PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia Eagles topped a leaguewide trend during the 2025 season in which NFL offenses experienced a massive spike in the number of plays that begin close to the expiration of the play clock.The trend did not suit the Eagles — nor their former offensive coordinator, Kevin Patullo, who was fired after his first season as play caller. Now, under another first-time coordinator, Sean Mannion, the Eagles are shifting away from a slow pre-snap approach that several players likened to playing chess, and toward a style that aims to make them the aggressor.“This offense is really just about being quick, getting to the ball and running our plays,” said left guard Landon Dickerson, a six-year veteran and three-time Pro Bowler. “I think for us, it’s sometimes you want to overthink things — not in a bad way. But in the system we were in before, it was kind of problem-solving once we got to the line of scrimmage. This just lets us get up there and play ball fast.”Philadelphia Eagles Camp: Hurts’ footwork, Loss of Stoutland and moreRobert MaysThe 2025 Eagles led the NFL with a style of play that to the layman’s eye can seem like lollygagging. The Eagles, who never totaled more than 37 plays snapped with one second left on the play clock in a given season under previous play callers Kellen Moore, Brian Johnson and Shane Steichen, led the league with 150 last-second plays under Patullo. The league average of plays with one second left on the play clock skyrocketed from 20.9 in 2024 to 73.2 in 2025, according to TruMedia.The league average hadn’t been greater than 23.4 since 2019. (The league average of total plays with three seconds or less also surged from 114.5 in 2024 to 200.9 in 2025.)There is a leading explanation for the surge, according to several coaches: Defensive play callers have been increasingly effective at disguising their coverages, and offenses adjusted by spending more time decoding at the line of scrimmage. That five teams other than the Eagles soared above 100 last-second plays in 2025 (the Pittsburgh Steelers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Buffalo Bills, Green Bay Packers and Carolina Panthers) builds the case for leaguewide heavy-thinking. Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, widely renowned for masking his coverages, said he has noticed teams trying to “get into the perfect play” and subsequently running into the play clock.“Long gone are the days where you get very clear man-zone indicators, you get very clear one-high or two-high pressure-triggers,” said Panthers offensive coordinator Brad Idzik, who is taking over the play-calling from coach Dave Canales this season. “Defenses do such a good job of making it muddy pre-snap that I think a lot of teams are just trying to absorb as much info as they can to see if they can get a bead on what the defense is doing.“I know our defense does a phenomenal job of it,” Idzik added. “And that’s why we have to press on our end the urgency of getting to the line of scrimmage, the urgency of, if we have a motion, there’s a reason for it to try to get the defense to undress as fast as possible so we’re not up against the clock. That is definitely a huge trend that we keep track of. And we don’t want to be on the back end of snapping that thing with one second every time because that’ll be the O-lineman’s worst friend, when the defensive line knows, ‘OK, they either snap it now, or they’re a delay of game.’ (The defense) can roar off the ball. We wanna stay ahead of the clock and continue to be in an attacking nature as much as we can.”