NFC Championship Preview @ Philadelphia
Date: Sunday, 1/29
Time: 12:00 PT for some reason
Location: Lincoln Financial Field (where they threw snowballs at Santa Claus)
Opponent: Philadelphia Eagles
At 14-3 (13-1 with their starting QB), the Philadelphia Eagles are the league’s winningest team. With a +133 point differential and no losses by greater than ten points, they’re the league’s most consistent team. And with six first- or second-team All-Pros and an MVP finalist at quarterback, they’re the league’s most talented team. But it’s worth noting how they got here.
The Eagles are one of the rare organizations who had a wide-open championship window, but—other than one special post-season—flubbed it enough to get their Super Bowl-winning coach fired, then rebuilt their coaching staff and roster and created a second championship window—all in the span of five short years.
Head coach Nick Sirianni—whose “I got a bone to pick” press conferences, sideline demeanor (I had to pause an All-22 clip after seeing him yelling at an opposing player), and hilarious alleged interactions with civilians are as Philly as it gets—deserves a ton of credit for rejuvenating the Eagles. So does his excellent coaching staff. But GM Howie Roseman deserves a shoutout as well.
Roseman, who was both the architect of the Eagles’ Super Bowl run and the primary hand behind a slew of personnel follies that prevented them from returning to the promised land, easily could have been canned alongside Doug Pederson in 2020. In fact, I thought he should have been. But Roseman—who is also as Philly as it gets—fully accepted his many mistakes and—in the two years since—has moved with incredible speed to rectify them.
Months after Nick Foles led them to a Super Bowl, Carson Wentz was anointed with a massive contract as the next sovereign king of Philadelphia—only for it to turn out that he was a weirdo who nobody really liked, who killed a bunch of ducks (way way too many ducks), and whose MVP-caliber season was a mirage of statistically unrepeatable variance. So Roseman drafted Jalen Hurts, despite this openly affecting Wentz’s play and his relationship with the organization, and—two years after Wentz left—Hurts is an MVP front-runner.
The Eagles were probably the only team (other than the Cardinals lol) who did NOT get a stud wideout from the 2019 and 2020 drafts, as Roseman drafted JJ Arcega-Whiteside over guys like DK Metcalf, Terry McLaurin, and Diontae Johnson, then tried to fix that mistake a year later by selecting Jalen Reagor one pick before Justin Jefferson and with guys like Brandon Aiyuk, Michael Pittman Jr., and Tee Higgins still on the board. Roseman jettisoned both the wideouts he drafted then traded a first- and third-round pick for AJ Brown to pair with 2021 first-rounder DeVonta Smith. Now, Brown and Smith make up one of the best wide receiver pairs in the league.
In the post-Malcolm Jenkins era, Philly played musical chairs in the secondary in hopes of patching over a weakness at a key position. In the past two years, Roseman has traded for Darius Slay, signed James Bradberry from the rival Giants, and sent two third-day picks to the Saints for nickel pest Chauncey Gardner-Johnson to form one of the best cornerback trios in the country.
These massive positional overhauls, combined with the continued bolstering of the core of their original championship window (elite offensive and defensive lines) with draft picks (Landon Dickerson, Jordan Davis) and savvy veteran adds (sack-leader Hasson Reddick, Ndamukong Suh, Linval Joseph) has led to an Eagles team that is top-to-bottom as good as any in the country.
OFFENSE
Offense DVOA: 3rd
Weighted: 6th
Pass: 9th
Run: 1st
The league’s second-highest-scoring offense is back at full strength with the return of MVP finalist Jalen Hurts and First-team All-Pro right tackle Lane Johnson. This unit put up 400+ yards of offense in a whopping 11 of 18 games (including last weekend) and boasts—by DVOA—the NFL’s top rushing attack. According to Football Outsiders, the Eagles’ rushing attack is nearly 50% better than second-best and is as valuable as the league’s #2 and #7 rushing attacks combined.
When Jalen Hurts has been healthy, the Eagles have rushed for upwards of 100 yards in 13-of-16 games, over 200 yards five(!) times, and over 300 yards(!!) once. These guys like to run and everything they do stems from that. But that doesn’t mean their passing attack is lacking. In two of the three games the Eagles didn’t eclipse 100 yards rushing, they threw for upwards of 300.
