In the days before the NFC championship game, the play that defined the Eagles’ dominant victory – and their entire season, really – had been a point of emphasis at practice, but it had been a clunky approximation of the thing of beauty that finished off the Minnesota Vikings. Again and again, the Eagles had worked on that flea flicker, Nick Foles handing off to Corey Clement, Clement tossing the ball back to Foles, Foles heaving it deep for Torrey Smith, and something was always off.
“It didn’t look particularly good,” offensive coordinator Frank Reich said.
The poor aesthetic quality of those dress rehearsals, though, did nothing to dissuade Doug Pederson from calling the play on the Eagles’ opening drive of the second half.