Ugh. Another week, another game where the Eagles’ offense found a way to make everything feel painfully difficult. There were some signs of life on the rewatch. I promise. But it was rough in places.
Before getting into all of that, I was at the game, and it was freaking awesome. It was so loud, and I had an absolute blast. Watching the Eagles in person is special, even when the football itself leaves you wanting to scream. I loved being there. Eagles fans are the absolute best, and the atmosphere
was unbelievable.
The Eagles finished with 22 rushing yards on 18 attempts. That is not a typo. Before the final drive, their second-half offense had produced 10 yards on 15 plays across four punts. You cannot keep asking the defense to survive that. The offensive line is dealing with a lot of change, but some of the assignments and calls made an already difficult situation even harder.
The passing game was a little more interesting. Empty formations gave Jalen Hurts some clearer answers against pressure, and there were a couple of successful under-center play-action throws. Hurts also left opportunities on the field, particularly over the middle, so this wasn’t another game where I thought the quarterback had almost no chance. There was enough here to see a way forward.
Offense
Let’s start with the run game, because it kept dragging everything else down. I wrote in the preview that DaVon Hamilton is a very good nose tackle who is tough to move. With that in mind, why are you asking Willie Lampkin, a very small left guard making his first start, to block him on fourth-and-1? From shotgun? With your third-string running back? What part of that matchup makes you feel good about the call?
Lampkin has to execute his assignment, of course, but the staff has to consider who it is asking him to move. This is a difficult matchup on any down. The Eagles were already short of their usual personnel. They needed to make life easier for the players available, and this did the opposite. The rushing numbers in this game are as bad as it gets. It was a total disaster.
The under-center passing game still has its own recurring problem. The Eagles go into a condensed formation, try to get Hurts moving, and an unblocked defensive back appears in his face. Again. It is hard to develop a functioning play-action game when the quarterback faces a free rusher before the concept has a chance to develop.
They need an answer for the cornerback blitz. Keep a tight end in to protect the edge. Give Hurts a quick throw into the space behind the blitzer. Widen the receivers so the cornerback has farther to travel and his intentions are easier to see. The best answer depends on the play and the defensive look, but something has to be built into the plan. This cannot keep happening every single week.
I am not against getting Hurts outside the pocket. I am against repeatedly asking him to do it without accounting for the defender who keeps ruining the play. We did see some good under-center throws later, but that doesn’t make this recurring issue disappear.
The shotgun running game has a different version of the same frustration. The Eagles keep leaving an edge defender unblocked and relying on the read to take him out of the play. That can work when the defender has to commit, and the quarterback keeps threatening him. But this is 2020. Modern-day edge defenders are so good at playing read-option runs.
Josh Hines-Allen is far too good to simply assume that leaving him unblocked will remove him from the run fit. Modern edge defenders can play this slowly and still close on the back. Hurts barely keeps the ball anymore anyway, which makes it even easier for the defender to avoid committing too early. Whatever the reason for the lack of keeps, the staff has to account for how the play is actually being defended.
The read is supposed to give the offense an advantage. The QB run game should give you +1 extra in the run game. But the Eagles are not using it. On a day when the team literally cannot run at all, and you don’t have ANY of your top 3 running backs, why wouldn’t you at least try to get the QB run game going?! I do not understand it!
Thankfully, there were some plays where the Eagles actually had a plan for pressure this week! They used empty formations a lot, and I liked it. Spreading everyone out helped Hurts identify what the defense was doing and gave him an immediate place to go with the football.
Here, Hurts gets the cornerback to show his hand before the snap and throws straight to Dontayvion Wicks, who turns around immediately. The receiver and quarterback are working together, the answer is available, and the ball comes out. Sometimes it really can be that simple.
After watching so many plays where pressure seems to surprise the entire offense, it was good to see a coordinated response. Empty does not solve every protection issue, but this is the kind of straightforward answer the Eagles have been missing.
