Eagles Film Analysis: Offense takeaways from the win over the Packers

The Eagles beat the Packers and now we get to break down a victory! It doesn’t get any better than this. It’s been a while. Let’s get it.

Offense

Seeing as I write these in chronological order, we have to start with a negative. You can’t sugarcoat this one. It’s just a disaster. Jalen Hurts is trying to force it on 3rd and long, and there isn’t a window to complete this throw, especially if you can’t step up in the pocket and throw it with real velocity. You rarely see this type of throw from Hurts, so I hope it is a one-off. He’s better than this.

While focusing on the negatives, shall we talk about Hurts now? I don’t think he played well at all. He made some outstanding plays, but I expect that from him at this stage of his career. I think he’s an outstanding quarterback and will be extremely unhappy with some of his decisions in this game. I’m not panicking, but we must admit that this was not his best performance. Weirdly, I still come away from the game feeling pretty good about Hurts because he showed some real improvement in areas he struggled with last year. We will get to that later!

Moving on from Hurts, I can’t fully explain how happy I was watching Saquon Barkley’s film. He was awesome. I think he was even better on the All22 than he was watching live. His footwork and explosiveness was flat-out ridiculous at times. The interior offensive line also had a fantastic run-blocking game. Cam Jurgens and Mekhi Becton had some incredible blocks, and Jurgens, in particular, showed some real strength. I feel so optimistic about Becton after this game because he looked natural playing as an offensive guard. He did not look like a tackle playing guard. And he is absolutely enormous! At this point, I could become a starting offensive lineman if I went to Stoutland University. Landon Dickerson’s block here is also awesome. This run was from the pistol, and it’s worth noting that the Eagles under center run game was not good in this game, and that’s something to keep an eye on over time. I still think Kellen Moore will want this offense to get better from under center as the season progresses.

Oh my goodness. I have so much to say about this play! I have too much to say in this article, so I will break this play down later in the week when I can really get into it. It’s a double post-wheel concept with Dallas Goedert running a shallow cross and Barkley releasing through the B gap on the wheel route. Combine all that with a pulling guard in order to distract the Packers’ linebacker and some motion to make the Packers have to react post-snap, and you have a hell of a play. Whilst the play call is incredible, it’s still a fantastic play from Hurts and Barkley. I don’t think many running backs could make this catch and get both feet down. This is such a beautiful touchdown. I love it!

The Packers’ defensive gameplan was bizarre in this one because they never sent an all-out blitz. I was waiting for a Cover 0 blitz, but the Packers never did it! However, the Packers did send some 5-man blitzes, and the Eagles handled them well. Hurts was decisive every time the Packers sent pressure, and he got the ball out quickly and on time. This was one of many examples where Kellen Moore gave Hurts answers to pressure and Hurts was decisive. I hope Brian Johnson was watching because the Eagles could have done with these answers to pressure last year. It’s simple but effective! The Eagles are blessed to have many weapons, and teams should be scared to blitz them because they have so many different weapons that can create yards after the catch. This is a great decision by Hurts, but it’s still a fantastic play by AJ Brown, who is capable of making defenders look silly one-on-one.

I was starting to enjoy this offensive performance by this point. It was extremely obvious that this was Kellen Moore’s offense, and motion would be a big part of it. This simple call uses motion to stress the defense horizontally and AJ Brown as a decoy to stretch them vertically. This is easy money for Hurts, and it’s a fantastic design by Moore. There was a lot of talk about motion last year, and I started to speculate whether the lack of motion was due to Hurts not being a fan of motion. I was clearly wrong. Hurts was decisive on plays with motion, and it didn’t seem to cause him any problems in terms of processing the defense post-snap.I’m looking forward to seeing the Eagles build on this performance and continue to use motion to create some easy throws for Hurts.