Fun stuff.
Beauty in simplicity. I’ve always believed that in order to field a championship-caliber offense in today’s NFL you have to have a certain level of complexity in your scheme. The league is too smart and too good and when defenses are given two weeks to prepare (like for the Super Bowl), offenses that are too simple in their approach (2018 Rams, 2015 Panthers) tend to have their tendencies and weak spots exploited.
But the Eagles hope to have found somewhat of a loophole in this argument by developing an offense that employs largely simple plays and concepts but with enough variety and versatility that it has answers for whatever defenses throw at it. In doing so, they’ve created an offense that is simple in its plays but multiple in the many ways it can attack defenses that try to take away those plays. They have embraced an identity of flexibility.
At their core, the Eagles want to predict and assess what defenses are trying to take away from them then pivot to something else that’s more open. While that can be said of many good offenses (and, on some level, any good offense), the Eagles differ in that their entire playbook is built like a closed-loop rock-paper-scissors game—with relatively simple answers to different fronts and coverages—and they have the utmost confidence and commitment in deploying heavy doses of any one of their answers if the moment calls for it.
But ultimately, they want to run the ball.
It’s basically the triple option. Other than incredible talent across the board, the Eagles’ option run game has been so successful because—unlike a team that dabbles in the zone read here and there—their zone reads are foundational to their playbook and designed like the 2022 equivalent of a triple option.
The traditional triple option has (surprise) three options: the dive to the fullback, the QB keep, and the pitch to a tailback outside. While the Eagles don’t use a fullback and run their scheme mostly out of the gun, their “triple option” attacks defenses in a similar way to the traditional one—by presenting a give option up the middle, a QB keep option off-tackle, and an outside option that replaces the tailback pitch.
In the original shotgun zone-read system, that third “pitch” option was the bubble screen. With time—and a shift to the NFL—that bubble screen has largely been replaced by RPOs, which aim to stress alley defenders on quick hitters if they commit to the run. The Eagles love RPOs but those are largely eliminated with tight man coverage, so they’ve leaned heavily on having a tight end or wideout come in motion (or start in tight and delay release) before doing a quick shoot route to the flat. This serves the same purpose as the bubble screen or the traditional tailback pitch—it presents a third option on any given play that stresses defenses laterally. And considering the Eagles’ have two 1,000-yard receivers and one of the better tight ends in the game running this shoot route, it’s proven to be quite effective.
This variation of the triple option also lets the Eagles build their option looks directly into their play-action bootleg game, which relies heavily on sail route combinations (streek-deep out-flood). Since a flood is basically the same as a shoot, teams may think they’re guarding the Eagles’ triple option, but once they realize it’s actually a play-action pass, the Eagles have already completed the deep out over their head.
Reactive but Rugged. In the absolute simplest of terms, this is what the Eagles would like to do versus what they will likely do depending on the looks they get.
What they would like to do… Run the ball, run zone read, and generate easy sideline reads and deep shots off of play action.
If shown one-high safety man coverage… Run the ball, run zone read with the weird shoot thing, and rely on crossers and deep jump balls to your stud wideouts.
If shown one-high safety zone coverage… Run the ball, run zone read with RPOs, and challenge alley defenders with sail routes and in-breakers.
If shown two-high safeties… Run the ball and run zone read.
This isn’t to say the Eagles can’t just sit back and throw the ball when teams leave that wide open, but they want to run the ball. That makes sense given they have the best offensive line in football—with no real weak spots across the front five—a talented backfield, and one of the best running quarterbacks in the NFL.
Given their heavy heavy use of option runs and option looks, the Eagles typically have a numbers advantage on the ground. Against any two-high shell, that number advantage is multiplied. If you want to play one-high and start sending edge guys to stop the option, they’ll RPO you to death and make your second-level defenders run sideline-to-sideline chasing deep outs from the slot. If you play man, they have two dudes out wide who can win on all three levels, one of the league’s top two-way tight ends, and a quarterback who can gobble up yardage on the ground when defenders turn and chase their men downfield.
