No, this wasn’t a perfect offensive performance by the Philadelphia Eagles. However, a win is a win! I was absolutely thrilled on Sunday, and I enjoyed the win over the Los Angeles Rams a lot. A few days later, it’s time to analyze what happened and see where this team can improve. Full disclosure: I think the weather conditions greatly impacted this game. If you want to ignore some of the points raised and put it down to the weather, that is completely fine.
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Offense
I thought the Eagles’ offense was excellent in the first quarter. The Eagles got Jalen Hurts into a rhythm early on, and he looked good. I loved how the Eagles started this game with the use of under center play action! I still do not understand why the Eagles do not do this more often. I have a lot of takes on the Eagles’ passing game, which I will get into later, but I thought it looked good early on.
How about this for a run?! Hurts has always been mobile, but I think over the past couple of years he has been a bit more cautious as a runner. He is still a huge part of the Eagles’ running game, but we haven’t seen a run like this from him in a while. This is an outstanding run. The Eagles are running QB Counter Bash, my favorite run, and it works to perfection. The Eagles’ use of formation to create space for Hurts is excellent here. This play stretches a defense out horizontally. I know everyone wants quarterbacks to slide and protect themselves, but Hurts ability to break the tackle and burst away from the Rams’ defenders was great to see. I have said for a while that the Eagles need Hurts to be great as a runner because it opens up the running game and also helps to counter some of the weaknesses he has as a passer. This was so good to see. It’s going to suck if we can’t do this on Sunday.
I struggle to understand this one. Firstly, I don’t like the spacing. The Eagles’ offense doesn’t do a good enough job stretching a defense horizontally or vertically, and a lot of the receivers end up too close to each other. However, whilst I don’t think the design is perfect, I think Hurts can do better here. AJ Brown is open on the slant but Hurts chooses to go to his right side. I don’t understand why he makes this read pre-snap. It looks like the Eagles will be two over two at the top of the screen, so I’m surprised he doesn’t look that way. He chooses to go to the three-receiver side, but nothing is open, and by the time he gets to his backside, it is too late. I think this sack is a combination of a pretty poor design and a bad pre-snap read by Hurts. I would love to know why he chooses to go to the three-receiver side and not to the top of the screen. That’s my just personal read on this one, anyway!
The ability of this Eagles team and Saquon Barkley to create explosive runs is absolutely ridiculous. I’ve never seen an offense like it. The Eagles caught the Rams out here. The Rams are expecting a pass on 3rd and 4, and the Eagles catch them in an aggressive front, which means they are not prepared for a run. This is why there is such a huge gap! The Detroit Lions do a great job running on 3rd and medium, and the Eagles have started to do this successfully, too. It’s a great way of slowing down the pass rush on 3rd down and catching the defense out. When you know you are going to go for it on 4th down anyway, it makes a lot of sense!
AJ Brown didn’t have a good game. I am sure his injury and the weather made an impact, but I am only stating what I can see. Hurts takes a bad sack here but I have so many thoughts on this one. I think this is an example of bad scheme and bad quarterback play. I could write an entire essay on this one, so I’ll try to explain why I don’t like the scheme and the play of Hurts. If you check out the podcast this week, I will go into a lot of detail about this play.
Design: The Eagles run far too many passing concepts that expect Hurts to read his initial read and then get backside. Some analysts will refer to this as a ‘full field read’. Hurts is expected to read AJ Brown first. AJ Brown is not open and struggles against press coverage here. At this point, I would instruct Hurts to check it down immediately or scramble. This may sound basic, but I just don’t think Hurts processes things well enough to expect him to be able to read one side of the field and then get all the way to his backside concept, which is a concept designed to stress zone coverage. This is tough for a quarterback to do. I want to see concepts where all the receivers’ routes are in Hurts’ vision without him having to get all the way to the backside. This concept is the opposite of that. Hurts isn’t good enough to consistently get to his backside reads and the Eagles continue to ask him to do this. It’s a mismatch. You can criticize the quarterback, but at a certain point, the design of the offense has to consider the quarterback.
Hurts has a number of strengths. Getting to his backside reads is not one of them. The Eagles could do a lot to improve this passing game. I would start with eliminating full field progressions and start running more route concepts that keep the routes in the quarterback’s line of sight. The entire passing game needs to be simplified and altered to fit the quarterback’s strengths. The passing game, as it is currently designed, does not feel like a good fit for Jalen Hurts. That’s a real problem.
