In a preseason matchup this past Saturday, the Philadelphia Eagles played against the Baltimore Ravens. Eagles QB Sam Bradford was starting his first game since tearing his ACL last season and being traded to the Eagles from the St. Louis Rams for Nick Foles.
Less than seven minutes into the game, Sam Bradford was in the shotgun with RB Darren Sproles to his right. Bradford took the snap and gave the ball to Sproles; however, Ravens LB Terrell Suggs did not go after Sproles on the handoff, but instead tackled an unsuspecting Bradford around his knees and twisting the Eagles QB. The play looked very dangerous and Suggs was flagged on the play for roughing the quarterback.
This play has sparked some controversy as to whether Suggs was justified in tackling Bradford. The Eagles have adopted an offense that has a lot of zone read and potential for read option, in which a quarterback can fake a handoff and run himself.
On these plays, the defense must defend on an assignment basis in which one player takes the quarterback and another is assigned to stopping the running back. Suggs could have believed that Bradford was running the read option and therefore took the quarterback out of the play with the tackle.
The question is not whether or not the play was a read option, which Chip Kelly has claimed was not, but rather a question of whether the quarterback is protected on every play.
Read Option plays are quick and deceptive, major reasons for why they are successful. Since they are so quick though, the defense does not have much time to react. The simplest way to shutting down this style of offense is to eliminate the running back and quarterback from the play by tackling them and neutralizing them.
However, the referees in last week’s preseason game made it very clear that the defense is not allowed to tackle the quarterback because they think that he is running a read option play and might be running the football. The NFL is continuing to make it very known that their first priority is the protection of players and defenses are going to need to plan a different way to shut down the read option attack.