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Makai Lemon and Carson Steele Show Off Sean Mannion's New Eagles Offense
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- Makai Lemon and Carson Steele Show Off Sean Mannion's New Eagles Offense
This season, Sean Mannion takes over as the Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator. Though it is still early in the process and the team is only scratching the surface, the offense already looks like it could be special.
During open practice, rookie receiver Makai Lemon lined up in the backfield and took a wheel route to the house for an uncovered touchdown. It's a design straight out of the Shanahan/McVay playbook, reminiscent of Deebo Samuel 's role in San Francisco . The play offered a perfect preview of Mannion's vision: creative pre-snap alignments , manufactured touches, and getting playmakers the ball quickly in open space.
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That was seen in the Eagles preseason game against the New England Patriots . Britain Covey walked into the end zone on a wide receiver screen, while Carson Steele broke off chunk yardage on a screen of his own. Steele was the game's leading receiver with 84 receiving yards, utilized heavily out of the backfield on short wheel routes, a great example of getting pass-catchers moving in space quickly.
While the starters have rested throughout the preseason and the playbook has remained deliberately vanilla, the structural shifts from last season are evident. Both Andy Dalton and Tanner McKee have taken a ton of snaps under center and involved play-action passes.
Philadelphia is snapping the ball much faster, not quite a hurry-up offense, but far quicker than last year, where the offense routinely burned the play clock down to five seconds or fewer. The increased use of pre-snap motion is extremely noticeable, even on run plays, with receivers motioning inside to the C-gap to seal off edge defenders on big run plays. Jeremiah Trotter Jr. noted how the new system has made the defense work harder in practice.
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"We've been seeing a lot more motion, a lot more different things like that, where we have to think as a defense."
A stale offense gets a modern makeover
Mannion's new system couldn't come at a better time. Last season, the Eagles' offense ranked 24th in total yards per game under Kevin Patullo. They also ranked in the bottom five in pre-snap motion usage and sat well below the league average in play-action. Instead of schematic misdirection, the passing game relied heavily on static concepts, with receivers running hitch routes on 22.1% of their total patterns, the second-highest rate in the NFL since 2016.
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With a retooled wide receiver room following the additions of Lemon, Dontayvion Wicks , and Hollywood Brown alongside the departure of A.J. Brown , Mannion's system gives the new personnel group a far more dynamic foundation to elevate both the passing and running games, setting the stage for a legitimate Super Bowl push.
This story was originally published by Athlon Sports on Aug 26, 2026, where it first appeared in the NFL section. Add Athlon Sports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