Again, this is an oversimplified version of the Eagles offense, but the strength of the scheme isn’t that they catch you by surprise, it’s that they already have answers baked into what they do best (and those answers happen to be the thing that they’re “second-best” at).
summoning Shooter
Definitely Not Carson Wentz. Equally as impressive as their offensive balance is the fact that the Eagles have shaped their entire system around the strengths of their personnel while hiding their weaknesses. That starts at quarterback, where third-year signal-caller Jalen Hurts is likely to be the winner or runner-up for the MVP this year.
Not since Lamar Jackson’s breakout year with the Ravens have I seen a team so fully commit their scheme to maximizing a young quarterback’s talents, but—unlike the Ravens’ scheme—the Eagles’ system also seems poised to let their young quarterback grow to his full potential as a passer.
Hurts doesn’t have a great arm—he turfs some balls and doesn’t have crazy zip—and his accuracy is improving but wavers at times. But he’s an elite-level runner with tremendous instincts in the open field, an intelligent student of the game, and he’s shown the fastidiousness and work ethic-bordering-on-psychopathy that is often required of elite quarterbacks.
The Eagles offense heavily features Hurts’ legs, both in the option game, on designed runs, and with a heaping dose of bootlegs. Whereas less athletic quarterbacks are often taught to get more depth on their bootlegs—with the hope that as long as they get outside the end they’ll have enough time and space to throw—Hurts often sprints laterally to get width on his bootlegs—forcing shallow defenders on the boundary to either commit to him as a run threat or guard the receiver who is almost certainly shooting to the flat or crossing on a shallow from the backside. They want to put you in a run-pass bind in as many ways as possible.
In his first two seasons, Hurts famously just did not throw the ball over the middle. While he’s improved in that area, it’s still not a strength, and the Eagles—whether it’s on bootlegs or not—throw mostly levels (sails, so many sails) and high-low concepts outside the hashes. While I don’t want to knock him for something he’s not asked to do much, my guess would be that Hurts is a better vertical processor than a horizontal one, thriving on passes like sails, high-lows, and shallow-digs versus full-field progressions that make him read left to right or vice versa. Thus, the Eagles have built mostly passing concepts where the side of the formation that Hurts is throwing to is determined by defensive alignment, relying on his penchant for film study and knack for pre-snap diagnoses to effectively split the field in half for him post-snap.
Pessimists may say these facts—and the unreal talent surrounding him—make Hurts a “system quarterback,” but that’s massively shortchanging both him and the Eagles coaching staff for creating such a well-balanced and explosive offense.
DEFENSIVE KEYS
Don’t let them do that thing they’re the best at. Obviously, stopping the run is easier said than done against a team that spams option runs and has the top offensive line and rushing attack in the country, but the one major constant of this Eagles offense is that if you can’t stop the run, they won’t stop running. However, if you get them into third-and-mediums and third-and-longs—where play action and RPOs are less effective—their playbook shrinks considerably.
This will be the biggest test yet for our front seven and making sure we are decisive and sound in our option responsibilities, rush lanes, and run fits, will be a constant point of emphasis throughout this week. This shouldn’t be a “sell out to stop the run and deal with the pass later” approach. The Eagles are too explosive through the air for that strategy to be successful. But if we can slow their running game without committing more bodies to the box or abandoning our pass coverage responsibilities, then we’ve got an excellent chance at slowing down what can otherwise seem like an unstoppable train.
That means stopping Hurts on scrambles as well, which has been an issue for us over the years. Last year, in what was a physical defensive battle, a green Hurts was largely ineffective through the air, but he led all rushers with 82 yards and a score on ten carries. That’s not something we can let happen again.
Bosa Breakout? While the term “breakout” may not apply for the odds-on favorite to win DPOTY, Bosa has had only one QB hit and zero sacks in the past two games. Much, if not all, of that is due to teams game-planning and devoting extra attention to him. In fact, in this game, I would assume he’s made the unblocked read key more often than not.
But while the Eagles’ OL is the best in the business if they have a weakness it’s in the pass pro of left tackle Jordan Mailata. Due to that, I’d expect heavy snaps from Bosa opposite Mailata and hopefully he can bust out of his “slump” in a big way.
