4 matchups the Eagles have to win to beat the Rams

On Sunday, the Philadelphia Eagles have the opportunity to make it to the NFC Championship for the second time in the past three seasons. The only thing standing in their way is a Rams team who are playing on a short week. Things couldn’t be better.

For the second week in a row, the Eagles’ playoff game is a rematch of a game they played earlier in the season. Back in Week 12, they beat the Rams 37-20 and Saquon Barkley set the franchise’s single-game rushing record at 255 yards. It was a beatdown that we’ve never seen before.

If everything goes right and the Eagles win their matchups, they’ll be able to repeat what they did eight weeks ago (maybe not that many rushing yards) and end the Rams’ season.

A backup linebacker is going to be a major part of a playoff game

The Eagles suffered a huge loss with Nakobe Dean’s season-ending injury last week. He had been playing at an incredibly high level, and now perennial backup Oren Burks and/or fifth-round rookie Jeremiah Trotter Jr. are going to have to fill his shoes. Let’s start there.

Jeremiah Trotter Jr. and/or Oren Burks vs. Sean McVay

This is probably the biggest match-up in the game because it’s the biggest unknown. We haven’t seen Trott Jr. or Burks start in a meaningful game and we don’t know how they’re going to look. 

It’s fair and realistic to think that they aren’t going to play as well as Nakobe Dean was playing. Hopefully that’s more of a compliment to Nakobe than it is an indictment on his backups.

Now, a reason to feel good about Trott Jr. and Burks is that Fangio said he has a rule “not to put two backup linebackers in practice together because that’s not how it’s going to happen in a game.” That means this won’t be the first time Trott or Burks have spent time playing alongside Zack Baun. Vic is a genius.

A reason to feel bad about this is that Sean McVay will metaphorically give the middle finger to specific guys on defense. If he wants a player to have a bad day, then he will make them have a bad day. 

That’s especially true when the player he chooses to scorn is a linebacker. That’s going to be even more especially true when that linebacker is getting their first real start.

He’s going to do his best to put Nakobe’s back up in a blender and he’ll do that with motion, but more effectively, play-action. The entire idea of play-action is to draw defenses up to play the run, just to get open space and then throw the ball. An inexperienced linebacker is especially susceptible to doing just that.

Per Next Gen Stats (NGS) the Rams use play-action the fourth most of any team. They have the second-highest EPA per dropback and Stafford has the third-highest passer rating (120.5) when they use it. The Bottom line is that the Rams use play-action incredibly effectively and they use it a ton.

It stinks that there’s a potential chink in the Eagles defense’s armor and that it could be exposed immediately. 

THAT BEING SAID, Fangio was talking about Trott Jr. and he said, “I think Trott’s got a good future, and that future may be now.” He might as well have said, ‘You want a hype train? How about a hype train that Vin Diesel would drive? Give me a second and let me put some Nos in your veins.’

Jeremiah Trotter Jr. grew up an Eagles fan watching his dad play for the team, and when he declared for the NFL draft in November of 2023, everyone knew that the Eagles were going to draft him.

If Fangio isn’t throwing us for a loop (which he never has) and Trott Jr. does get the start, he has the opportunity to do something special. 

Imagine: It’s the fourth quarter. There’s 5:30 left on the clock. The Eagles are up 31-17. It’s fourth-and-seven. The Rams are on the Eagles' 45-yard line and this is their last-ditch effort to make it a one-score game. 

Matthew Stafford rolls out to his right to buy time for a deep shot to Puka Nacua. Trott sees him shift his weight to set his feet. He barrels downhill while picturing Cooper DeJean’s perfect double-leg takedown on Derrick Henry back in Week 13. 

In a flash of midnight green and a tuft of snow, he plants Stafford six inches down into the frozen turf of a January Lincoln Financial Field. Trott gets up and slams his axe into the ground for the first time in his professional career.

You know, or something like that.

Pressure vs. Matt Stafford

To be frank: Matthew Stafford stinks against pressure. Even in the most basic stats you can see it. Per NGS, his completion percentage without pressure is 73.5%, and his passer rating 107.5. With pressure, those numbers drop to 44.6% and 55.0. That’s the seventh-lowest completion percentage and fifth-lowest passer rating of quarterbacks under pressure in the NFL.

The Rams’ offense works best when Stafford can get the ball out quickly to his receivers who are in space. When it’s on, it’s really on. Pressure ruins that and with Stafford, it’s catastrophic. 

It causes him to hold onto the ball a tick longer and allow those schemed open receivers to get covered; his time to throw goes from 2.63 seconds to 3.13 seconds and his percentage of tight-window throws goes from 10.6% (4th lowest) to 20.1% (10th highest). 

In Week 12, the Rams double-teamed Jalen Carter on over 60% of his pass rushes. That allowed Milton Williams to get pressure on 25% of his pass rushes (third highest pressure rate by any Eagles defensive tackle in any game this season). Those resulted in two third-down sacks and one forced fumble.

The point here is that if the Eagles' defensive line can make Stafford hold onto the ball, he’ll throw it away or make throws that are interceptable.

Jalen Hurts vs. Pass Rush

The only really good thing the Rams have going on with their defense is their pass rush. It’s a unit led by their rookie (and unfortunately, future Defensive Rookie of the Year) Jared Verse. He’s amazing at being disruptive and that’s shown by his 76 pressures (fourth most in the NFL).

The matchup here is for Jalen and not the offensive line because while the Eagles have a disgustingly good offensive line, Jalen still takes sacks and leaves the pocket.

That’s not all Jalen’s fault. A lot of the problems are due to stale, uncomplimentary, and predictable route combinations. Receivers aren’t schemed open and Jalen would have to make risky throws, and it seems like he’s been coached that moving out of the pocket and throwing the ball away is better than making those throws and turning the ball over. 

An easy fix would be for the coaches to have the wide receivers do more creative things more consistently, but that’s only happened in two or three games this season. Luckily, one of those games was against the Rams in Week 12. 

Nevertheless, if the passing game needs to be key to the Eagles winning this game, Jalen is going to have to crush it.

He’ll have some really good pass rushers doing some pretty creative things and mucking up what he sees and how he processes. Life is best with Jalen when he either gets the ball out quickly or stands in the pocket and launches a nuke at A.J. Brown.

If this game requires Jalen to have to win this matchup, he’ll need to play smart, quick, and with accuracy. Fortunately, he’s good at all of those things when he needs to be.

Saquon vs. Stacked Boxes

Traditionally, the best way to stop a good running game is by stacking the box with eight or more guys. The glaring problem with stacking the box is leaving only three or fewer guys on the outside.

The Rams did that in Week 12 and it didn’t work, like, even remotely. Per NGS, Saquon carried the ball 26 times in that game, and nine were against stacked boxes (34.6%, which was the fifth-highest percentage of stacked boxes that he’s run against this year). It didn’t matter; he ran for 114 yards, including his 72-yard touchdown to kill the game.

The Rams will probably want Jalen Hurts to have to win with his arm, which is a really dumb thing to want, so they’ll sell out to stop the run. 

To be fair, if you take away the Rams game, Saquon has run against stacked boxes 62 times for 205 yards which is 3.3 yards per carry. So using stacked boxes has worked in the past, which is what it is supposed to do. 

This means that one of the key matchups for the game is how the Eagles deal with those stacked boxes. It could be audibling out of runs, a good RPO game, or just saying ‘That’s cute. Get the hell outta here’ and running straight through their teeth like they did before.