Game Preview: Philadelphia Eagles
Coming off the back of a loss to the lowly Giants, the Eagles will be looking to get back on track in NY.
Good morning Jets fans! It’s the best workday of the week because it’s the last workday of the week. I’ve got a quiet weekend planned, which means time for plenty of football. If you love college football there are some outstanding games this week as we enter Championship week. That includes #4 Alabama against #1 Georgia, there is going to be so much NFL talent on show in that game alone.
Anyway, we’re not here to talk college football. We’re here to preview the J-E-T-S game. Coming off a win in Houston the Jets will be looking to maintain some momentum against an Eagles team who dropped to 5-7 with the loss to the Giants.
Philadelphia will look at that as a wasted opportunity. With Dallas losing to Las Vegas on Thanksgiving, a win for the Eagles would have put them one game out of first place with four divisional games left on the schedule. Saying that, a game against a 3-8 team is just what the doctor ordered if you’re a Philly fan.
Let’s get into it
🏈 Game Day 🏈
Who: Philadelphia Eagles @ New York Jets
Where: Metlife Stadium, New Jersey
When: 1:00 PM EST - Sunday 5th of December
Head to Head: 11 games, 0 wins, 11 losses
Offensive Ranking:
Points (Jets 28th, Eagles 13th)
Total Yards (Jets 21st, Eagles 18th)
Passing (Jets 11th, Eagles 30th)
Rushing (Jets 29th, Eagles 1st)
Defensive Ranking:
Points (Jets 32nd, Eagles 15th)
Total Yards (Jets 31st, Eagles 11th)
Passing (Jets 29th, Eagles 11th)
Rushing (Jets 27th, Eagles 16th)
Turnovers:
Differential (Jets -15, Eagles -1)
Defensive Interceptions (Jets 4, Eagles 8)
Offensive interceptions (Jets 19, Eagles 8)
Key Matchup: The Eagles have the best rushing attack in football and the Jets have the 27th ranked rushing defense in football. You have to believe that’s where the game is going to be won and lost.
The Philadelphia Eagles Offense
The rankings say everything you need to know about how the Eagles like to move the football, and while Hurts is more than capable of moving the sticks with his arm, it’s the running game where the Eagles excel.
The Eagles offense has shifted between the first 7 weeks of the season and then every game since. They’re right at the top of the league in rushing attempts since week 8 and right at the bottom of the league in dropbacks over that same time period.
Philadelphia has a young QB and a relatively inexperienced receiving core, and there were obvious flaws in the passing game, when forced to pass against the Giants late, wide receiver Jaleon Raegor dropped multiple passes which would have given the Eagles a chance to win the game.
Keeping the ball on the floor is the smartest way to win games for a team that has a versatile QB who does a very good job and a dominant offensive line. In fact, since week 8 Philadelphia head coach Nick Sirianni has called more zone-read runs than any other coach in football.
Philadelphia often runs this read-option out of a spread offense with trips to one side which presents a matchup headache for teams who play a lot of zone coverage. When you can somewhat empty the box and trust your lineman to win their matchups, good things happen for an offense:
(If you read yesterday’s newsletter you’ll likely notice that tap from the RG. I’m going to see it everywhere now. Although Denver does have a reputation as being a very difficult place to hear the snap)
It doesn’t hurt to have Jason Kelce as your center, one of the finest run-blockers to play the game and still playing at a high level at 34 years young. Add in the play of rookie Landon Dickerson at left guard, Jack Driscoll at right guard, veteran Lane Johnson at right tackle and the #4 ranked tackle in football Jordan Mailata at left tackle, and it’s not hard to see why the Eagles have dominated so many teams on the ground. Jack Driscoll has just been placed on IR, so it’ll be interesting to see how that effects the offensive line play.
The Jets have had a real issue defending the run this year, they’re ranked 27th for a reason. While watching the tape against Houston, I saw more than a few instances of a player biting inside early, if they do this against a team that runs so much read-option I fear Hurts could have a field day.