Win the alleys. Our defense may be built from our defensive line out—and they’ll need to win some battles at the point of attack for us to have success against this offense—but our outrageously fast linebackers are what makes our defense truly unique. The Eagles rely heavily on option runs and RPOs against zone coverage—which we run more than almost anyone in the country—so whether it’s disguising our fronts and slow-playing mesh points on options and RPOs to muddy the reads, preventing small gains from becoming big ones on the ground through proper angles and strong tackling, or taking away large swaths of ground in the passing game, our linebackers will be paramount to our success on Sunday.
Last weekend, Dre Greenlaw and Fred Warner’s ability to cover slot receivers deep down the field allowed us to disguise coverages and blitzes in a way that few—if any—other teams are capable of doing. This week, Ryans will once again need to gamble at times with matchups that—on paper—are less than ideal, and Greenlaw and Warner’s unique skillset will once again be relied upon to minimize the potential downside when we roll the dice. Against an offense that is capable of attacking so many different fronts and coverages, the added flexibility and range from our linebackers will likely be a major factor in our defense’s performance.
Go’s and Gooses. Due in part to a few blown coverages and losses on jump balls down the stretch run, the Niners’ have one giant statistical weakness on their defense, and that is that their deep ball defense is bottom ten in both DVOA and EPA ratings. Expect the Eagles to test that weakness early and often with their dynamic duo of wideouts—both of whom excel at coming down with deep balls and generating big plays down the field. But don’t sleep on Quez Watkins. The Eagles’ third receiver (but fourth option at best) is typically used to stretch the field vertically—often in the slot—with his 4.3 speed. I’d guess the Eagles take at least one shot with him, whether that’s targeting a safety out of the slot or out wide in one-on-one coverage if Philly slides Brown or Smith inside for a play or two.
The Niners’ other statistical weakness is that they’re 31st in the league on third-and-short defense. Against a team that runs the ball so well, has one of the league’s top option attacks, and loves loves loves the QB sneak (which they often do out of a formation that almost looks like a kneel down), stepping up on third- and fourth-and-short could prove pivotal in this matchup.
Force intermediate dropback passing. The Eagles’ strength in the running game and top marks in short-yardage situations are enough reason to emphasize keeping them out of third-and-shorts. But if we can force them into downs and distances where RPOs and quick game aren’t viable, we start to push them into an intermediate passing game that doesn’t play to their strengths.
We’ve talked about how Hurts has improved targeting the middle of the field, but it’s still not a strong suit, and it says plenty that it’s an area of the field that they largely avoid outside of RPOs, slants, and the occasional shallow-dig. While his work ethic and astronomical improvement over his short NFL career suggest that he’s likely only getting started, at the moment I think he’s a better preparer and pre-snap guy than he is a fast processor. To me, that’s one of the reasons why they bootleg him so often, throw so many sail and high-low concepts, and often split the field. And that’s likely why they still avoid the middle of the field in true dropback game. At the moment, going quickly through horizontal progressions just isn’t one of his strengths, and—as stated before—they want to cater to their quarterback’s strengths.
But the Eagles’ commitment to (and avoidance of) certain concepts has led to some odd statistical marks, which (hopefully) are markings of potential weaknesses. Hurts has spent all season eviscerating defenses that try to simplify option responsibilities and take away RPOs by playing man coverage, but his EPA/dropback falls from third overall to 21st when facing zone looks. And that includes the easy yardage he’s gotten off the quick screens with numbers and RPOs that the Eagles deploy against zone looks. Against four or fewer rushers, Hurts is 5th in EPA/dropback, but against five or more that drops to 19th. And against zone coverage with five or more rushers? He ranks 32nd out of 33 qualifying passers.
I’m not saying we immediately become the throwback zone blitz-crazy Steelers. But zone coverage is what we do best and what we do most of the time and under Ryans we’ve blitzed at a rate that’s about league average. So it’s in our wheelhouse. If we can’t get home with four then pairing zone coverages with the occasional well-timed blitz could be crucial to get the Eagles off the field. But in order for that to be an option, we have to force them into traditional dropback passes.
