| Projected Record: | 14-3 (5-1 ACTUAL) |
| Weighted DVOA Offense (2023)*: | 8th |
| Weighted DVOA Defense (2023): | 14th |
| Early Down DVOA (2022): | 1st Down – 12th, 2nd Down – 5th |
| Explosive Play Rate (2022)*: | Offense – 2nd (Run 15th, Pass 1st), Defense – 7th (Run 17th, Pass 4th) |
| Key Additions: | Marcus Mariota QB, Rashaad Penny RB, D’Andre Swift RB, Olamide Zaccheaus WR, Dan Arnold TE, Kentavius Street DI, Nicholas Morrow LB, Greedy Williams CB, Terrell Edmunds S, Justin Evans S |
| Key Departures: | Gardner Minshew QB, Miles Sanders RB, Zach Pascal WR, Andre Dillard OT, Isaac Seumalo IOL, Javon Hargrave DI, Ndamukong Suh DI, Linval Joseph DI, Robert Quinn EDGE, T.J. Edwards LB, Kyzir White LB, Marcus Epps S, Chauncey Gardner-Johnson S, Brett Kern P |
| Rookies to Watch: | Tyler Steen OT, Jalen Carter IDL, Nolan Smith EDGE, Kelee Ringo CB, Sydney Brown S |
Injury Report
Eagles on IR: Quez Watkins WR, Cam Jurgens IOL, Avonte Maddox CB, Isaiah Rodgers Sr. CB (gambling suspension), Justin Evans S
Quarterback
Tua and Jalen Hurts have a history, just ask the remarkably weird Made-For-TV dramatization that premiered during the Super Bowl. When the two square off, it will be the first time they’ve ever played a game against one another. The Dolphins and Eagles last met in a game in 2019, memorable both for the growing emergence of the Fitzpatrick-Jump-Ball Offense and the ridiculous kicker-to-punter TD pass. At the time, those teams were 5-6 and 2-9: when Hurts and Tua meet, they will both enter as top QBs, with Hurts himself entering as a Top 5 guy fresh off of a Conference Championship. They will both enter as 5-1 teams. This is a big one. Part of this NFL offseason was dedicated to trying to stop Hurts in a few different ways. First, the rules: the NFL Competition Committee met to see if they wished to craft a rule against the lethal Philly QB sneak. The Eagles went 37/41 last year on QB sneaks, in part due to Jalen Hurts’s insane lower body but also due to the strategic decision of having the backfield player run directly into him and shove him forward. Ultimately, the NFL backed off for the promise of more points. The larger question about what to do with Hurts comes down to how exactly a team might get to him. With many of the more elite mobile guys, the idea is to get in a zone, spy him, and rush just a few to keep contain. This is the way you have to play Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes, as a missed blitz means death to the backfield. Teams have started to rush 5, a little over 2022 and a lot over 2023, with one player responsible for sifting through traffic in the middle and running with the QB to contain scrambles to short gains. It’s a five man rush, but functions a bit more like “4 and a spy” or a delayed blitz. Hurts is polished enough to tear conservative defenses to shreds, and indeed had the best passer rating in the league in 2022 when not blitzed. He has an OL to keep him clean, WRs who are mismatches every single week, and the threat of his legs to keep defenses from overcommitting to any one receiver. These are cheat codes for pocket passing because teams are forced to defend more than a pocket pass every single play EVEN THOUGH the Eagles were killers from the pocket! It was particularly irritating for coordinators last year because Hurts wasn’t particularly good under pressure! Under pressure, he had just the 21st best PFF grade, 20th best yards per attempt, and 16th best passer rating, but the blitz so rarely gets home. Who is Hurts without the best offensive line in football? I imagine DCs around the league going full Scrappy Doo Lemme-At-Him, especially after pressure rattled Hurts last week against the Jets. Now with one of the better receiving corps in the league, Hurts spent the 2022 season essentially at Accuracy Practice rather than an NFL game. He targeted receivers out wide at the highest rate in football (just edging out Miami) with a miniscule slot and RB target percentage. He just put on a clinic week after week, dropping his time to throw* from 3.2 seconds in 2021 (slow as molasses) to 2.86 (exactly what you want from a pass-first guy with mobility). Unfortunately for Hurts, his time to throw has gone way up again, settling back at 3.21 seconds. Hurts seems drunk on the protection he once had, and those habits are coming back to bite him a bit. Through 6 games, he has more than half of the pressures he saw in 2022, even if less of them are sacks. The general disorganization is manifesting in a longer time to throw, but also in turnover worthy plays*. Hurts has 10, just 1 less than his entire 2022, when he finished 3rd in yards per attempt and 4th in total passer rating. Hurts is a modern NFL QB with one of the best-assembled offenses in the last decade, and his own commitment to elevation on accuracy and game-planning is reminiscent of the jump that Josh Allen made in the pros. You cannot ever bank on that kind of intelligence and dedication, and the Eagles lucked into it like the Bills before them. The product of that work has been on display through the first 6 games, but a smart scheme has been lacking and Hurts is suffering for it.
