What is the story about?
The
official snap counts from the Philadelphia Eagles’ Week 4 loss to the Los Angeles Rams are in. Let’s take a look and run through some analysis.
OFFENSE
- Jordan Mailata, Tyler Steen, and Cam Jurgens are the only players on offense who’ve played 100% of the Eagles’ offensive snaps this season. And Jurgens probably shouldn’t be playing at this point.
- Markel Bell made his first career NFL start with Lane Johnson unavailable to play.
- Dontayvion Wicks played the most snaps of any Eagles receiver but ranked third in targets with five.
- Interesting to see that Darius Cooper outsnapped Makai Lemon as WR2 … while also playing a significant role on special teams, where he logged a tackle on punt coverage. Good! We’ve been calling for Cooper to get more playing time. His team-high seven targets produced three catches for 33 yards and two touchdowns.
- Johnny Mundt playing 80% of the Eagles’ offensive snaps is a failure in both roster construction and personnel usage. He’s not even that great of a blocker (he had a drive-killing holding penalty) and he basically offers nothing as a pass-catcher. I get the Eagles are without Dallas Goedert and Eli Stowers (who doesn’t look very ready to be a meaningful contributor) but that’s just way too much playing time for Mundt, who is ideally more of a third tight end. Mundt played more than the Eagles’ 2026 first-round pick!!!!!! What are we doing here.
- Lemon saw the second-most targets with six. He logged three catches for 27 yards. Curiously, all three receptions came on the Eagles’ third drive. Somehow never got another touch after that.
- Will Shipley and Tank Bigsby were forced into bigger roles with Saquon Barkley suffering a hamstring injury. And then Bigsby got banged up later in the game.
- Zach Ertz saw a smaller workload in this game (21% snaps played) than he had in Week 3 (38% snaps played).
- Elijah Moore was a healthy scratch as WR7 in the first two games. Injuries allowed him to suit up for the last two games but he’s yet to touch the ball. Perhaps in part because he apparently doesn’t know what to do out there. Jalen Hurts yelled at him to line up off the ball early in the game. Moore also doesn’t help on special teams at all. Nice use of a roster spot.
- The Eagles brought Willie Lampkin in for a tush push (that failed in part because it was a long 4th-and-1) and as an extra blocker in a jumbo package on 3rd-and-goal from the 2-yard line. They should consider playing him more … at left guard.
- Micah Morris made his NFL debut on offense by coming into the game with Lampkin on that goal line jumbo package.
DEFENSE
- Miss me with putting major blame on the defense for this loss. They had to play 84 snaps. Part of that is because they couldn’t get off the field at the end, sure, but they were exhausted at that point because this pathetic offense gives them little rest. 84 snaps is ridiculous. It’s just three fewer than the Eagles’ defense faced in last year’s loss to the Chicago Bears. And this defense had to play 70 snaps in Week 1 and 72 in Week 3.
- Jeremiah Trotter Jr. was very active in his first career regular season where the Eagles weren’t resting starters. He had 15 total tackles.
- Entering this game, Cooper DeJean and Quinyon Mitchell were the only Eagles defenders who had played 100% of the team’s defensive snaps. But they both missed time due to injury in this one. DeJean was able to return to action while Mitchell was not.
- As you can see, Trot Jr. played the entire game while Jihaad Campbell did not. Hmm.
- Michael Carter II got the start at safety with Marcus Epps and seemed to play relatively well. He tipped a pass to create DeJean’s intercetion.The Eagles should probably stick with him there.
- The Eagles continue to manage Jalen Carter’s workload more than normal as he plays through a hairline fracture in his wrist.
- Nolan Smith was the Eagles’ top edge rusher in terms of both playing time and performance. He logged just one more snaps than Jalyx Hunt, who didn’t get the start in this game while behind Smith and Jonathan Greenard.
- Jonathan Jones had to play a good deal with Mitchell getting hurt.
- Jordan Davis played a season-low snap count percentage at 34.5%. He ranks 60th out of 177 interior defenders in total snaps played this season. Davis is the eighth-highest paid player at his position on an annual basis.
- Arnold Ebiketie saw a bigger role than normal with Greenard getting hurt.
- Mac McWilliams came in to play nickel cornerback while DeJean was briefly unavailable due to injury.
- Kenny Moore made his Eagles debut by playing just one snap on defense.
SPECIAL TEAMS
- Kelee Ringo had an active game with three special teams tackles.
- Josiah Deguara was limited to special teams duty after being temporarily elevated from the practice squad as a fourth tight end.
- Britain Covey helped to set up one of the Eagles’ two touchdowns with his 41-yard punt return.
DID NOT PLAY
INACTIVE: Lane Johnson, Fred Johnson, DeVonta Smith, Dallas Goedert, Zack Baun, Marcus Epps, Hollywood Brown, Cole Payton
ACTIVE: Tanner McKee, Andy Dalton
- Hopefully Lane and his family are OK.
- Fred Johnson missed his second game in a row.
- DeVonta is expected to miss at least one more game due to his hamstring injury.
- Goedert might miss another game.
- Baun might be able to return from concussion protocol this week. TBD.
- Epps might not get his starting spot back even when he is healthy.
- Brown missed his second game in a row. With Cooper rising, there isn’t really room for him in this receiver rotation.
- Payton will continue to be a healthy scratch as QB4.
- McKee is reportedly QB2 now with Dalton being demoted to QB3. The Eagles should just cut Dalton. There’s no point of him being on the roster. There never was. The roster spot is more valuable than he is.
