice.”
Jason Kelce: “The one that he botched was still caught, though. It was thrown behind him, but Nick being the incredible athlete that he is, still caught it.”
Jeffrey Lurie: “It’s interesting because every time we practiced it — You may have watched Nick on the sideline, there’s no doubt in my mind he was going to catch anything near him. He catches it one-handed better than most guys two-handed. And Trey, former quarterback, it was the perfect combination.”
Wisniewski: “We had a lot of discussion about the best way to do it, and then we figured out the details.”
Kelce: “Kind of morphed the timing and all that stuff.”
Reich: “We were thinking about running it last week and we were wondering, ‘Could we run it against the Vikings after the Bears had already run it against them the year before?’ We were ready to run it two weeks ago, but the opportunity didn’t come up and we didn’t need it.”
An incomplete back-shoulder pass thrown in the direction of Jeffery set up 4th-and-1. The Eagles took a timeout, and considering Pederson’s track record, the players figured they would go for it.
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Kelce: “I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I was fully ready to run a play.”
Burton: “Low-key, the last couple games when we’ve been in the red zone, coach on the goal line, I was nudging him, letting him know that we still have that play.”
Smith: “[Pederson is] aggressive at all times. That’s how he’s been all year, and he didn’t change in this game. And that’s all we want.”
Pederson: “I trust everything that I’m doing, and I want to maintain that aggressiveness with the guys. In games like this against a great opponent, you have to make those tough decisions that way and keep yourself aggressive.”
Nick Foles: “That’s something we’ve been working on, and Doug and I were talking. I was like, ‘Let’s just run it.’”
The play is called, and Foles delivers the news to the offensive huddle. The Eagles are going with the reverse pass.
Wisniewski: “We were so pumped. I knew it was going to work.”
Kelce: “Dude I was so excited, we all were like, ‘This is a touchdown!’”
Brandon Brooks: “Touchdown!”
Lane Johnson: “I didn’t know when we were going to break it out, so why not break it out during the Super Bowl?”
Burton: “Coach got some guts, huh? He’s got some big ones. Man, it shows you the confidence he has in the team.”
Smith: “It’s gonna work. We’ve been prepping it, we’ve been priming it. It was ready. And it was good in that situation because we have a strong run game so they can anticipate that.”
Foles: “I’m excited. A quarterback going out on a route? I was pumped to go over there and talk to Doug, and we agreed on it.”
Brandon Brooks: “This is gonna be fucking sick.”
Corey Clement: “We were all kind of calm. We knew what we were going up against. We practiced it for the last two weeks. We were actually just ready to do a live play and see how it worked.”
Foles steps up the line from his starting position in the shotgun, seemingly looking to check out of a play.
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Foles: “The end [Eric Lee] was a little wider than I thought, so I was like, ‘I really need to sell like I’m not doing anything.’”
Kelce: “He’s supposed to look like he was trying to kill the play and then snap it with the defense off guard. And then in that whole commotion, they get lost, Nick kind of squeaking out.”
Wisniewski: “He said, ‘kill, kill’ which is like a fake check. And then he said, ‘Lane, Lane’ and Kelce snapped it.”
With Foles behind Lane Johnson, the ball is snapped directly to Clement in the backfield. Burton, who was standing in a bunch set, immediately peeled backwards with Zach Ertz pulling ahead of him as a lead blocker. Foles stands still for a full second before going out into his route. He’s wide open, and Burton makes the easy throw.
Foles: “It worked. Trey made an amazing throw, right on the money. I just looked it in. And yeah, we’ve repped it for a while, so I was excited to get it run in the Super Bowl.”
Zach Ertz: “Nick did a really good job acting on that play.”
Nelson Agholor: “Nick is an awesome ultimate frisbee player so you know he has great hands.”
Reich: “I mean, just what a gutty call. That epitomizes Doug. It really does. He said he was going to keep his foot on the gas. He said he was going to do what it takes. He said he was going to keep them off balance. When you do that kind of stuff, you’ve got to put a lot of trust in your players, because there’s a lot of moving parts.”
Lurie: “It was unbelievable and it’s really emblematic of Doug and his staff the whole season: fearless. When it makes sense to be aggressive, they’re aggressive. No hold back.”
Burton: “I’ve been dreaming of throwing a touchdown pass since college. I still don’t believe it. I’ve had guys, [Brent] Celek and my coach Justin Peelle said, ‘You just threw a touchdown pass in the Super Bowl.’ It’s something that I’ll never forget and my kids will never forget. It’s special.”
Top photo: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images