I would usually complete a review of the Eagles’ offense and defense during the bye week, but this year is a bit unusual with the Eagles’ bye week being so early in the season. I wanted to write a ‘How I would fix the Eagles’ offense and defense’ article, but I decided it felt too negative. So, instead, I will do ‘3 things I like about the Eagles’ offense and 3 things I would improve’ to speak about some of the good stuff I’ve seen so far this year! I’ll do a separate article for the defense. This could include a specific player, a positional group, or a schematic thing. Any stat I use is from Pro Football Focus or Sports Info Solutions.
The Good
Saquon Barkley
Come on, how could I start anywhere else? Barkley ranks 3rd in rushing (despite only playing 4 games) with 435 yards and 4 touchdowns on only 73 attempts. That gives him a very healthy 6.0 yards per carry. The highest yards per carry Barkley has ever had was his rookie year, when he had 1307 yards on 261 carries, giving him a 5.0 yards per carry. Additionally, he has 12 catches for 85 yards and 1 touchdown. Not bad at all!
I watched a lot of Saquon Barkley this offseason, and it was clear he was still an excellent player. However, he was not as explosive as he was as a rookie. It was clear to me that he had slightly lost a step. But he was still awesome to watch. I was slightly surprised by some of the criticism of the signing because all you had to do was watch a few games, and you could see that he was still a special talent. Here’s what I said at the time…
The more I watched Barkley, the more excited I became. I am all about smart team building, and sensible spending, but sports are meant to be fun. I want to enjoy watching my team every week. Saquon Barkley is going to be so much fun. Who the hell doesn’t want to watch this guy in the Eagles’ offense? Just watch the clips above!
There are a lot of very good running backs in this league, but there are very few whose highs are as high as Saquon Barkley’s. When he is fully healthy, he is as good and talented as anyone in this league. Running backs do not go at 2 overall unless they are superstars. You need superstars to win in this league, and Barkley is a superstar talent.
You can make a very strong argument that Barkley is currently the most complete running back in the NFL. I get the feeling the Eagles probably expected a little bit more of a running back by committee this year, but you can’t take Barkley off the field. There is nothing he can’t do. I’ve enjoyed watching this running game this year, and I wish we had leaned on it more. Here are some of my favorite runs from this year showcasing his explosiveness and vision.
Oh yeah, he can do this out of the backfield, too.
The Eagles’ EPA per play is 0.04 this year when Barkley is on the field and -0.18 when he isn’t. Who said running backs don’t matter?
The ?’s on the offensive line
We don’t need to talk about Jordan Mailata, Landon Dickerson, or Lane Johnson. We know who these guys are. But the Eagles came into this season with a new center and right guard. It’s pretty incredible that after 4 weeks, no one talks about the Eagles missing Jason Kelce. That’s sort of insane. It speaks volumes about how well Cam Jurgens has played. Whatever you think of PFF grades, Jurgens is currently the 9th best center per PFF grades and has given up 0 sacks, 0 hits, and only 5 pressures on 156 pass-blocking reps. That’s really good. I worried about his ability to play against someone as big as Vita Vea, but it didn’t become a huge story. Jurgens has had a really solid and consistent start to the season. Jurgens has proven that he has the strength and the ability to hold up in pass protection while retaining his elite quickness. He has a unique ability to get to the second level quickly, which is important in the Eagles’ zone running game.
The other major question mark on the offensive line was the right guard position. We have seen both Mekhi Becton and Tyler Steen look good at right guard. Becton had his worst performance of the season in week 4, which does concern me a little bit as he was playing hurt, but he’s had a very positive start to the season. In particular, he’s flashed in the run game. His strength and power in the run game is absurd.
Tyler Steen has only played 64 snaps, but I think he looked great against the Saints. He’s had 43 pass-blocking reps and has given up 0 sacks, 0 hits, and 0 hurries. And he’s looked good in the run game. That’s not bad for your 6th offensive lineman!
