The offensive and defensive lines have always been foundational building blocks of the Philadelphia Eagles.

From Joe Banner to Howie Roseman, an emphasis has been placed on offensive line play and along with that, the run game excelled.

For over a decade, the run game in Philadelphia had an unquestioned conductor. If something worked, it traced back to Jeff Stoutland. If something didn’t work, Stoutland made an adjustment.

Under Stoutland, who served as the Eagles offensive line coach from 2013-2025, with run game coordinator responsibilities added in 2018, the Eagles run game flourished.

Their rushing offenses have consistently ranked in the top half of the NFL over the last decade. Since 2018, only the Baltimore Ravens have rushed for more yards than the Eagles. Their rushing success rate has ranked in the top half of the NFL every season since 2018, except one.

2025.

Longtime center Jason Kelce recently discussed Stoutland’s role as run game coordinator on Philadelphia Sports Radio station, 94WIP.

“Stout was in charge of installing everything in the gameplan to the offensive line,” Kelce said.

“You’re gonna put in 15 to 20 runs in regular ball, first, second down situations. Then you’re gonna have your runs in the red zone, high red, you’re gonna have your runs in the low red. Like he was in charge of building all of that out to my knowledge.”

“There’s a lot of hands and people that touch it, but Stout was kind of the focal point.”

Kelce later added perspective on the offense as a whole.

“It feels like the last few years, it just hasn’t been clicking. You have to keep evolving as a player, as a coach, all of it. It feels like a lot of things that worked really well in ’22, we continued to try and do, and then as you start struggling, you resort back to the things that you’ve done well in the past. So then it almost like then compounds it,” Kelce said.

“You end up resorting to all these things that were really good for a couple years,” Kelce said.

“I think it’s a really good thing for Jalen (Hurts) and the team for where they’re going to have come outside perspective because I think, when you’re there for a long time and you’ve had success and you’re used to looking at it through the lens of four or five years, it’s hard to look at it for what it is right now.”

2025 was a challenging year for both of Stoutland’s primary domains — the offensive line and the run game.

With Lane Johnson missing several weeks, and Cam Jurgens and Landon Dickerson dealing with lower-body injuries, the run game declined.

Even when the unit was somewhat healthy in the season, production still lacked. Whether due to a lack of sequencing, unimaginative play calls or injuries up front, the production was simply not there for the unit (especially taking into account Saquon Barkley’s historic 2024 season on the ground).

For an offense that leaned on the run game to kickstart its operation, that inefficiency disrupted the entire structure of the unit over the course of the season. And despite the best efforts of Nick Sirianni and Kevin Patullo, a solution never emerged.

Enter: Sean Mannion.

For years under Jeff Stoutland, the blocking schemes, run concepts, installs, and weekly game-plan packages all originated from him, as he held authority as both offensive line coach and run game coordinator.

However, with the hiring of Mannion, that structure is no longer in place.

Make no mistake about it, there is a mountain of evidence that shows that Jeff Stoutland can coordinate an elite rushing offense. However, with Mannion bringing a scheme change and a new system, the entire offensive operation has changed.

A core principle of the offense that Sean Mannion is expected to bring to Philadelphia is alignment between the run and pass game. In that offense, which is expected to pull from the Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan systems, the run game doesn’t necessarily belong exclusively to the offensive line.

Instead, it’s now the connective tissue for the entire system.

To implement this philosophical shift, the Eagles have made two key hires. Former Minnesota Vikings offensive line coach Chris Kuper has been hired as the Eagles offensive line coach, and former Packers wide receivers coach Ryan Mahaffey has been hired as tight ends coach and run game coordinator.

Both coaches have background in the McVay/Shanahan zone run based offense.

Kuper was drafted by the Denver Broncos when Mike Shanahan was the head coach. Mahaffey coached with Mannion in Green Bay under Matt LaFluer, who is a disciple of the McVay system.

Mahaffey taking on the run game coordinator role in addition to tight ends coach is telling, as it’s reflective of the effort to marry the run and pass game under Mannion’s new system.

In this system, tight ends and wide receivers must make their presence felt as blockers. They must sustain angles, maintain leverage, and engage defenders.

In the McVay/Shanahan offense, the run game is the bridge for the entire attack. Pre-snap motions, under-center formations, wide and outside zone runs, and the play-action pass game all stem from the run.

Having the ability to marry all of those elements is paramount.

For that to be the case, the run game and the passing game cannot operate as neighbors, the two elements must be intertwined. Everything has to be connected.

This contributes to what Sean McVay refers to as the “illusion of complexity.”

This ‘illusion of complexity’ refers to the pre-snap motions, window dressing, play sequencing, and overall effort to manipulate, confuse, and create uncertainty in the minds of defenses by running similar concepts, but doing so in different ways.

Mahaffey’s appointment as tight ends coach and run game coordinator, tasks him with being one of the most important pieces of carrying out that proverbial ‘illusion of complexity’.

It’s deliberate.

As Jonny Page put it in a recent article for Bleeding Green Nation, “Football has undergone a massive shift in recent years. While the league remains pass heavy, the effectiveness of that passing game now hinges on a dominant ground attack.”

For more than a decade, the Eagles offensive identity was built through the trenches. The run game had a conductor, and it was a physically dominant presence that produced some of the best run games across the NFL over the last decade.

It even led to two Super Bowls. But, dominance in the NFL has a shelf life.

Today, defenses are predicated on disrupting timing, disguising coverages, and eliminating explosive plays. Offenses that stand the test of time are built on cohesion, just as much as physicality.

That’s the hope with hiring Sean Mannion, and Ryan Mahaffey’s role as run game coordinator and tight ends coach in this system will play an integral role in establishing the identity and structure of the offense under Mannion.

Cover Image Credit: The Philly Blitz