Eagles News: Offensive identity, defensive snap counts, and flexed games
By Jake Beckman
The Philadelphia Eagles won a game and their head coach didn’t make a fool of himself. Things are good.
That means we don’t have to focus on buffoonery, half-hearted apologies, and speculation on if/when Nick Sirianni will lose his job. This week we get news stories about Sirianni’s take on his offense’s identity, the defensive line’s snap counts, and yet another flexed game schedule.
Eagles News: Flexed out of prime-time
For the second straight week, the Eagles are getting a game flexed out of its original time slot. Initially, the Eagles were going to play their Week 8 game against the Bengals in the 4:25 pm time slot, but now it’s at 1 pm.
The Bears and Commanders game got flexed into that spot so the NFL could showcase rookie quarterbacks Jayden Daniels and Caleb Williams. In the ultimate twist of fate that only the football gods would be devious enough to spin, Jayden Daniels hurt his ribs and now he’s a ‘maybe’ for that game.
It’s just a bummer when the Eagles get flexed into the Early slate because that means you don’t get to watch Red Zone for those games.
This week, news came out that the Eagles are getting their Week 9 game against the Jaguars flexed out of Sunday Night Football. This one is probably because the Jaguars have been a truly disgusting team. We’ve had to watch them for the past two weeks for their London games, and it should be considered a war crime to make a Jags game the only football game on TV. It’s good that the NFL is learning.
They flexed a Colts-Vikings game into that Sunday night spot, which is weird especially since there’s a Packers-Lions game in the afternoon spot. Whatever.
The cool thing about the Eagles game getting flexed is that it’s a Kelly Green game. Last year, both of the Kelly Green games were Sunday night games. Everyone has different opinions about what weather, time of day, and lighting makes Kelly Green jerseys look the best, but the only correct opinion is when they're being worn in the late afternoon.
Not only do you get to see them in natural light, but also under the lights in the second half of the game. It’s the best of both worlds.
Eagles News: Defensive snap counts
It’s a little weird to try to figure out what the defensive line snap counts actually look like for this game. Not only were guys further down on the depth chart rotated in the fourth quarter once the Giants conceded, but also the game script didn’t call for many run-stoppers like Jordan Davis and Moro Ojomo.
It’s good to see that Brandon Graham, Jalen Carter, and Milton Williams all got a break at the end of the game. Hell, even Bryce Huff only played just one snap in the fourth quarter. Bryce Huff has definitely been playing better since the bye week, and it’s clear that Vic Fangio has noticed that. These numbers are from Next Gen Stats and Pro Football Reference:
Player | # of snaps in Q1-3 | # of snaps in Q4 | Snap % | Season Snap % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
B. Graham | 18 | 0 | 32.7% | 45.2% |
B. Huff | 24 | 1 | 45.5% | 45.5% |
J. Carter | 41 | 3 | 80% | 76.6% |
J. Hunt | 0 | 9 | 16.4% | 3.7% |
J. Davis | 11 | 0 | 20% | 43.3% |
J. Sweat | 31 | 3 | 61.8% | 61.4% |
M. Williams | 25 | 0 | 45.5% | 46% |
M. Ojomo | 10 | 12 | 40% | 33.78% |
N. Smith | 14 | 11 | 45.5% | 40.7% |
T. Booker | 4 | 9 | 23.6% | 19.15% |
In Week 2, Huff played 55.2% of the snaps and he played horribly. Because of that, he played only 32.7% of the snaps in Week 3. Now he’s back up to 45.5% and if this game were competitive, it probably would’ve been back in the 50s.
The other notable number here is Jordan Davis. All of his snaps came in the first three quarters, and he had the fewest snaps of any of the defensive linemen. Again, that’s largely due to the game script and the Giants having to throw the ball, and that’s the problem.
It sure feels like the Eagles have just succumbed to their fate that Jordan Davis isn’t going to be a pass rusher. If they wanted to give him a shot at it, it would’ve been against Drew Lock and a bad offensive line. Instead, they threw in Moro Ojomo to get some pass-rush snaps.
Other than that, it was nice to see that Jalyx Hunt got some playing time and made the most of it. He only played nine snaps and on one of them, he got a strip sack. It’s cool to see a developmental draft pick actually develop.
Eagles News: Offensive identity
One of the biggest questions surrounding this Eagles’ team is about their identity. What is this team? Is this a team that wants to chuck the ball deep? In the past two years, they’ve paid their quarterback and two wide receivers a trillion dollars. Money talks and the money is saying that these are the guys the offense will run through.
Or is this a team that wants the run the ball behind a dominant offensive line? That’s what they’ve been doing. They paid Saquon Barkley $12.5 million and they’ve been using him to break open games, comeback in games, and seal games.
Nick Sirianni talked about the offense's identity when he spoke to the media on Monday. He said, “...Your identity is constantly adjusting, changing, figuring it out as the year goes, it changes a little bit based on who you’re playing. We really take pride in our identity being our core values: being a team, playing with great detail, playing with toughness, being accountable. Scheme stuff is constantly adjusting. Sometimes the identity is to run it as much as we did yesterday and sometimes the identity is to pass it a bunch… I think that’s just constantly changing and adjusting.” (10:47 in the video below)
Nick lies, exaggerates, and withholds information in his press conferences pretty frequently, but this actually seems weirdly honest. The Eagles allocated resources to all of their offensive weapons so they could be versatile. It’s something that we’ve all noticed over the past few years: if one aspect of the Eagles offense isn’t working in a game, then they pivot to something else.
The identity is the ability to pivot. Oh, you’re going to bracket A.J. Brown? Boom, there’s Devonta Smith. You’ve found a way to cover them both? Bang, Saquon just ripped off a 45-yard run. What’s that? You have a chonky run-stopping defensive tackle? Whoop, over the top to A.J.
For further proof, you can also look at the simplicity and straightforwardness of the offense. They’re not scheming guys open in the passing game. It’s a ‘our guys are better than yours and you don’t have enough talent to stop everyone’ type of scheme.
In theory, that sounds great. In reality, it’s unsustainable. Having an identity of ‘We’ll just find a different way to win’ works until it doesn’t. That’s why when it fails, it seems like the offense has no answers. Sirianni certainly never said, ‘I want our offense to be boom or bust,’ but that’s exactly what it is.
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