Sean Mannion didn’t spend much of Tuesday pretending the Eagles’ late-game sideline throw to Makai Lemon would quiet anybody.
The second-down out route, coming with 17 seconds left in regulation during Philadelphia’s Week 5 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, became one of the most debated moments of the finish. But Mannion’s explanation was simple: the call was built to get the ball moving against cover zero and put Jake Elliott in a better spot.
“Our focus there was really just to advance the ball,” Mannion declared. “They were in a cover zero look.
With that comes some leverage issues where you’re inside. The primary focus there was [to] advance the ball to do our best to help the kick, and then get us into the best play possible to do so and avoid a negative play.
So, that was the outcome we had there. Obviously, he was caught on the outbreak right by the sideline, kind of got pushed out, but our primary focus with the call and with the execution of it was to advance the ball.
With the look, that’s what ended up happening. We’re in an outbreak, and he ends up getting pushed out.”
When he was pressed a second time on whether the sideline throw was the right move given the down, distance, and field position, Mannion stuck to the same line. In his view, the issue wasn’t the concept itself. It was about squeezing out enough yards to help Elliott.
“Not to get too far into the weeds of the scheme, but in cover zero, league-wide, typically you’re going to be fighting a battle of inside leverage,” Mannion noted. “Sometimes, again, the most productive play to try to advance the ball means running away from that inside leverage.
Now, different teams attack you different ways, but again, our primary focus in that moment was advancing the ball for the kick. When you’re fighting hard inside leverage, the best way to do that typically is an outbreaker.
So, that’s kind of how that came to happen.”
The result was a tradeoff the Eagles ended up living with. Without that extra yard or two on second down - or even on third - Elliott would have been facing roughly a 52-yard attempt, a kick that’s well within his range.
Instead, the ball moved to the 27, then back to the 30 after Dameon Pierce’s negative three-yard return to the middle of the field, leaving Elliott with a 48-yarder. That was the cleaner look, but it also left Jacksonville eight seconds to work with.
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