Eagles ‘O’ keeps foes off-balance with looks

FOXBORO — As unfamiliar as the Eagles seem, the Patriots have seen them before. They just happened to be dressed as Chiefs.

Eagles coach Doug Pederson, who was Andy Reid’s offensive lieutenant in various capacities from 2009-15, runs a scheme that troubled the Patriots once already this season when they lost their home opener to the Chiefs. Principally, through a variety of looks, their entire goal is to keep the defense off-balance, and that’ll be the Patriots’ greatest challenge in Super Bowl LII.

“We’ve got to trust that the guy next to us is doing his job because you can’t do two things at once against this offense,” safety Devin McCourty said. “If they run outside, they have a play that balances it up and looks the same, and they’ll run it inside. If they usually throw the ball on a slant route on this look, they’ll have a play where the slant is there but they’ll also have a wheel route to the outside.

“They have so much balance in the run and passing game.”

Backup quarterback Nick Foles has been successful in the quirky system, much like Alex Smith with the Chiefs. The key for the Patriots will be to bottle up his first read and force him to plod his way through the rest of his progressions. That’s when Foles has gotten into trouble because he doesn’t anticipate as well, which is why he has been a backup at every stop of his career.

Thing is, the Eagles are aware of that, and they’ll present a host of different looks with the attempt to keep the Patriots on their heels, whether they use wide receiver Nelson Agholor in motion in the backfield, start tight end Zach Ertz next to Foles in the shotgun or deploy an array of stacked and bunch formations to test the defensive communication.

“Everyone has to do a job for the defense because that’s how the defense is good,” McCourty said. “If you don’t do it or you leave a gap uncovered, they have too many talented players that you can’t just say, ‘Let’s stop