Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Greg Schiano is adamant in his belief that his team should exhaust every opportunity to win a football game. That belief has led toward the Buccaneers firing off the ball in an attempt to blow up a team’s “victory” formation multiple times over the last two seasons.
Chip Kelly and the Philadelphia Eagles were ready for the strategy Sunday afternoon and employed a new tactic to avoid it - a kneel down from shotgun.
With 34 seconds left to play, Nick Foles lined up in shotgun behind center and took a knee to run the final seconds off the clock. Since the Eagles were ahead by more than one score at 31-20, the Buccaneers didn’t actually go through with an attempt to blow up the play and allowed Philadelphia to take the kneel down unimpeded.
Schiano said it’s a part of the team’s beliefs to play that way in those situations and will continue to do so in the future. In fact, Schiano is probably glad teams may attempt a shotgun kneel down because there is a higher likelihood of an errant snap out of shotgun that would allow the Buccaneers a chance to get the ball back.
However, taking a snap from shotgun isn’t exactly a novel concept to NFL teams either. As long as Schiano calls for his team to attack against “victory” formations, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see more teams go to a shotgun snap for their final plays of the game.
Screen shot via NFL Game Rewind.