Preview: Wk4 vs. Eagles

Never a good sign when these guys are smiling this much [Lori M. Nichols]

Opponent: Philadelphia Eagles (0-2-1, 3rd in NFC East)
Date: Sunday, 10/4
Location: Santa Clara, CA
Kickoff: 5:20 PT
TV: NBC, or wherever you stream it illegally

When healthy, the Eagles are one of the top 5 most talented teams in the entire NFL. But, like us, “when healthy” has been a troublesome caveat over the past few years. After their 2017 run, the Eagles went all-in on the present, trying to win as many chips before the major cap spike in Carson Wentz’s contract hit. Well, Wentz’s cap figure nearly doubles in 2021 and even with contract restructures to both Alshon Jeffery and Lane Johnson, the Eagles are—as currently constructed—$65 million over next year’s estimated salary cap. All this to say, this is the oldest and—soon to be—most expensive roster in the league, and their window for winning is now.

They have yet to win a game this season.

INJURY REPORT

49ERS: George Kittle (knee) and Jet McKinnon (ribs) were full participants in practice this week. They should play on Sunday… the Niners also opened the practice window for Deebo Samuel (foot) to return from IR. They’ll evaluate him this week and decide if he’s healthy/prepared enough to play this weekend… Ahkello Witherspoon (hamstring) and K’Waun Williams (hip) were limited participants as of Thursday. Witherspoon was a full participant on Wednesday so either had a minor setback or they’re trying not to push him, while Williams didn’t practice on Wednesday so at least he’s trending in the right direction… Jimmy Garoppolo (ankle), Raheem Mostert (knee), Dre Greenlaw (thigh), and Emmanuel Moseley (concussion) have yet to practice this week. Of those four Moseley is the most likely to be back in time for Sunday (as he just needs to pass the concussion protocol)… Jordan Reed (knee), Mark Nzeocha (quad), and Dee Ford (neck/back) will be put on IR this week. Ford’s injury has no real timetable. It could be a few weeks or it could be much longer. Therein lies the issue with neck/back issues. Reed is expected to miss 6-8 weeks, meaning he should be available for the stretch run… Richard Sherman (calf) is out this week. He has at least one more week on IR before he’s eligible to return… Ronald Blair (ACL) and Jullian Taylor (ACL) remain on the PUP list. They won’t be eligible to return until week 7.

EAGLES: Considering the many injuries to the Eagles, I’ll include them in here as well. All-Pro guard Brandon Brooks was lost to an achilles injury in the preseason. He’s obviously out. So are first-round rookie Jalen Raegor (finger), starting DE Vinny Curry (hamstring), second-line tight end Dallas Goedert (lower body), starting LG Isaac Seumalo (knee), “starting” LT Andre Dillard (biceps)—although he was so bad last year a 38 year-old Jason Peters may still be a better player—and starting boundary corner Avonte Maddox—another potential addition by subtraction; before last Sunday I had a whole section prepared about how to target him as often as possible. Meanwhile DeSean Jackson and Alshon Jeffery are unlikely plays on Sunday, with fellow wideouts JJ Arcega-Whiteside (injury) and John Hightower (illness) missing practices this week as well. Hightower seems likely to play. Not sure about the rest.

ROSTER MOVES

Kyle Nelson is out as long-snapper. Shanahan said it was a tough cut personally but that Nelson had actually been trending down before last week and they had to make a move. Taking over long-snapping duties is Taybor Pepper, the 26 year-old former Packer and Dolphin whose name sounds like either an artisanal seasoning, a pop star from a foreign country, or an Eastern European bad guy from an 80’s movie… Daniel Helm was brought back to replenish our TE room; he was swooped up off the Bucs’ practice squad… Joe Walker is a likely promotion to the active roster after Nzeocha was placed on IR… CB Jamar Taylor, who played a bunch of snaps for us in the nickel during training camp, was added back to the practice squad. He’s likely insurance in case K’Waun Williams can’t go this week… OT Cody Conway and TE Charlie Taumoepeau are second- and first-year players, respectively, who were added to the practice squad.