Is there a recipe to beating Jalen Hurts in 2023? The Eagles did, after all, lose the Super Bowl last year, but Hurts gave little evidence that he is beatable. He was PFF’s highest-graded player in the entire game: like Allen in 2021, Hurts announced in a loss to the potential greatest of all-time that he, too, had arrived. He went 27/38 with a TD and 304 yards, plus another 70 yards and THREE TDs on the ground. His only error was self-inflicted, a fumble caused by an attempt to switch hands in the pocket that was taken back for a TD. Much like Allen coming into 2022, there is not really reason to believe that anything will be different this year for Hurts, even with the slow start. Indeed, Allen (for all of the Bills drama and disappointment) was still PFF’s best QB last year, largely due to his rushing floor and the exact playmaking we saw in that fateful game against the Chiefs. This Summer, I wrote, “If the Eagles are 6-0 entering this game, I would not be shocked.” I was nearly on the money if not for a turnover-filled game against the Jets. But I also expected the league to be weathering a Hurts storm. Instead, Hurts has been just okay: with 7 TDs to 7 INTs and his lowest yards-per-attempt since 2022, one could argue he’s played well below expectation. He also has the lowest rushing yards per attempt of his career, though the emergence of the 1-yard Tush Push certainly has something to do with that. He’s forcing so many missed tackles, but you’d love to see smarter decisions with the football. Unlike Allen, Hurts is not his own worst enemy. He can be the architect of a patient drive that keeps the Dolphins off of the field, highlighted by a 9:22 putaway drive against the Buccaneers. But we don’t have much evidence of what Jalen Hurts looks like playing from behind. In the last three years, Hurts has 5 game-winning drives, the same as Tua despite nearly 10 more starts. The Eagles are 30-14 in those games (an insane 19-4 since 2022) with the 5th best point differential. The Eagles are not used to losing. Hurts will have a real test in front of him if Miami can stack a lead together. Hurts will have AJ Brown to throw to, of course, who had the 5th best rating when targeted among receivers in 2022 and still boasts the 11th best rating this year among qualifiers. Here’s hoping Hurts is in a dogfight so we might learn more about him (and so Miami might get the win!)
Coaching
Once the poster-boy for fresh faced youngsters using cronyism and privilege to gain head coaching jobs, Nick Sirianni sure seems to be having the last laugh. The excitable 41-year-old has propelled the Eagles through a Competitive Rebuild, retooling each unit with GM Howie Roseman’s fantastic eye for talent to produce a 30-14 record. Yes, a rebuild with a 30-14 record. The development of a young, unexpected QB talent is all it takes for the moniker of genius to be assigned in the NFL, and Sirianni has done just that with Jalen Hurts. The player once benched for Tua has become the perfect combination of patient and dynamic, finishing 8th in big time throw rate* in 2022 at the same time as he notched a 2nd-best turnover worthy play rate behind only the shockingly conservative Justin Herbert. Oh, and he added 901 rushing yards and EIGHTEEN TDs in the Eagles Super Bowl run. That is a legitimate NFL record for a single season counting playoffs (he was one off the regular season record, set by a rookie Cam Newton). Sirianni became the coach with the expectation that he would be using Hurts to tank and take the next Eagles QB from the NFL Draft, and instead he helped build 2022’s most potent offensive weapon. Yes, Sirianni and the Eagles organization’s faith in Hurts built the groundwork for a near-Super Bowl victory and the skeleton of a good team for years to come, but what is Sirianni’s role? It isn’t a play caller: Sirianni never called plays for Frank Reich, who insisted on calling his own plays, and then the Eagles coach gave up the duties halfway into the 2021 season. When he gave them up is not entirely clear, as there was no formal announcement, but the Eagles started 2-5 that year and closed with a 7-4 run that totally doubled down on the run game, so one can make a guess. In some way, Shane Steichen became the play caller, with Sirianni working as a CEO-type coach on game days and contributing to the game script in the week prior. Steichen now departs, returning to Indy as the new coach of the Colts, and Sirianni will have to prove that the run game will still have juice without the presumed architect of the Hurts Explosion. Steichen has one other claim to fame that Sirianni does not: he was the offensive coordinator (and play caller) for