Reverse engineering? There’s one other thing that may not even be a thing, so I hesitate to even bring it up, but if anyone’s gonna figure it out it would be DeMeco Ryans (or possibly a future Super Bowl opponent because they’d have two weeks to study film).
The Eagles offense is built like a triple option. It’s reactive to what the defense does in order to generate the best possible look. In the triple option, if the end stays home, the fullback gets a dive up the gut. If the end crashes down on the fullback, the quarterback pulls it and runs. And if the end crashes down on the fullback and the alley defender hits the quarterback, the QB pitches it to the tailback out wide.
Proponents of the option claim that the option is never wrong. How could it be with all those reactive elements based on its read keys? But the option in all of its forms has one very distinct weakness. When other people know those same read keys, they can basically force you to do what they want. They end up calling your plays.
Take for example a zone read with Lamar Jackson (with knees) at quarterback and Practice Squad Joe who runs a 5.3 forty at tailback. In theory, option plays allow Practice Squad Joe to run against better numbers while Lamar can pull whenever his read key tells him to and scramble for a big gain. But in practice, the defense knows the read key and just forces the tailback to get the ball every play. And then your best player winds up with zero carries.
This is a little bit like what we talked about last year against the Packers. Rodgers and Adams feasted off of a mental link that operated outside of the playbook. They both knew what to do and how to adjust against each alignment and depth they saw, and the result was a bevy of fades, nine routes, and slants—regardless of what play was called. So in that divisional matchup, the Niners—knowing exactly what Rodgers and Adams were keying—decided to regularly show one look then rotate into something else on the snap. They knew that Adams against press man would get a fade. So they had a safety lineup in the box to goad the fade, then sprint over the top to double Adams at the snap. They knew when Adams was doubled opposite trips Rodgers would go the other way. So they showed a double then rotated off it at the snap to effectively force Rodgers to ignore his best receiver.
I’m not saying this is the case with the Eagles offense. The schemes they draw up and the way that they make decisions are considerably more complicated than a triple option or a dynamic forged over the years between an elite quarterback and receiver. But I am saying that a scheme that relies on simple answers against specific looks runs some risk of a savvy defensive coordinator—with a full season of film to determine tendencies—showing one look pre-snap, predicting the counterattack, then rotating into a trap once the ball is snapped.
Would be sick.
lol
DEFENSE
Defense DVOA: 6th
Weighted: 9th
Pass: 1st
Run: 21st
Spent a ton more time on the Eagles’ offense because (1) I am busy and running late on this post and (2) this defense is very familiar, but make no mistake, the Eagles D is just as loaded as talent as its offense.
While DC Jonathan Gannon came with Sirriani from the Colts he is actually a Vic Fangio protege. Since Fangio probably has his fingerprints on as many defenses across the league as Shanahan does on offenses, this is a scheme that we’re well familiar with. They are a 3-4 base with a ton of split safety looks who can pressure with four or more (middle of the pack in blitzing). They a more varied in their man vs pattern matching zone coverages than many Fangio schemes, but—overall—they’re not super tricky.
They’re just supremely talented and well-coached.
Pass Rush. First things first, we gotta talk about the Eagles’ defensive line. It’s long been a strength of the franchise, and while this unit may not quite reach the level of singular talents as their Super Bowl-winning squad, it’s hard to imagine this isn’t their deepest crop over.
The Eagles totaled 70(!) sacks this season, which is 15 more than second-best in the league, and two shy of the all-time record set by the 1984 Chicago Bears (in one less game). Their overall pressure percentage is a fraction shy of the best in the country (literally, one-tenth of a percent less than the Cowboys’ mark). They have FOUR players with double-digit sacks, which maybe has happened before but—if it did—I can’t remember when. Their rotation genuinely goes eight-deep with real guys. Not just randoms. Real guys. And seeing as this is a Fangio scheme and they will certainly be keying our run game, that means we’re likely to see a ton of five-man fronts.
Like any Fangio scheme, these guys can line up around the line, stunt, and play games, but the Eagles honestly just are so deep along the d-line that much of their pass rush success relies on them trotting dudes out, pulling them before they’re tired, then trotting out another unit that’s nearly as strong.