OFFENSE

Head coach Doug Pederson is an Andy Reid disciple, originally getting the head job in Philadelphia in 2016 as a means of fully apologizing for the Chip Kelly era. Similar to Reid, Pederson wants to spread out and throw the ball. The Eagles are largely a shotgun-based team and run almost entirely 11 and 12 personnel, but otherwise have a very multiple approach to offense, in part because of their flexible personnel.

Zach Ertz and Dallas Goedert make up the best tight end duo in the NFL and are a big reason the Eagles run so much 12 personnel. Both of them have the size, athleticism, and receiving chops to line up and make plays all over the field. Ertz is a bit more polished and sure-handed while Goedert is younger, speedier, and the better blocker. With Goedert available they ran WAY more 12 personnel than anyone else this season. Now that he’s out I’d expect more 11, but… they did sign 2019 fourth-rounder Hakeem Butler to replace him. For anyone who doesn’t remember Butler (likely everyone), he was a super intriguing deep-ball specialist out of Iowa State last year but missed his rookie year due to injury. He was cut from the Cardinals this off-season (red flag #1) and—despite his 6’5 225 pound frame—is a receiver not a tight end (red flag #2). Seeing as he was a raw and somewhat finesse-y receiver coming out of college, I assume he will not be asked to block at all. If he plays, I can’t imagine it will be major snaps.

At receiver is an abundance of speed. The Eagles brought DeSean Jackson back into the fold last year, but he played only one game and, as an undersized 33 year-old known for his speed, has had inconsistent availability this year. As an insurance policy and succession strategy for his ability to stretch the field, the Eagles drafted three(!) speedy wideouts in this year’s draft—the most exciting of which being first-rounder Jaelen Raegor—and even traded for Marquise Goodwin, although the former is hurt and the latter opted out due to the successful birth of his child (congrats Quise!). John Hightower will likely see major snaps. He’s tall, fast, and runs deep but—as a fifth round pick—does little else at this point. Greg Ward Jr., college fade merchant and likely NFL bust JJ Arcega-Whiteside, and Alshon Jeffery—if healthy—will round out the majority of receiver snaps.

In the simplest of terms the Eagles offense wants to threaten vertically with their receivers, beating the defense over the top or pushing them back enough so that the wideouts can work intermediate break-off routes like digs and comebacks. Meanwhile, their tight ends work the middle of the field, either creating mismatches in man coverage or finding soft spots in zones that are spread out vertically due to the speed outside. On the ground, they have a rotating stable of backs, but the belief is second-year pro Miles Sanders will take over whatever their equivalent is of a “bell cow” role. Like the tight ends, the backs are heavily involved in the underneath passing game.

At quarterback is Carson Wentz, a 2017 MVP front-runner who has regressed since the Eagles’ Super Bowl run. While I didn’t expect a full-on cliff-dive as we’ve seen early this year, there were signs the past few seasons. The 2017 season saw Wentz—with a loaded roster that was entirely healthy—gain nationwide fame for making big plays off-script in clutch situations. His 11-2 starting record and insane third down numbers (9.5 YPA with a 14/3 TD-to-INT ratio) pointed to a transcendent player who simply needed to grow out of some young QB inconsistencies before he’d join the league’s elite. Two plus years later, that hasn’t been the case. Wentz’s third down magic has regressed—implying it was more statistical outlier from a young player who teams hadn’t scouted yet then a repeatable trait—and his consistency issues have shown no signs of stopping. Yes, he still has plus athleticism and elite arm talent. When he’s on he can buy time with his feet and throw darts down the sideline to create big gains all over the field. But while pulling a rabbit out of your hat when the chips are down is a great quality to have, it doesn’t mean much if you—as Wentz often does—struggle within the structure of an offense. Suspect accuracy, routine misses, and generating negative plays on first and second down by trying to make something out of nothing don’t get wiped out by the occasional good one on third-and-long. Early down success rate matters. Keeping your offense on time matters. Yardage counts just as much on first and second down as it does on third. Ultimately, a play that is called open will be open more often than one that requires scrambling and pinpoint back foot throws under pressure—regardless of how impressive those throws may look in a highlight. To Wentz’s credit, there are more issues on this offense than simply his play, and Doug Pederson certainly deserves his fair share of the blame for not finding a way to adapt the offense to fit Wentz’s strengths and get their franchise QB back on track.