Justin Herbert’s legendary rookie season, and Herbert has not yet reached the level of sheer buffoonery that he had that year. An underachieving year for Sirianni may lead to real questions, but Howie Roseman is an executive cheat code: the offense returns so many key contributors (and 10 starters total), adding DeAndre Swift to crank up that run game. The new play caller is Brian Johnson, a longtime college OC who made the transition to the pros with Jalen Hurts in a weird reverse-nepotism situation: Johnson was coached by Hurts’s father, and has known Jalen since he was four-years-old. Johnson attempted to recruit Hurts in college, and has complete knowledge of his skillset. Now comes the next test: can he run an offense? Folks in the building love him, and apparently there had always been great anxiety about keeping him with the team. Early returns have been interesting, to say the least. The stats suggest the Eagles are about the same quality with a few more turnovers, but my own game watching suggests some real drop-off. The shot plays are poorly timed, and the Eagles have been at their best plodding along on wildly-long drives. In today’s NFL, big plays need to be married to ball control. An Eagles fan would insist to me that they’ve done that, and they’ve certainly hit big plays to go with the long drives. But it looks more difficult this year, with teams like the Commanders, the Jets, and the Rams hanging around far longer than they have any business to. The Eagles no longer look lethal. I’m still waiting on the signature game where the Eagles out-scheme a good opponent into literal Hell. It might be this one!
Defensively, changes also abound. Jonathan Gannon leaves after coordinating successful defenses in his first two years as a coordinator at any level to be the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals. The Eagles allowed the fewest passing yards in the league last year with the second highest pressure rate according to Pro Football Reference. Guys on rookie contracts and longtime vets worked in harmony within his scheme, as yet another part of a roster that seemed like the best-constructed in the league last year. They took some time to gel: in Gannon’s first year, the Eagles were bottom 10 in DVOA before leaping back into the top 10 last year. Will there be continuity moving into 2023? The Eagles worked hard to retain as many of their defensive contributors as they could, losing some DL and S pieces, but maintaining both starting CBs and other players across the team. All of this sets up nicely for Sean Desai (an interviewee for the Dolphins DC role) to come in and take the reins. Desai has worked his way through the NFL coaching ranks within the Bears organization under three different head coaches: hired by Marc Trestman, both John Fox and Matt Nagy believed in him enough to keep promoting him, until he ended up DC for Nagy’s lame duck 2021 season. Desai was swept out when the defensive-minded Matt Eberflus was hired, but landed as an understudy for Pete Carroll in Seattle. Desai is an educator first and foremost, with a doctorate in educational administration before moving to football. One of the NFL’s brightest minds, Desai will have a far more talented defense than he has ever had, so much so that it isn’t even worth bringing up his past. Nothing will change in Philadelphia schematically, and the presumptive NFC favorites will have a lot of pressure to ensure that continuity extends to results. The defense has been somewhat less effective this year, maintaining a spot in the middle of the pack. Turnovers are similar, with 8 compared to a total of 27 last year (perhaps a turnover or two short, but relatively static), and the Eagles allowed 330 yards per game last year to their current average of 298. They’ve even improved their points allowed per game from 20.2 to 19. But they’re letting teams mount drives that keep them in the game, as 4 of their 6 games came down to one score or less as opposed to 8 through the whole regular season last year (against arguably inferior opponents: the Commanders, Patriots, Jets, and Vikings, who are a combined 9-15). Much like the offense, we’re waiting on the dominant defensive performance from Desai’s Eagles, and it…also could be this week! One note: despite arguably adding to the pass rush with Jalen Carter, the team went down from 4.11 sacks per game to 3.33 sacks per game in 2023. Could this be the result of a philosophical shift or natural regression after a record-breaking year for the franchise? Time will tell, but Miami’s offensive line and quick passing game could lead to more trouble in that department, as they’ve only allowed 6 all year.
