Some important context for the great shotgun debate and the Eagles moving forward under Sean Mannion

You could use the same four words to describe the Eagles offense in 2025 as you would Elmer Fudd.

Uses shotgun, rarely well.

So says the conventional wisdom, at least.

During the Eagles’ recently completed mandatory minicamp, there was a lot of talk about new offensive coordinator Sean Mannion’s affinity for operating from under center and the adjustment it might require for those closest to the ball (namely, the quarterback). The topic of conversation was certainly valid. Throughout the Jalen Hurts/Nick Sirianni Era, shotgun has been the Eagles’ baseline look, moreso than all but a small handful of NFL teams. I’m just not sure that the change under Mannion will be as radical as people hope/expect.

What if I told you that Saquon Barkley has only had one fewer carry from under center than the Packers Josh Jacobs over the last two seasons, when Mannion was in Green Bay? Or that, in 2025, Hurts attempted more passes from under center than Joe Burrow and Patrick Mahomes, both of whom can make a case as the best in the game?

All of this talk about scheme comes from a good place. But I think the term itself tends to get mis-applied when we talk about what makes good teams good and bad teams bad. The perception of “scheme” is that it is some static, word-of-God recipe book that each coach draws up like a wizard and then carries with him from stop to stop. In reality, I think it’s closer to a core set of principles and best practices that guide the concrete aspects of coaching: teaching and game-planning. The actual output of all of those things — the plays — will look a lot different from roster to roster and opponent to opponent.

“There’s things I believe in and there’s things that schematically I have a background in, but ultimately it’s going to be a blend and it’s constantly going to evolve,” Mannion said earlier this offseason. “It’s about maximizing things for the players. How do we make the Eagles the best team we can be, how we make the Eagles offense the best it can be and how do we put all of our players in a position to really, really succeed and maximize their strengths.”

Don’t get me wrong. There will be change. As I wrote last week, it will be real change, moreso than at any point in Sirianni’s time as head coach.

Context is important, though.

» READ MORE: The Eagles have to get more daring on offense this season. Nick Sirianni has to let them.

Reality is, the NFL has become a shotgun league over the last decade. That’s true regardless of coach or quarterback. Last season, Matthew Stafford and Sam Darnold were the only two quarterback to line up under center on more than half of their snaps. Both quarterbacks threw the ball out of of shotgun roughly twice as much as they did under center.

The evidence hardly supports the idea that the Eagles’ heavy reliance on the shotgun in recent years is an ipso facto indictment of Hurts and/or the offensive scheme. At least, not if you accept as fact that Burrow and Mahomes are two of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. Mahomes attempted just 32 passes from under center in 2025, 12 fewer than Hurts’ 44.

The big difference between teams like the Seahawks/Rams and the Eagles was their preference for running from under center. The Rams ran out of shotgun just 64 times in 2025, for instance.

At the same time, the Eagles ran the ball from under center more than you might think. Two years ago, nearly half of Barkley’s 2,005 rushing yards came from under center. His 6.1 yards-per-carry average was best in the NFL, and better than his 5.6 yards per carry out of shotgun.

Again, to be clear, we should except to see a significant difference. One takeaway from the Eagles’ pre-camp workouts is that Mannion’s run game philosophy is closer to the Shannahan/McVay/Kubiak tree than Sirianni’s.

“It’s no secret what this system is about,” Barkley said earlier this offseason. “I look forward to doing that. It’ll probably be the most I’ve ever done it under center and outside zone and all that good stuff. It’s a challenge I’m looking forward to work on and getting better at and trying to be the best at it.”

As for the passing game, one suspects we’ll still see plenty of shotgun. Jordan Love attempted roughly 30 percent of his passes from under center in 2025 when Mannion was with the Packers. That’s more than three times as often as Hurts did.

We could be talking about an additional 5-7 passes per game from under center. That’s not nothing. But we’re probably not going to see something that looks completely foreign. As tight end Dallas Goedert said last week, “You can only do so much [different] on offense.”