Dealing with the blitz
The offense hasn’t exactly been perfect, but we haven’t had to have a major talk about the play against the blitz. It wasn’t great in week 4, but the Eagles were stuck in obvious passing situations against Todd Bowles, which will always be difficult. I’m not too worried about that game in isolation. The Eagles clearly have a plan to get the ball out quickly against pressure, and Hurts looks comfortable.
The answers I’ve seen on film are exactly what I expected from a Kellen Moore offense.
What I would like to see
Fewer turnovers
Duh. This is pretty obvious, but I would be foolish not to mention it. You can talk about all the schematic changes in the world, but it doesn’t matter if you turn the ball over frequently.
The Eagles’ offense has been nowhere near as bad as some people think through 4 weeks. The problem is the turnovers have been incredibly frustrating and ruined some promising drives.
You can’t look anywhere else than quarterback Jalen Hurts regarding turnovers. Despite only playing in 4 games, Hurts leagues the league in ‘turnover worthy plays’ with 11 this year and has a ‘turnover worthy play %’ of 6.7%, which ranks 3rd in the league behind only Tyler Huntley and Anthony Richardson. That’s not good enough. Hurts’ interceptions have come from being over-aggressive. 27 turnovers since the start of last year is not good enough.
It’s worth noting that he sometimes has a bit of bad luck, but what quarterback doesn’t have bad luck? The stats show he is throwing too many risky passes.
Additionally, Hurts has had a problem with fumbling. Hurts has fumbled twice this year, and one was a disaster.
Nick Sirianni talks a lot about the fundamentals in his press conferences. Right now, the Eagles need their quarterback to take care of the football and remember the basics of playing the position.
Horizontal passing game
I went back and looked at my Kellen Moore breakdown from the off-season and I did highlight one concern. Moore does like to throw a lot of vertical routes and comebacks. These are timing routes, and I don’t think Hurts does a brilliant job of hitting them on time. However, I have an issue with these routes because they are often isolation routes without proving any opportunity to stretch the opposing defense horizontally. This also limits the YAC potential. One thing I liked about Kellen Moore’s Cowboys’ offense was the ability to stretch the defense horizontally, often using motion. Here’s my favorite example.
The weird thing is that we saw lots of this in week 3, when the Eagles ran a ton of Mesh. But last week, the Eagles ran a bunch of vertical routes that didn’t stretch the defense. I would like us to get back to more horizontal concepts that force the defense to cover the sidelines and also provide the Eagles’ receivers with a chance to get more YAC. Just like this!
Early down run game + the use of pistol
I sort of cheated and turned this into two points. But who cares. The first one is obvious. Just run the ball more on early downs, please!
I would also like to see the Eagles commit to giving Jalen Hurts some true designed runs, such as QB counter bash and QB power, rather than his runs coming on RPO’s or read option plays. But that’s not the most significant change I would make so I won’t get into detail on this now.
Kellen Moore has historically run a lot of outside zone from under center. And I do mean a lot. His running game was a Shanahan style under center outside zone run game.
This was a huge part of his previous offenses because it opened up the play-action rollouts that the Eagles just can’t do—because they can’t run from under center! We just haven’t seen this at all this year. Do you want to know a stat that my co-cost Shane Haff told me on this week’s podcast, which has blown my mind? The Eagles have 0 runs from under center this year. The next lowest team (the Colts) have 101. That is simply absurd! The Eagles hired a guy who likes to run his offense from under center and they can’t do it!
This was before the season, but running play action from under center was the most efficient play call for offenses since 2018.
So what can the Eagles do if they can’t get the under center running game going? What if Jalen Hurts isn’t fully comfortable from under center? Enter the pistol formation. If you don’t know what the pistol is, it’s where the quarterback lines up about four yards behind the center, and the running back is directly behind the quarterback. It’s a combination of under center and shotgun and it provides a lot of benefits for an offense.
The Eagles need to get this outside zone running game from the pistol going because it will enable them to do many of the play-action rollouts. It won’t be as successful as running them from under center, but it’s a good compromise between the under center run game that Kellen Moore wants to run and the shotgun running game that the Eagles currently excel at. The Eagles currently rank 25th in success rate when running play-action which isn’t good enough. I think more pistol outside zone may hold the key.
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.