Offense
It’s a great time to be an Eagles fan. Jalen Hurts has ascended, A.J. Brown lived up to his trade, and this team seems poised to repeat a tremendous offensive campaign that struck fear into every team. The Eagles have a core of offensive talent that is ready to build on a top 10 offense (or top 5, if you go by points and yards per game instead of DVOA) to become even more interesting and multiple. The position with the most change is RB, where two new players with interesting histories in the league will line up next to, and benefit from, Hurts’s running ability. Rashaad Penny was signed for next to nothing after breaking his leg in week 5. Penny is a former first-round pick who has demonstrated that talent at times, but injuries have slowed him down almost every year. This year, he is typically inactive as the 4th RB. Penny is, like Miles Sanders before him, not really a factor in the passing game, so enter D’Andre Swift, acquired by trade from Detroit. Swift has also spent most of his young career in the training room, playing 13 games in each of his first three seasons and spending many more listed as questionable. With 156 catches and 1,198 yards over three years, Swift is an entirely new type of weapon for Hurts, with the ability to hit home runs out of the backfield as a dependable receiver. While his 115 receiving yards this year don’t necessarily jump out at you, certain plays are pure magic: against the Jets, Swift bounced off a double tackle attempt after catching a laser from Hurts and dove for a highlight reel TD. He sits just outside the top 10 in most running metrics, including 18 missed tackles forced (11th, tied with physical backs James Conner and Dameon Pierce), 22 first downs (7th), and 5.3 yards per carry (tied for 8th). Boston Scott and Kenneth Gainwell have also been contributors out of the backfield, with Scott in particular excellent in pass blocking. Outside of them, we already know what to expect from the Eagles skill positions. A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith combined for 211 catches for 3,035 yards last year, trailing Waddle and Hill by just over 100 yards. Why were the Eagles in the Super Bowl while the Dolphins limped to the finish? How about an additional 71 catches for 843 yards from TE Dallas Goedert. You could write a full piece on any of these three, so let’s just say they’re great and toss out a quick thought: Brown is the kind of WR that fits in any offense, with 12 TDs and the fourth-best yards per route run* in the league in 2022. This year, he’s 2nd in the NFL in yards (672, behind Tyreek) and boasts 16 yards per catch, including 5.5 YAC per reception. He’s already been thrown 14 contested balls (2nd most in the league) and caught 7 of them. Meanwhile, Smith has overcome the size questions that concerned pundits, with the ability to break off press coverage and find any hole in the defense. The proof is in the 1,000 yard season Smith delivered: any receiver weighing in at 170 should not be able to do this. Goedert is the one of the league’s best run-after-catch TEs, with a 6.1 average after each catch in 2022. He belongs with Travis Kelce and George Kittle in that elite company, almost the perfect combination of the two. Both Goedert and Smith have struggled to find themselves in this new offense, catching just 3 TDs between the two of them in the first 6 games. In his last two games, Smith has just 6 catches for 50 yards on 16 targets. They just cannot seem to scheme him open. Goedert is the opposite: he started with a catchless game in Week 1, but has come on in the last two weeks to record 13 catches for 159. Olamede Zaccheaus comes over from Atlanta to push Quez Watkins for the slot role, but in this offense, that is essentially a fifth-option role, and both players were similarly productive (with Zacchaeus asked to do more at his last stop). Watkins is hurt, and was ineffective anyway.