While Jalen is the Eagle’s leading rusher with 695 yards (5.7 yards per attempt), Philly has a number of players who can hurt you on the ground. Miles Sanders has 458 yards on the ground and 118 yards receiving, Boston Scott has 285 yards and 4 touchdowns (4.7 yards per attempt) and rookie Kenneth Gainwell has chipped in with production on the ground, as has Jordan Howard.
Rookie receiver DaVonta Smith isn’t getting a lot of attention, mainly because of the Eagles run game and because of Ja’Marr Chase’s production as a rookie in Cincy (although that’s cooled off recently, I know, he’s in my fantasy team), but he’s having himself a very good rookie campaign. Smith leads the Eagles with 686 yards and 4 TD, followed by Dallas Goedert with 491 yards and 2 touchdowns.
In total Eagles receivers have dropped 15 passes so far this season, with four different players having multiple drops. If the Jets can somehow figure out a way to stop the run, their best chance to win is forcing Hurts to beat them from the pocket.
Philadelphia Eagles Defense
The Eagles recorded just one sack against Daniel Jones, just their 19th sack of the season. Philadelphia has recorded five 0 sack games this year which ties a franchise record with multiple games still remaining. It’s not as though they don’t have defensive line talent, Javon Hargreave, Fletcher Cox, Josh Sweat, Ryan Kerrigan, and Derek Barnett have all seen the field this year, it’s a very interesting and surprising stat.
The Eagles are a middle-of-the-road defense, better against the pass than they are the run, but good enough against both. Cornerbacks Darius Slay and Avonte Maddox are playing at a very high level in 2021 with 4 interceptions and 6 pass defenses between them. Steven Nelson, who many Jets fans wanted Joe Douglas to sign in the off-season has had a solid if unspectacular season, but he is part of a unit that’s on the brink of a top-10 pass defense, so you can’t complain too much.
The Eagles run a similar bend but don’t break system to the Jets, but they often have two deep safeties and they only rush 4 for the majority of their snaps, settling their linebackers into coverage. If you can read the soft spots in zone or identify the best match-ups pre-snap in man, you can pick holes in this defense quite easily, we saw that with the way Derek Carr performed in Las Vegas’s win.
The Eagles red-zone defense is right there with the Jets, the Eagles are allowing touchdowns on 62.2% of attempts in the RZ, the Jets are there at 62.0%, which is slap bang in the middle of the league. The Jets allow 43.1% of all 3rd downs to be completed which is top-10 in a negative way, the Eagles are at 40.1% which is juve above average for a defensive unit.
The Eagles blitz on just 16.9% of defensive plays, the 2nd lowest rate in the league, but there hurry % of 11.1% is middle of the pack, so the Eagles can generate pressure without blitzing, but they’re having a very difficult time turning those pressures into sacks. If the Jets can keep Zach clean, the Jets have a good chance of walking away with the victory.
Star Player - Jason Kelce
I know what you’re thinking, it’s Jalen Hurts, it’s Da’Vonta Smith, it’s Dallas Goedert, It’s Fletcher Cox…well the Eagles have a lot of good pieces on this football team, but if you haven’t realized yet, I’ve got a lot of time for the big men in the offensive trenches. I love and appreciate good offensive line play and Jason Kelce has been one of the best centers in football for a long time now.
If you can believe it, Jason Kelce was a 6th round draft pick of the Eagles out of Cincinnati in 2011. Since that day he’s played in 154 games, won a Super Bowl, been named a first-team all-pro 3 times, a pro-bowler 4 times, and most importantly, appeared in an episode of Always Sunny in Philadelphia, one of my favorite shows of all time.
He may be 34 and in the twilight of his career, but he’s showing no signs of slowing down. Last season he hit the 100 consecutive starts mark for the Eagles (He’s now onto 117 which is the longest active streak for a center in football), and was named a Pro Bowler. This year he’s the 3rd highest-graded center in football according to PFF, and the 2nd highest run-blocking center in football.
The one-year contract he signed before the 2021 season seems to hint that this may be his last rodeo, but I hope he continues to play on past 2021.
That will do it for today. Thank you as always for reading. We’ll be back on Monday with our recap of the game, before hitting our stock report on Tuesday. Have a great weekend.