Island life. While much of the Eagles’ #1 pass defense metric can be credited to their relentless pass rush, the secondary shouldn’t be slept on. The Fangio scheme is notoriously friendly on cornerbacks (after all, we started Tarrell Brown and Carlos Rogers and were tops in the league) but the Eagles’ duo of Darius Slay and James Bradberry have done plenty well for themselves in man coverage as well. While their play has dropped off a tiny bit since the early portion of the season—when they were 1 and 2 amongst cornerbacks in nearly every metric imaginable—they’re still arguably the best cornerback duo in the country and they make it very difficult to throw outside against the Eagles.
Chauncey Gardner-Johnson will man either the free safety spot or nickel corner (depending on Avonte Maddox’s health) and is—per usual—a disruptive force in playing the ball (his six interceptions lead the team) and playing his way into the mind of opponents. Since our team is devoid of diva receivers, all of our guys block, and he’ll be lined up over George Kittle half the time, I’m not worried about how much he talks, but Vegas odds are high that CGJ and Jauan Jennings will have words in this game.
Their safeties are very well protected in this scheme, but they also don’t seem like liabilities. From what I’ve seen, they perform their roles well and can hold up enough in man coverage to let them ditch zone coverages more than most Fangio disciples.
But what about that run defense, hmmmm? Based on their DVOA rating and the general narrative around this team, the obvious potential weakness in this defense would be its play against the run, but I don’t think their issues are as pronounced as their ratings may imply.
They had significant issues against the run in the first half of the season, but—after nose tackle Jordan Davis went down to injury—they re-stocked the cupboard with Suh and Linval Joseph. On the basis of EPA/play, their run defense has actually been one of the best in the league since the addition of Joseph, and—now that Davis is also back healthy—it’s not the glaring weakness that it may look like on paper.
OFFENSIVE KEYS
But yeah, we still gotta pound that rock. Despite what I just said… we should definitely run the ball in this game. We’ve faced multiple Fangio defenses this season (the Rams and Chargers being two of them) and we know that their goal is to take away the big play through the air, rally up to shorter passes, and force you to manufacture long drives down the field to score. Luckily, long drives with plenty of runs is kinda our thing.
Granted, the Fangio defense and its five-man fronts have caused issues for many a Shanahan system in the past. This is very much a game where we have to stay balanced in order to keep the run game viable. That may mean we have to open things up a bit early before settling into the run game late. Or it could mean we need to keep things balanced from the jump with a good collection of chunk plays and intermediate routes. But getting the defense to a point where we can rack up major carries would be a big win for us.
I do think we have a chance to get outside on this defense. When the two big-time additions that moved your run defense from one of the league’s worst to one of its best are massive waiver wire DTs in their mid-30s, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say they’re not going to be running sideline-to-sideline on you for forty snaps a game. Both the Cowboys and the Packers seemed to find some holes in the Eagles’ run defense on outside zone looks—they just didn’t always have the outside blocking or execution to fully capitalize. I have more faith in our receivers as blockers, and if we can find some success on outside runs, that could open up cutback lanes. After all, if the benefit of putting five and six dudes on the LOS is to fill every gap, the innate drawback is that you oftentimes only have a single linebacker on the second level if a running back breaks through, and—even though I really like TJ Edwards—that’s a lot for any one linebacker to handle.
This is a game where successful incremental gains are going to be our best way to move the ball down the field. How better to do that than with a successful run game?
Play the slots. My guess based on their personnel and the success the Cowboys just had against us with heavy man coverage is that the Eagles are going to come out with more press-man than usual. In doing so they’ll hope to nullify as much misdirection as possible, keep guys tight on receivers to prevent YAC yards, mess up timing in our quick-to-intermediate passing game, and—in doing so—let their defensive line get after Purdy.
Last week, the Cowboys did just that—largely eliminating our outside receivers with blanket coverage—and pressuring Purdy on 16 out of 33 dropbacks. When pressured, he completed only 4-of-12 for 55 yards and two sacks. If the Eagles aim to replicate that scheme, we may pivot to attacking them from the slots.