The offensive line has both talent and depth, with a perfect mix of veterans and young guys to provide the Eagles with the best offensive line in football hands down. They were PFF’s third best run blocking unit (behind two run-heavy teams in Baltimore and Atlanta) and the best pass blocking unit by a cardinal mile. Where the Ravens have some holes this year, the Eagles will again field their team with just one lineup change. Cam Jurgens, the center drafted in the second round last year to replace Jason Kelce upon his retirement, will move to RG to replace the departing Isaac Seumalo. Seumalo played as an excellent pass blocking anchor over the last two years, but Jurgens showed juice in his limited reps last year. With Jurgens on IR, the Eagles have turned to Sua Opeta, who has been stout in pass protection, but has struggled to get the same push from last year. Kelce, meanwhile, contemplated retirement before this year (and, if memory serves, was sent a keg of beer to convince him to return) only to deliver PFF’s second best grade among all centers. There may not be a more perfect marriage in the NFL than Kelce’s hard-nosed run blocking (absolutely elite) and Jalen Hurts’s power as a runner. It’s one of those things that is a privilege to watch as a fan, and a nightmare for anyone trying to play nose tackle. This year, he’s allowed just 3 pressures* on 245 opportunities. His consistency is a big reason for 5-1. Oh yeah, and the Eagles have former 2nd round pick Landon Dickerson at LG, who was immovable in pass protection last year. It’s hard to find a single plus interior lineman in the modern NFL, but the Eagles have 3 with one more drafted in Tyler Steen to fill in the eventual RG hole that will open when shuffling occurs upon Kelce’s retirement. Dickerson does have some issues in terms of penalties, with 5 this year to go with his 14 last year. The tackles? They’re good. I’m sure you’re sensing a theme. Both Jordan Mailata (LT) and Lane Johnson (RT) received top 10 grades from PFF*. In a slight role reversal from traditional NFL offenses, Mailata is the run block specialist while Johnson is an elite pass protector, which is made all the more wild when considering Mailata is 6’8” 365 pounds. He’s a literal nightmare coming downhill. Neither will trouble you with pressure, with Mailata scoring 12th best among full-time starters with 39 (good-not-great) and Lane Johnson with 11 (literally hall of fame numbers) in 2022. In the run game, both players, like most lineman, are better in the zone scheme (where they’re damn near elite) than the gap scheme, but are proficient in both. Lane Johnson is seeing some decline in year 11, with 8 pressures allowed (he allowed just 27 the last THREE YEARS!) and has a sprained ankle that may keep him out of this one. This is the one worry for the Eagles: Jack Driscoll came into the game against the Jets at RT and surrendered 8 pressures IN JUST ONE GAME! Bad, bad, bad. Hurts loves to scramble to his right side because of Johnson’s success, and old habits hurt him with Driscoll playing. Watch for this if Driscoll lines up against Jaelan Phillips.
Defense
The ferocious Eagles front will dial down a bit of the ferocity to start the year, but the defensive minds and front office in Philly have built a defense with teeth for years to come. The story of the Eagles, across the roster, is one of reloading the departure of accomplished veterans with skilled, promising rookies. This offseason, new faces in Philadelphia inspire confidence and optimism rather than fear. It starts on the defensive line, where the Eagles lose longtime star Javon Hargrave to the richest non-QB deal in the NFL this free agency. Each year in Philadelphia, Hargrave became a larger force as a pass rusher, with the team using an incredible 6-man defensive rotation in the middle to keep him (and everyone) fresh to dominate tired offensive lines. Hargrave was the classic NFL 3-tech, firing through double teams to the tune of 57 pressures. But Hargrave was one of FOUR players to deliver more than 40 pressures (Fletcher Cox, even, added another 37!) and his contributions will be cushioned as a result. The interior this year starts with NT Jordan Davis who, at 6’6” 336, is a human like no other. He resembles a Game of Thrones Giant more than your typical chode of a NT, and he plays with a ferocity to his game. Because of the embarrassment of riches, Davis will be unleashed more than his 270 snaps this year, and if he develops a pass rush to go with the strength, we could see a top 10 finish among interior defenders. He’s not there yet, but with 169 snaps and 8 pressures, the pass rush is indeed developing. The Eagles were confident enough in Davis to let Linval Joseph walk in free agency, and former 3rd-rounder Milton Williams also has the talent to absorb those snaps. Williams had a tough rookie year as he transitioned from small school ball to the reality of NFL life, and has the metrics (4.67 40, crazy high vertical) to indicate he could be a high-level player. Indeed, he has 12 pressures already this season, and the best run defense grade among the Eagles DL in 2023 according to PFF. The Eagles signed Kentavius Street to keep their rotation deep, but he is just a middling contributor. The real X-factor is what Jalen Carter will bring to the team this year. Carter had an offseason filled with some real questions: he was called back to Athens, Georgia on misdemeanor charges involving drag racing after a car wreck killed a Georgia staffer and player in the week following the National Championship win. Carter delivered terrible workout numbers at his Pro Day after leaving the Combine to answer for the charges. As a result, the clear top non-QB in the Draft slipped to the Eagles at 9th overall. Is Carter the guy his college tape suggests (a player with far more potential than Hargrave and the skillset to do it NOW) or is he someone whose own life will limit him to squandered potential? The answers to that dwell only in Carter’s soul: in the court of law, he has answered for the misdemeanors with 12 months of probation and will carry the incident through his career. So far, Carter looks elite. Before a practice ankle injury kept him out against the Jets, the kid looked like the second coming of Warren Sapp with 23 pressures and 6 run stops. For better or for worse, we will be talking about Jalen Carter for a long time. Finally, and it seems nuts to mention him so late, Fletcher Cox still plays for the team at 32! He fell off majorly from the 2019 elite grades, but he is a consistent Ring of Honor presence who may do well with a lessened role.