I have been very critical of the passing-game design since Week 2, but Hurts missed opportunities in this game. This is one of them. I counted 2 other plays where he should have thrown it. Wicks is available over the middle, and the ball needs to come out when Hurts hits his back foot. He can make this throw. We have seen him make it In fact, a couple of plays after this, he made a tougher throw to Wicks over the middle of the field. The difference? That one was on 3rd down. Which is why I think Hurts turns down these throws at times. He’s too risk-averse, and we know that Nick Sirianni preaches winning the turnover battle, too.
Hurts did not play badly overall, but he left a few plays out there. I thought there were two or three opportunities over the middle where he needed to be more willing to pull the trigger. It is fair to criticize the structure around him and still expect him to capitalize when that structure gives him an open receiver.
This offense is too risk-averse at times, and Hurts is part of that. You cannot afford to pass up these opportunities when your run game is giving you almost nothing. The good news is that the opportunity existed. The frustrating part is that they did not take it.
Lampkin had a rough start, particularly in pass protection. But he had some excellent run blocks as the game went on. This goal-line rep is a good example, and his work allows Will Shipley to walk into the end zone. I already think Lampkin is an upgrade over Cam Jurgens at left guard, and I am interested to see what the Eagles do with him when Landon Dickerson returns.
Outside zone was a disaster. Again. The Eagles have clearly invested a lot of offseason work into this running game, but it is not paying off. Five outside zone attempts produced seven yards. I can’t believe we haven’t seen more duo or misdirection in the run game.
On this play, the jet motion travels across the formation and does absolutely nothing to the defense. Motion has to influence somebody to provide an advantage. Here, it does not prevent the pressure from getting into the backfield, and Jake Majors cannot handle the blitzing linebacker. The play breaks down before the runner can get going.
I also find these calls very predictable. We keep seeing outside zone from under center on first down, and the defense does not look remotely confused by the presentation. The Eagles need to assess what this approach is actually producing. Repeating it because they spent the offseason working on it is not enough.
Here is one reason I came away from the rewatch feeling slightly better about the passing game. This is a great throw to Makai Lemon from under-center play action. Hurts can attack the middle of the field, and he does it well here. The earlier missed opportunities are frustrating precisely because this is within his ability.
Lemon deserves credit for the catch too. He keeps looking better every week, and I think the Eagles have an interesting group of receivers when DeVonta Smith gets back. There were actual passing plays to build on this week. The Eagles just did not produce enough of them to overcome everything else.
Hey, another under-center play-action throw where Hurts actually has time! This is a beauty to Wicks, who runs a great route and makes a great catch. The protection gives the play a chance, and the quarterback and receiver take advantage.
I would have liked to see this against a defense that brought more pressure on early downs. The Jaguars didn’t do much of that in this game (as I predicted in the preview), so I am not ready to declare the Eagles’ under-center problems solved. The cornerback blitz earlier is enough of a reminder that everything is not solved yet.
It is amazing that this play almost surprises me. A receiver catches the ball on the move and gets a chance to create yards after the catch! We see so few of these plays from this offense that a perfectly sensible way of using a receiver feels like a major event. How depressing…
Lemon can create after the catch. This gets the ball to him with momentum and gives him a chance to use that ability. It makes much more sense than constantly throwing bubble screens and asking receivers who do not block particularly well to clear the way for him.
It feels like I have been asking for more of this for years. This Eagles’ offense never seems to generate much YAC, and it’s because of the number of hitch and comeback routes we see. More routes like this would be a nice change-up.
You have all seen the missed deep shot to Wicks that could have won the Eagles the game. From a quarterback and receiver perspective, I think this is just one of those plays. You can practice it all the time, but it’s so hard to get right. It is so, so close. I cannot be too critical of either player for narrowly missing it.
The protection is a different matter. There are eight rushers and seven blockers, so somebody is coming free. That is unavoidable unless the offense changes the protection or the play. But you still need to be sensible about which defender you leave unblocked. The outside rusher has farther to travel. The linebacker coming through inside gets to Hurts much faster.