This Eagles offense is loaded with talent and lacking in consistency, both schematically and in terms of performance. In the opening week they committed to the deep ball, totaling the highest yards per pass attempt in the league while jumping out to an early 17-0 over the Racial Slurs. But their offense fizzled down the stretch and a banged-up OL and commitment to the deep ball led to a whopping 8 sacks. The next week, despite returning top-flight tackle Lane Johnson and facing a much-less frightening Rams defensive front, the Eagles went heavy on the short passes. This protected Wentz—he wasn’t sacked on the day and was only hit twice—but the offense continued to sputter due to a series of missed completions underneath. Against the Bengals… well they had to come back on the last drive of the fourth quarter, aided by multiple penalties, in order to get the game to OT—a game which ended with a false start on a would-be game-winning 58-yard field goal and an ensuing game-tying punt.

So what should we expect from the Eagles offense? It’s truly hard to say—both because they’re so temperamental and because our pass rush is much less than it once was. The Eagles often struggle and grow impatient when they are forced to stay in the short-to-intermediate passing game for too long, and I get the feeling that neither Pederson nor Wentz see a dink-and-dunk approach as the path to righting their offensive woes. Given that, I’d guess they test our Sherman-less corners deep early—especially if Moseley can’t play. If they can threaten deep that could give them the cushion needed to open up the deep outs, digs, and stop routes that they run of their vertical stems. If they don’t have DeSean I’m not sure how well that deep threat will work, but they seem to require those vertical routes to get anything else going.

Up until this year, Wentz has played behind one of the best, if not the single best, offensive line in all of football. Just in 2019, the line featured—according to PFF—the league’s #1 center (out of 35), #4 and #6 tackles (out of 81), and the #1 and #19 guards (out of 83). That is absurd. Now, both of those guards are gone and their OL is almost as banged up as our DL is. All that said, this is still a team that gets good push up the middle and can run the ball, both with Sanders and Wentz on designed keepers and scrambles. Considering our issues defending dual-threat QBs and their injuries out wide, I wouldn’t be shocked if we see a bit more designed runs and potentially some of second-round run-threat Jalen Hurts in zone read/wildcat-y packages. If they can get consistent yardage on the ground, that can open up their play action, which can help their backup receivers get open and can free up some attention from Ertz—Wentz’s favorite target.

The Eagles want to shorten this game so stopping the running game, regardless of who’s carrying the ball, will be key in this one. If we can keep them from getting easy yards on the ground then—assuming Moseley plays—we should have the horses in the secondary to shut down the deep ball against their depleted receiving corps. If that’s the case, we put the Eagles in the position where they have to methodically move down the field in the short-to-intermediate game and there’s only so much that hooks to Zach Ertz and frantic passes to running backs in the flats can get them. That is not the game flow that the Eagles want and would likely keep Pederson/Wentz from getting on the same page.

DEFENSE

Jim Schwartz, of handshake with Harbaugh fame, may look like he’s always mid-fart and that he’s adamant that you smell it afterwards, but he coaches up a good defense. And despite some embarrassing moments against the Rams, Schwartz—even with his haircut and facial hair—typically finds a way to settle his players into a good-or-better unit by season’s end. Despite the Eagles’ play as a team this year, their defense has been mostly strong. While it’s still early in the season, the Eagles have the 9th-best Defensive DVOA, largely on the back of their ability to win up front.

The Eagles are primarily a four-man front, with a deep and talented DL that features—when healthy—the best interior duo in the league in Fletcher Cox and Pittsburgh-import Javon Hargrave (plus starter-quality sub Malik Jackson). On the edges are the perennially underrated Brandon Graham (a top 20 PFF score in each of the last eight seasons; a top 10 finish in six of them) and a deep rotation of youngsters that includes 2017 first-rounder Derek Barnett and Josh Sweat. Even without Vinny Curry this is an elite unit, the unquestioned strength of their defense, and one of the best pass-rushing groups in the NFL. Despite Cox missing time, they’re third in the league in sacks and fresh off an 8-sack performance of Joe Burrow last week. Blocking them will be the #1 indicator to our offensive success and an excellent test for an offensive line that—particularly on the interior—hasn’t really excelled at either pass or run blocking this year.