The rest of the Eagles defense remains largely intact, especially at edge rusher, where talent was only added. Josh Sweat, Brandon Graham, and the surprisingly-effective Haason Reddick are the top 3 players out on the edge. At 35, Graham was limited to less than 500 snaps, on the Cameron Wake program for Miami as Wake closed out his career. Lowest snap total while healthy since the Philbin Era? No problem, as Graham delivered a career-high 11 sacks. Each year is a retirement watch, but this is still an effective and savvy player. Reddick, meanwhile, is a player who defies any explanation: drafted to be a hybrid S/LB in Arizona, the Cardinals finally found success (after declining his 5th-year option) by putting him at edge while he weighed in at just 240 pounds. The electric and speedy Reddick exploded, with 12.5 sacks in 2020. He took a one-year prove it deal in Carolina and delivered 11, before coming to Philly on a 3-year $45 million dollar deal and immediately justifying it with 16 sacks. He might be the most exciting edge in the league, and he already has 5.5 sacks this year (he only has 4 tackles in the run game, which is concerning). And then there’s Sweat! PFF’s 11th rated edge in 2022 has had more sacks each year he has played, as well as plenty more attempts at the passer. He managed 11 sacks and a career-high 48 tackles, and at 265 pounds, Sweat is Graham’s heir in Philly. He has 3.5 sacks this season. After an ACL tear, the once highly-touted Derek Barnett will re-enter the lineup, perhaps the only resources the Eagles dedicated to the position that did not immediately result in stardom. I’ve listed four contributors, three playing at elite levels, and the Eagles STILL drafted an edge, the undersized Georgia player Nolan Smith. Smith is coming off of a torn pec in his final NCAA season, but is seen by many as more suited for the NFL game than his unique role at UGA, he has phenomenal takeoff speed at the line. If I’m Tua, I’m reading this and already prepping the ice bath. The Eagles keep their rushers fresh, too, with 8 players playing more than 85 snaps already this year.
In the back, the pecking order is far clearer and yet the unit has more questions to answer than any other. At LB, the Eagles gave less than 100 snaps to players at the position that were not their top two LBs, indicating that they preferred less rotation at the position. Those players, T.J. Edwards and Kyzir White, are both gone now: Edwards signed a 3-year deal with the Bears in their effort to build consistency against the run while White was one of the few moves the flailing Cardinals made. The Eagles turn, instead, to second-year 3rd rounder Nakobe Dean to live up to his own first-round potential. In 2022, PFF ranked Dean their 19th ranked prospect, and yet Dean fell all the way to the 83rd pick due to rumors of knee and pec issues that came out of the Combine. Dean himself proclaimed he was fully healthy and remained a full participant through camp, which remains an unsolved mystery of that draft. He played sparingly last season, with little pop when he did get in, and his preseason was similarly solid but quiet. Dean was the anchor for the Georgia Bulldogs (a theme for the Eagles) in college and profiles as a potential bright spot behind that excellent line. After a week 1 injury, he entered the lineup last week and played just fine. Coming into the year, Nicholas Morrow was a bit more of a projection: he had never demonstrated play any better than average over a season, but the Raiders undrafted free agent set a career-high in tackles last year with the Bears (behind a bad defensive line) with 93. He has exploded this year, with 27 tackles to just 1 missed tackle, and great coverage numbers to boot (13 catches for just 91 yards).
