What the film says about the Eagles’ offensive direction under Sean Mannion and Josh Grizzard

After an exhaustive offensive coordinator search, the Eagles settled on Green Bay Packers quarterbacks coach Sean Mannion, who only has two years of coaching experience. The former NFL quarterback-turned-coach has never called plays in his brief coaching career.

However, Mannion did serve as the offensive coordinator for the West team during the East-West Shrine Bowl game earlier this week. While the play-calling and offensive structure was largely simplistic due to the environment of college players trying to showcase their skills for NFL scouts, the game film provides some clues on what Mannion’s vision for an offense may look like.

Also in question is the effect Josh Grizzard, whose hire as Eagles pass game coordinator was reported Friday, might have on the scheme.

Here’s a look at some of the influences Mannion may draw from ahead of his first NFL play-calling opportunity next season, and where Grizzard’s concepts could have an impact:

The Mannion-led offense in the Shrine Bowl moved up and down the field in a 21-17 win over the East team, with the majority of the 72 offensive snaps coming from under-center. One frequent play call was play-action, specifically bootlegs where the quarterback would roll to the left or right after faking the handoff, effectively moving the pocket.

The play-action bootlegs are staples for Matt LaFleur, Kyle Shanahan, and Sean McVay-led offenses. They typically give the quarterback two or three options, with a flat route from the front or backside tight end and a crossing route from the backside receiver. The tight wide receiver alignments Mannion had his Shrine Bowl receivers in are a direct comparison to LaFleur’s offense, which utilizes a lot of tight wide receiver splits. Packers quarterback Jordan Love had the fifth-highest play-action rate in the NFL in 2025.

Beyond play-action bootlegs, Mannion also dialed up more traditional play-action passes, and incorporated a concept similar to dagger, where a deep crossing vertical route occupies the safety and allows for a deep intermediate middle-of-the-field route to be run right behind it.

Several teams run the passing concept, but the 49ers and Vikings run it from under-center and on play-action throws more frequently than the Rams or Packers. Mannion spent two seasons of his playing career being coached by McVay and his final year playing quarterback was with the Vikings in 2023, under Kevin O’Connell.

From a running game perspective, in the limited plays from the Shrine Bowl, Mannion seemed to draw on Shanahan’s run game philosophy. The first example was the inside toss play, which allows a running back to get downhill quickly. It’s also a play Mike McDaniel took with him to Miami and will likely now implement with Chargers.

The other example was under-center power scheme runs, which pull the backside guard across the formation with the fullback kicking out the playside edge defender. Kyle Juszczyk had the most run blocking snaps among fullbacks in 2025, according to Pro Football Focus.

The Eagles tried to do more fullback runs last season, so Cameron Latu could be an option to fill a similar role as Juszczyk should Mannion decide to utilize more fullback run-blocking schemes.

During the Shrine Bowl game, Mannion also mixed in some outside zone run schemes from under-center to keep the defense honest. Outside zone runs are big staples of the McVay and Shanahan offenses.

The Packers last season threw out routes at one of the highest rates in the NFL last season. Could that become a staple for the Eagles in 2026?

During the Shrine Bowl game, Mannion called at least three passing concepts that required the outside receivers to run out-breaking routes toward the sideline, and two of them were completed for first downs. Throwing such routes require timing and accuracy, because mislocating the football gives defensive backs a chance to break on the football.

During the Shrine Bowl game, Mannion also called mesh concepts twice, an approach that has two receivers running shallow crossing routes across the field going opposite directions, and a route sitting over the ball behind the two receivers. It could also include the running back releasing from the backfield on a wheel route.

Grizzard ran mesh quite a bit as the Buccaneers’ offensive coordinator in 2025. The passing concept can beat both man and zone coverages and is difficult to defend if defenders end up chasing the crossing routes.

Grizzard also utilized a lot of screens in the passing game in Tampa, getting the ball in the hands of Bucky Irving, Emeka Egbuka and others behind the line of scrimmage. The first offensive play that Mannion called in the Shrine Bowl was a tight end screen. The screen game is also a staple in LaFleur’s offense, though the Green Bay coach is far more creative in presenting them.

While the Shrine Bowl gave a glimpse into Mannion’s influences from LaFleur, McVay, and Shanahan, how the Eagles’ offense looks in their season-opener is a mystery. Leaning into more under-center play-action and moving the pocket with Jalen Hurts seem like logical additions to an Eagles offense that struggled with their identity in 2025.

Adding in an experienced playcaller like Grizzard into the fold can help give the Eagles some formational advantages and add less predictability to the offense. More pre-snap motion seems to be in the cards too. The Packers ranked eighth in motion rate and the Buccaneers ranked ninth, according to Sharp Football Analysis.

One thing is likely: the Eagles offense will be modernized and look vastly different from the previous iterations under Nick Sirianni.