The Eagles leave the linebacker free, and Hurts has to throw while jumping off his back foot. That matters when you are asking the quarterback to hit a deep shot with almost no margin for error. This keeps happening with this offense, and I don’t understand why. When something happens over and over, you can’t help but wonder if it’s being coached this way.
For all the passing plays I liked, some calls still left me staring at the screen. What are the Eagles trying to get from this one? The spacing is awkward, and although Darius Cooper might come open, Lemon’s route gets in the way of his route. The offense is making its own job harder.
Then, on third down during the same drive, they run a screen where no one turns around to catch the ball. Come on. Too many plays show the offense barely giving itself a chance to produce a positive result, let alone convert a difficult down.
That is why I can’t leave this game feeling particularly positive, even with some better passing concepts. A few good designs do not compensate for entire drives being ruined by calls and execution like this. The second-half stretch of 15 plays for 10 yards tells you how little they were getting done.
Despite all of that, the Eagles put together a positive final drive and should have won the game. This throw to Dallas Goedert over the middle should have been enough to put them in position to finish it. Hurts delivers, Goedert makes the play, and the offense finally gets the kind of completion it desperately needed.
This is another reason I want Hurts to trust those opportunities over the middle. There were missed chances earlier, but there were also throws like this. The Eagles do not have to abandon that area of the field. They have to attack it more consistently when the opportunity is there.
Also, look at Markel Bell at right tackle. That man is absolutely ginormous. Sometimes you watch a rep and think about all the technical details, and sometimes you just appreciate that the defender has a massive human being in his way!
The Final Drive
Clock management is not really my thing. But you do not need to be a specialist to see that the Eagles got this badly wrong. They had done the hard part by moving into position to take the lead.
After some completions, the Eagles had a first down in field-goal range and needed to manage both the next few plays and the time they were leaving behind. On first down, Hurts rolled out against Cover 0 pressure and threw an incomplete pass near the sideline, stopping the clock with 21 seconds left. On second down, Lemon caught a quick out with room between him and the sideline, then went out of bounds with 17 seconds remaining. That saved the Jaguars from using their final timeout on that play.
The coaching staff has to communicate this before the snap. If the priority is keeping the clock moving, the receiver needs to know to get down in bounds. Lemon is a rookie, but that is exactly why the staff has to make the instruction unmistakable. I don’t have an issue with the throw, because Lemon can just slide. Nick Sirianni needs to ensure everyone understands the situation.
The Eagles then ran Dameon Pierce into a stacked box on third down and lost yardage (shock). The Jaguars used their final timeout, and Jake Elliott made the 48-yard field goal to put the Eagles ahead.
I understand the thinking behind kicking short to save time. A touchback would have left the Jaguars a chance to complete a pass and attempt a long field goal, and Cam Little has the leg to make that a concern. But the short kick required the coverage unit to finish the job, and the Jaguars had already produced a long return earlier in the game. That has to factor into the decision too. I know the stats show it’s very rare, but you have to consider the injuries the Eagles have on the roster right now, which affect special teams. The first play of the entire game was a huge kick return by the Jags (called back for a penalty, but still). I would have kicked it out the back of the end zone.
Sirianni took responsibility for the decision afterward, and he should. For me, this was a sequence of mistakes, rather than one isolated bad moment. The offense needed a clear instruction about staying in bounds, and the kickoff plan needed to be better. It’s a really poor way to lose a game.
Final Thoughts
I saw a little more life in the passing game than I expected. Empty gave Hurts some useful answers, the offense completed a couple of good under-center play-action throws, and Lemon and Wicks made plays worth building on. I can acknowledge all of that and still think this was a bad offensive performance.
The run game is a disaster, and the negative plays keep destroying drives. Injuries explain some of the difficulty, but they don’t excuse repeatedly asking players to win matchups that don’t suit them or calling plays without a workable answer for pressure. Sean Mannion and Sirianni have to help the personnel they actually have available.
I still maintain hope that when this offense gets some players back, they will improve. But this team isn’t going anywhere unless they fix the run game. Something has to change.
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