Safety saw a similar departure: 2000 snaps departed with the excellent but mercurial C.J. Gardner-Johnson and Marcus Epps. To replace them, the Eagles used a pick gained in a tampering settlement with the Cardinals to draft Illinois S Sydney Brown, but he has been injured and inactive. Last year’s undrafted rookie find Reed Blankenship (a shockingly good run defender with 27 tackles and only 2 missed in 2022) and new signing Terrell Edmonds from Pittsburgh have played most of the snaps. Edmonds was a consistently frustrating presence after being drafted in the 1st-round, always fine but rarely flashing the traits that led the Steelers to reach way beyond the 3rd round projection mock drafters had for the player. The Eagles will bet on untapped potential, and hope Edmonds can also provide some LB help for the team, and he has done well in the box with 18 tackles in 5 games. Blankenship may be sidelined this game after hurting his ribs on a crack-back block: the team’s most frequent target in coverage, he’s been targeted a shocking 23 times (7th in the league among safeties) but allowed just 16 catches with 3 pass breakups and an INT. Undrafted rookie Mekhi Garner or Brown will be forced into action if Blankenship is unable to play.
Finally, at corner, virtually no depth means immense pressure on Darius Slay and James Bradberry, two big names with high price tags. All offseason, the Eagles were rumored to be forced into choosing just one and then…they did! The Eagles cut Slay to save an immense amount of money, only to turn around and renegotiate a new deal with the player. This seemed wise: of the two, Slay has years now as a consistent presence in the secondary, allowing just one season of a QB rating above 100*. His 9 pass breakups just last year were the highest since his days as an All-Pro in Detroit. Bradberry, meanwhile, resurrected his career last year and signed a new deal to stay with the team after a prove-it deal in 2022. Bradberry was a player with strong counting stats in Carolina (always good at knocking away the football) but received little love from the PFF-style graders over his rookie deal. He parlayed the volume stats into a good deal with the Giants that they instantly regretted when the team turned over management. Forced to release Bradberry, the team immediately saw him come within a play of the Super Bowl with their rivals. Bradberry allowed a hilarious 0.0 passer rating (1 pass completed for 3 yards and an INT) in the Eagles drubbing of his old team in the playoffs. But both players will be over 30 (Slay will be 33) in 2023, and the depth is concerning. Indeed, Slay has been injured this year and enters Sunday questionable to play. Once-touted Kelee Ringo will look to develop after his draft stock plummeted due to a poor final year at (you guessed it) Georgia, but he has yet to really play. Josh Jobe, surprisingly, has been the corner called upon for outside duties when Slay went down. An undrafted rookie last year, Jobe has allowed 15 catches on 28 targets, which would be fine if not for the 206 yards and 3 TDs he has allowed. Minnesota pounded the poor kid to the tune of 6 catches for 106 yards and 2 TDs. If he faces Miami, watch out. Whether Slay or Jobe plays, both offer lackluster run defense. Miami should be successful if they can get to the edge. In the slot, with Avonte Maddox out for the season with a pec injury, the Eagles have used veteran Bradley Roby and Mario Goodrich, a 2022 undrafted free agent, in the slot and both have been absolutely victimized this year.
Special Teams
Surprisingly, for a deep team, the Eagles were only a mediocre special teams unit, ending at 12th in DVOA. Their punt game had some real leakage, most notably at the Super Bowl, where a Kadarius Toney return turned the game. One issue there was Arryn Siposs, whose 45.7 yard average per punt was good for 26th in the league and 4.22 hangtime was 28th. Short kicks that don’t hang? Bad sign. He was injured in week 14, returning only for the Super Bowl, and his gaffe (kicked the ball to the wrong side) was universally blamed for the big return. Ouch. Ultimately, the Eagles let him go and are getting marginally better results with former Jet Braden Mann. In the return game, the Eagles have returned just 4 kicks, and will take the touchback every time. Where they shine, though, is with return man Britain Covey. I absolutely love this kid; he is, for my money, the best pure punt returner in the league. He’s second in the league in both returns (14) and yards (195), with the courage to just field anything and go and the contact balance to squeeze out more yards. The other great part of this special teams unit is the kicker, Jake Elliott. Elliott attempted the most extra points in football in 2022 with 65, nailing 63 of them. He also went 24/27 on FGs, nailing 5/6 from 50+. That’s exactly the kind of consistency and range you look for. His lone blip this year was against the Jets, when he inexplicably sliced a 30-something yard kick. It was a game-wrecker in the end. The Eagles have a few special teams players rather than one ace, but Ringo has been the best of them, with 11 snaps and a strong PFF grade.
