Makai Lemon's first regular-season game with the Philadelphia Eagles didn't jump off the stat sheet or the television. The result? The young wide receiver caught three passes for minus-5 yards inhis team's 24-22 victory over the Washington Commanders.
Much of his early involvement came on bubble screens that the Commanders defended effectively. His head coach, Nick Sirianni, has since credited him for his blocking. For a player who generated plenty of offseason excitement, the numbers naturally invite questions about how the Eagles plan to use him.
Eagles OC Sean Mannion sees a bigger role coming.
In situations like this, it seems important to ask the offensive coordinator what he is seeing and thinking. Sean Mannion doesn't appear to be asking those questions. If anything, Philadelphia's offensive coordinator sounded
encouraged by what he saw from Lemon and made it clear that Sunday's production shouldn't be confused with the receiver's importance to the offense.
Mannion spoke with the Philadelphia media on Tuesday. He pointed to the number of ways the Eagles moved Lemon around the formation and the amount of responsibility placed on him despite his limited statistical production.
"Makai, he’s doing a great job. We’re moving him all around the formation. We’re asking him to do a multitude of different things as a young player. He caught a nice flat route early on. We had a screen that they defended well, really two screens to him that they defended well."
That last part is easy to overlook. Lemon wasn't simply standing on the outside waiting for opportunities to come his way. The Eagles were already experimenting with different ways to get him involved, even if two of the screen plays never had much of a chance to develop.
Mannion also acknowledged that the game's nature influenced Lemon's snap count. Philadelphia's offense wasn't consistently sustaining drives. Five three-and-outs complicated the process of building rhythm. Even still, Coach Mannion is very complimentary of the young wide receiver.
“Listen, he’s a young player. He’s growing in confidence every day. You can see the talent every day at practice. The nature of the game was one where it was a lower snap count than usual, but we had some explosive plays within that and he’s going to be a big part of what we do moving forward."
Mannion didn't describe Lemon's Week 1 workload as a setback. Instead, he pointed toward the future. That may be the most significant takeaway from the conversation. Lemon's three catches for minus-5 yards will show up in the box score, but the Eagles' offensive coordinator is looking at a much larger sample.
Philadelphia spent the offseason finding ways to integrate Lemon into an already crowded receiver room, and one uneven afternoon won't change that plan. A legitimate football question remains about how the Eagles should deploy him. The bubble-screen approach didn't produce much against Washington, and Philadelphia may eventually need to give Lemon more opportunities to attack space downfield or work from different areas of the formation.
But that's a question of how to use Lemon, not whether to use him. Mannion's comments make that distinction pretty clear. The Eagles didn't come out of Week 1 worried about Lemon. They came out of it looking for more ways to get him involved.
This article originally appeared on Eagles Wire: Sean Mannion expects Makai Lemon to have a bigger role for Eagles