Other than the occasional double move or play action shot play against an overzealous corner, I’d guess our plan is to largely avoid work outside the hashes and instead focus on the interior, where I think—if you can block it—there is space to be had, particularly on digs and second level balls between the hashes. While Kittle and CMC naturally cause problems with matchups on linebackers and safeties, it will be interesting to see if Shanahan devises more ways to get his outside receivers—in particular Deebo—off of outside man coverage and into the middle of the field via motion, formations, personnel shuffling, etc.
A side of beef. Our unique set of skill players and our affinity for 21 personnel will be something to watch in this matchup. While the Eagles have performed well against two-back sets, it’s not something they’ve seen a ton of throughout the season, and I’d expect us to try and use our swiss army knife skill players to hunt for matchups on the ground as much as through the air.
The Eagles have done a good job of eliminating YAC yards (the natural funneling system of two-high looks helps in that regard) and—if they go man coverage—they’re certain to hope that they can deny passes and tackle our ballcarriers before they get going. But I don’t know how well these DBs will hold up when they’re repeatedly put in compromising positions in the run game. The Eagles have missed some tackles this year, and Shanahan is creative enough to mix and match his personnel to pull linebackers out of the box and/or use motion and closed formations to force cornerbacks to play the role of play-side fill defender or back-side pursuit against the cutback.
If we can start beating on some DBs in the run game, the Eagles will need to make a decision about whether or not they have to match our physicality with size. And if they start subbing out nickels for seldom-used additional linebackers or playing coverages and fronts that protect their corners more in the run game, that opens up space for us through the air.
To sling or not to sling. It’ll be interesting to see what Shanahan’s confidence level is in both Purdy and our passing attack against a historically productive pass rush and the #1-ranked passing defense in the country. After all, this is a pass defense that has allowed upwards of 200 passing yards only five times on the season and upwards of 300 only once (to the Cowboys in December).
The Eagles are deep enough along the DL that they could feasibly start three tackle-like bodies along the interior, load the LOS with five or six, and dare Purdy to pass while they bluff and disguise who on that line is dropping back into coverage to try and rob slant routes. Just like against the Rams last year, they could sell out completely and quite literally force the Niners to pass. If that’s the case, don’t be shocked to see the Niners motion into some empty sets to force the Eagles’ bigger players to run more while hoping to create quick passing lanes for Purdy before the rush gets home. Again, that will depend on how heavily the Eagles key the run and how confident our staff is in throwing on early downs.
Regardless of how we get there, if we can keep things balanced and keep Purdy upright, there will be openings through the air, and our young QB will have to take advantage. The name of the game isn’t volume, it’s efficiency, and as scary as the Eagles’ pass defense may appear, elite QBs have had success against them. This isn’t to say that Brock Purdy is an elite QB, but since Halloween, the Eagles have faced Kenny Pickett, Davis Mills, Taylor Heinecke, the ghost of Matt Ryan, Ryan Tannehill, Daniel Jones (3x), Andy Dalton, Dak Prescott, and Aaron Rodgers.
The absolute max number of those quarterbacks who you could qualify as “good” is three, and Rodgers left the Packers game due to injury while Dak threw for 347 yards and three scores on the Eagles while going a perfect 24-of-24 for 300 against their zone coverage looks. Again, this is a tall task for Purdy and for our passing attack. But it’s not impossible to move the ball through the air on these guys.
[cartoon jumping sound]
OVERALL
Top-to-bottom, the Eagles are the best team that we’ve played all year and—on paper—the best team in the NFL. While we’d be the last to shed a tear over missed snaps from starting quarterbacks, they easily could have finished the season 16-1 if not for Hurts’ injury.
While Philadelphia’s the favorite for a reason, they’re far from bulletproof, and I have to wonder if the same simplicity of scheme that helped catapult their offense and defense to such elite levels so quickly has any blindspots that have gone unnoticed (or incapable of being exploited) as they buzz-sawed through the regular season.
But—magical cipher or not—this is a stylistic matchup we can work with. We can play stout defense, run the ball, throw haymakers, and make things messy. It’s part of our DNA. Teams aren’t 0-15 the week after playing us for no reason. Win or lose, you know the ice baths are gonna be ready to go.
Go Niners 👍🏈