Game Prediction
Yes, there is something wrong with the Philadelphia Eagles. Be it something in the scripting, the game preparation, or even the water, this is not the team that went to the 2022 Super Bowl. They’re far more predictable: even when their All-Pro talent is balling, the space created through structure is missing. Even acknowledging this, there is also an undeniable truth: the Eagles are a team of bullies. Miami has the best run game in the NFL by total yards with the 21st run blocking ranking in the NFL according to PFF because their game relies on angles and space created by Tua’s deception, the threats on the perimeter, and truly angry RBs. The Eagles have the 2nd best running game by total yards with the 2nd best run block grade according to PFF because they have a classic running game: they maul opponents upfront and wear teams down with a combination of Hurts and De’Andre Swift. The Eagles will have watched Miami’s Buffalo tape and they know that Miami can be bullied. Once they are, they will expect Tua to force the ball into exploitable windows, they will expect the OL to miss their blitz calls, and they will expect the defense to surrender 6-minute drives down the field for points. It doesn’t take Dr. Desai to see the plan here, and the Dolphins have offered little evidence that they have the counterpunch.
But what if the Dolphins never go down? What if they start fast? Sure, Miami has played a weak schedule, but PFF still sees them as a top 5 pass rushing unit and a top half coverage unit. In every game in which Miami had a lead, they pulled out the win, with just the Chargers offering much in the way of resistance. What if, against our nervous Same Old Dolphins preconceptions, Miami has a plan for Hurts’s scrambling, bottles up the run early, and further clogs up the gears of the Eagles plodding machinery? What if the offense really is that good? It makes plenty of sense that every prediction I see is within 3 points (and virtually 50/50 in terms of the winner). In these situations, Dolphins fans are accustomed to letdowns. A quick recap of Miami false starts since 2010: 2-0 wrecked by the Jets in 2010, 3-0 dismantled on MNF by the Saints in 2013, 3-0 laugher against New England in 2018, 3-0 halted by the Bengals last year with Tua’s injury clouding the picture, and a beatdown in Buffalo just a few weeks ago. Miami will wilt when the pressure is on. This game is a new measuring stick for who these Dolphins are (which is why I’ve written a novel above). Each individual matchup offers something to learn, and the stylistic differences obscure some key similarities: two New School coaches bring their Robot Alabama QBs, their can-do attitudes, and a 5-1 record to a Sunday Night matchup. The loser on Sunday still has a bright future, while the winner can start dreaming of a conference championship against fierce competition (the 49ers and Chiefs both loom for the Eagles and Dolphins respectively in the coming weeks).
As I believe every matchup is impactful, it’s hard to look at any one as the key to the game, so I’ll drop instead some points of interest for myself:
- Is Davonta Smith able to give AJ Brown breathing room by having a strong game? Will he or Waddle make a bigger impact?
- Can the Dolphins handle the Eagles’ physicality on defense with their typical finesse approach, defanging blitzes and keeping Tua clean?
- Will Jaelan Phillips, Bradley Chubb, and Andrew Van Stinkel hold up in the run game and contain the Hurts scramble?
- Will an Eagles receiver explode a la Diggs due to a vanilla coverage scheme or will Fangio have more to throw at them?
- Where do injuries hit harder? Both teams have a major CB and OL injury, and both teams have a defensive line star less than 100%. If you’re only as strong as your weakest leak, Liam Eichenberg and Jack Driscoll must have their teams looking sideways. Luckily for the Eagles, Lane Johnson looks set to play.
As the forward-thinking Carrie Underwood once said, “Waitin’ all day for uh SUNDAY NIIIIIGHT!”
Prediction: Eagles 31-28
Season Record (Taylor Picks): 5-1
NEXT WEEK: New England redux
* = See Glossary