Cam Jurgens is a strong man. He had multiple reps in this game where he was just flat-out moving defenders. Look at the strength on show here! This is an absurd rep. I expected Cam Jurgens to be good in the pin-pull run game where he can get out in space (Jason Kelce style), and he did this very well. But I expected that! I did not expect him to be so strong on standard run plays like this. This gives the Eagles’ offense another element where they can just bully defenses when running down the middle. It’s another fantastic play by Barkley, who makes the linebacker look stupid and walks it into the end zone. Have I mentioned how excited I am by this Eagles’ running game?!

I’ve mentioned a few players but haven’t given AJ Brown enough credit. The guy is a freak. What I loved about Kellen Moore’s offense this week was that he didn’t get ‘too’ creative. Many scheme guys online have never liked the Eagles’ offense because it was too ‘basic’ for them and lacked creativity. However, I have always argued that I don’t care about the simplicity of the offense! The Eagles do not need a coordinator to scheme up wonderful plays every drive. The Eagles need a coordinator who can answer Jalen Hurts against the blitz and get the star players one-on-one matchups. There is nothing particularly cool about this call (although the late shift is funky), but this is just the Eagles’ best wide receiver beating the Packers’ best defensive back and then outrunning him. The Eagles’ offense is blessed with so much talent, and I was so glad to see Kellen Moore call plays that let the stars go out and make plays. AJ Brown is a superstar, and superstars make plays like this.

I’ve been very complimentary of Kellen Moore, but he needs to take a while at the Eagles’ RPO game. Because, quite simply, it sucked this week. It was not Jalen Hurts’ fault either. He had nowhere to go with the football time and time again. The Packers’ defense knew how to stop the read option, and even when Hurts had the ability to throw it, there was just nobody open. I think NFL defenses are good at stopping RPOs now, and I think the Eagles have so much talent that they don’t need to rely on RPOs anymore. This is 3rd and 2 and there’s just nothing there. I would rather than get into pistol and run it up the middle with Barkley or run a designed QB run such as counter-bash or a quarterback draw. The RPO game just did not work in this game.

I’ve not seen an Eagles’ running back make a play like this in a long time. I’ve never been a huge fan of paying running backs, but if you are going to pay them, pay superstars. No disrespect to D’Andre Swift, but there is no chance he can make a play like this. This is a ridiculous run. If Barkley can stay healthy and explosive throughout the season, he will have a monster season and be so fun to watch.

This seems like a good time to point out that I picked Barkley as the Eagles’ offensive MVP on my preseason podcast with BLG!

I screamed a lot of profanities when I watched this play happen live. I still can’t quite believe that Hurts made this decision. However, in his defense, I somewhat understand it after watching the All22. AJ Brown is wide open. If Hurts throws this better and throws it to the back of the end zone, I think this could be a touchdown. However, this is a tough throw rolling to his right, and Hurts doesn’t have elite arm talent. Unfortunately for Hurts, AJ Brown also slips, so we will never know if he could have prevented the interception. You can make excuses for Hurts and say AJ Brown may catch it if he doesn’t fall, but let’s be honest, this is an awful decision.

I’ve been critical of Hurts’ performance in this game, but he was clutch on the final drive. The Eagles’ final drive was fantastic, and this was my favorite play. There is just something so demoralizing for the defense when you tackle the quarterback short of the sticks and he just bulldozes the defensive back and picks up the first down. It was not a great Jalen Hurts game, but when the game was on the line, he didn’t panic and made some clutch plays. I think Jalen Hurts is misunderstood as a runner, and he is better on plays like this one, where he can get vertical and show off his power. This is another reason I don’t like him running horizontally on read-option plays, but I won’t get into that again!

This may not have been a perfect game, but I feel very optimistic about the offense overall. It was an excellent start for Kellen Moore, and this offense got into a good rhythm at times and I thought he did a great job spreading the ball around and giving all the Eagles’ playmakers a chance to make plays. Although Hurts didn’t have a good game, he showed some clear improvement against the blitz and looked in command of Moore’s offense. This offense is so talented, and I cannot wait to break it down all season.

Thank you for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts, so feel free to comment below and ask any questions. If you enjoyed this piece, you can find more of my work and podcast here.