After some struggles last year, the Eagles secondary has been revamped for 2020. Out goes long-time captain Malcolm Jenkins—cornerback Jalen Mills replaces him at safety. Darius Slay came over from the Lions via trade and received a hefty contract extension; he had a down year in 2019 but was one of the better corners and ballhawks before then. He’s their clear No.1. Bradley Nickell Robey-Coleman, best known for cheating and getting away with it in the 2018 NFC Championship, comes in at the nickel. Last year, issues in the secondary caused Schwartz to mix in a ton of different zone coverages. To his credit, the schematic shift worked and the Eagles led the league in pass breakups. This year Schwartz hopes things can go a bit more smoothly. So far, they haven’t.

Like many analytics teams across the NFL, the Eagles devalue the importance of linebackers. They’d prefer to spend their money along the DL and the secondary, believing that they can find serviceable linebackers at a discount who will perform well enough within their scheme. Due to that, their starting lineup is green, and—so far this season—it’s shown in their play on the field.

Everything we do offensively should be aimed at mitigating the strength of their DL while attacking their back seven—which has had its issues this year. Our quick game should be viable. Breaking out our slip screens would be a good way to get guys like Kittle and our backs in space while slowing up the Eagles’ pass rush. As would all manner of bootlegs—especially those with leak outs and cross-action behind the line of scrimmage—as long as Mullens is playing or Jimmy G is healthy enough to run. Overall, a healthy Kittle will be a major matchup problem for a team with back seven questions.

Play action should be effective in this one as the Eagles’ DBs have been caught peeking more than a few times on play fakes and the linebackers don’t have tremendous redirect speed. The back seven has struggled with both misdirection and assignment confusion—especially from their cornerbacks. That means condensed and bunch sets and pre-snap motion could be used to confuse man coverage assignments and spring open receivers. Closed sets with multiple tight ends would also give the added benefit of forcing their corners to tackle in the running game while creating confusion—especially in the red zone—with pass coverage assignments. Setting up a DB as an edge defender in a run-pass bind on a play action could work doubly well. Using formations and motion to setup isolation slants would be a nice way to get Aiyuk and (hopefully) a freshly returned Deebo matched up one-on-one on whoever is replacing the injured Avonte Maddox—who struggled mightily to start the year. Perhaps his injury will allow for a better player to step into his place. Or maybe he’s the best they had and his replacement will be even worse. We can only hope for the latter.

While their DL is good enough to penetrate and stop a lateral run for a loss at any moment and their linebackers will be selling hard play-side to prevent us from edging them in the run game, misdirection could be key if we can block it up front. Fly and orbit motions—along with any kind of reverses (Deebo plz?)— could help slow up run fits, provide play action leak outs, and—when the ball is actually given the other way—spring big gains against run action. We could also see a healthy dose of our split-flow backfield action, as cutback lanes could open up nicely given fast-flow from the linebackers and suspect tackling from the DBs. Similar to the cutback, RPOs could be in play as well—anything to punish the fast flow that they’ll likely need to compensate for our speed advantage.

I keep expecting the Eagles to turn things around, if not permanently than at least for a mid-season push. While they’re nowhere near the 2017 Super Bowl champ team, this is still a talent-laden roster that has been to the playoffs each of the past three years (twice winning their division). But perhaps they’re just too old and dysfunctional, or that those post-2017 playoff trips have been a bit of a mirage, a product of some good bounces and a weak NFC East. After all, including playoffs, the Eagles have gone 19-19-1 since that Super Bowl run and eight of those wins were against the Giants and Racial Slurs.

I see this game much like the Monday Night game against the Browns last year—a prove-it game and potential turning point for a preseason darling (remember, the Eagles were largely favored in this game before the season started). If the Eagles can scrape together a win it would be a turning point for both squads. But if they show up like the Browns did last year and get absolutely embarrassed on national television… this could mark the twilight of an era that likely ends in a major off-season blowup.

Go Niners 👍🏈