The quarterback: Despite everything I have said above, at some point, Hurts also has to recognize his flaws. He stays on AJ Brown for too long here and he must get to his checkdown quicker. He was too focused on getting to the backside of his concepts and needed to take the checkdown rather than take a sack.
I get a lot of comments pointing out that I am defending Jalen Hurts a lot. I do not deliberately do this. I recognize that Hurts is not playing particularly well and that he is a limited quarterback. Being a limited quarterback does not mean being a bad quarterback. He cannot run full field progressions like Dak Prescott and Justin Herbert can in Kellen Moore’s offense. That is a fact. However, that does not mean Hurts does not have strengths that you can design an offense around. This coaching staff could do a lot more to help this passing game. I worry they may realize this in the offseason (and make a dramatic philosophical change) as it feels like they are running the same stuff over and over again and expecting different results right now.
Phew, that was a lot about one play. Here’s another example of the Eagles’ receivers not getting open and struggling against man coverage. However, Hurts decides to get out of the pocket sooner rather than trying to wait for someone to get open. I am completely fine with this. I would rather Hurts get out of the pocket quicker than sit there waiting for something to come open. This would result in fewer sacks and fewer negative plays. Negative plays are a disaster when you have a running game this good. I am okay with Hurts getting out of the pocket sooner to prevent so many negative plays.
One of Hurts’ strengths is throwing vertically down the field. Remember when the Eagles had success doing this? It doesn’t need to be complicated! Here is a simple one-on-one shot to AJ Brown. I think he is throwing a back shoulder throw and he hits AJ Brown right in the hands. You don’t need the all22 to know that this is a rough drop. This should have been an explosive passing play and it would have made the passing numbers look better!
This is an interesting one. When I was watching live, I heard a lot of groans in the crowd, so I expected someone to be wide open. Looking at the All22, I think Jahan Dotson is open but he doesn’t run a very convincing route. He doesn’t look like somebody who wants the football here. The field conditions may have altered how Dotson would typically run this route, too. You want him to burst out of his break and find that soft spot between the linebacker and the safety. In reality, he drifts towards the safety which makes this a tougher throw. This is just another minor error that was costly on the day. This could have been a significant gain.
It also raises the question once again… why don’t the Eagles run play action bootlegs more often?! I don’t get it.
I’ve said this all season long. The minor details matter. This is a minor error, and you may call it bad luck, but when you get to the highest level you can’t have errors like this. This penalty probably cost the Eagles a touchdown. It was a great call, and a nice little touch throw by Hurts, but it’s ruined by Mekhi Becton getting up the field too quickly. This stuff matters!
This is the play where I am the most critical of Hurts. Once again, I don’t like the concept. I have no idea why the Eagles continued to run these deep drops, and I would have preferred a lot more quick game where Hurts could have got the ball out quicker. However, you can talk about the design all you want, but Hurts has to get this ball out of his hands. Dallas Goedert is right in front of him. He can’t take this sack. I understand that mobile quarterbacks end up hanging in the pocket for longer, but Hurts has to just check it down and live to fight another down. I also know that the offensive line blows the assignment here, and the interior of the offensive line wasn’t perfect, but this passing game isn’t a problem because of the offensive line.
This was a slightly odd Eagles run game. The Eagles had 3 massive runs. This might surprise some of you, but if you take out Saquon Barkley’s two long touchdowns, he had 24 carries for 65 yards, which isn’t great. I was surprised at the lack of gap scheme runs, such as Counter, but I am guessing that the field played a role in that. It may have been harder to pull offensive linemen, considering the conditions. The combination of the field conditions and Jalen Hurts’ injury did limit the running game.
What a fantastic way to end the game. This is just a beautiful run by Saquon Barkley. He is playing as well as any back I have ever watched. He’s the best player on the field, every single week. He sets this up so well. He presses the line of scrimmage quickly to get the Rams’ defenders to crash inside. He then cuts it to the outside and accelerates past the safety, who doesn’t even get close. There is nothing better than watching an elite athlete who is playing his position at such a high level. Saquon has that aura around him where he feels unstoppable right now. I enjoy watching him so, so much. Can you imagine being a Giants fan?
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.
