PHILADELPHIA — Jalen Hurts and the struggling Eagles offense have a chance to make the chirping go away Sunday.
After scoring just 26 points in the last two games — both victories that couldn’t quiet the perfectionists and offensive aficionados among their fan base and critics — Hurts and the offense get a crack at the Dallas Cowboys’ defense Sunday at AT&T Stadium.
The Cowboys are 31st in the NFL in points allowed and 30th in yards allowed, so the trip to Arlington, Texas sure looks appetizing for a quarterback and offense that has not produced as expected this season.
The Eagles enter the game 16th in scoring at 23.4 points per game and 25th in yards per game. They haven’t finished lower than eighth in either of those categories the last three seasons.
Despite the horrible numbers, the Cowboys could pose more of a threat to Hurts and the Eagles than anticipated for a couple of reasons. One is the team’s recent defensive acquisitions. Before the trade deadline, they added linebacker Logan Wilson in a deal with the Cincinnati Bengals and defensive tackle Quinnen Williams in a deal with the Jets.
In their first game with the two new defenders Monday night, the Cowboys allowed a season-low 236 yards and recorded four sacks. Yes, the performance came against the offensively challenged Las Vegas Raiders, who are 30th in the NFL in points scored and 32nd in total yards.
But the addition of Williams, who had 1 1/2 sacks and five hits on quarterback Geno Smith, suddenly gives the Cowboys a defensive interior that rivals the Eagles’ trio of Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis and Moro Ojomo.
In addition to Williams, the Cowboys have veteran Kenny Clark, who they acquired from Green Bay just before the start of the season in the Micah Parsons trade, and Osa Odighizuwa, who is one of the better interior pass rushers in the league. He was credited with a season-high eight pressures during the Cowboys’ Monday night rout of the Raiders.
There were times Monday that the Cowboys played all three of their defensive tackles and that could present a challenge for an offensive line that is likely to be without Pro Bowl center Cam Jurgens (concussion) and six-time Pro Bowl right tackle Lane Johnson (foot). Neither player practiced Wednesday.
More of a problem, however, could be the Cowboys’ ability to run more five-man fronts now that they have Williams and what should be improved linebacker play from DeMarvion Overshown, who returned against the Raiders after missing the Cowboys’ first nine games while recovering from the second torn ACL of his career.
There is a belief among NFL statistical analysts that the secret to stopping the Eagles is to line up in five-man defensive fronts and forego playing the extra cornerback nickel and dime packages, which have become the norm for modern-day defensive teams.
“It has been fascinating to me that no one has figured out what to do against the Eagles until Kansas City this season,” a source with access to advanced analytical information told NJ Advance Media. “You can’t play nickel against the Eagles.
“I don’t know what Kansas City saw, but ever since that game only one team has played a lot of nickel against the Eagles. That was Minnesota and that’s when the Eagles put up a bunch of points and yards.”
The numbers, dating to last season, support the theory that the Eagles’ offense is at its best when teams play five or more defensive backs against them.
A season ago, the Eagles put up 4,803 yards on 804 plays when facing five or more cornerbacks. That’s an average of nearly 6.0 yards per play. When facing four defensive backs, the Eagles compiled 1,438 yards on 308 plays, an average of 4.7 per play.
The team’s completion percentage against five or more defensive backs was 70%, which obviously was mostly Hurts, who threw 80.6% of the team’s passes. The completion percentage against base defenses was 54.4%. The Eagles also carved up teams running the football when they faced five-plus cornerbacks, averaging 5.6 yards on 385 attempts compared to 3.8 yards against four cornerbacks. That, of course, was mostly the work of Saquon Barkley.
The Eagles’ success rate against nickel defensive packages was even pronounced in the postseason last year as the Eagles averaged 6.4 yards per play against schemes with five-plus cornerbacks and 4.3 yards against schemes with just four defensive backs.
“I think the Chiefs learned from what they did in the Super Bowl when they ran nickel against the Eagles 76 percent of the time,” the source said. “I couldn’t believe it when they did it because Steve Spagnuolo, you’re talking about maybe the best in the business. And we had seen it all year. The Eagles last year had the third ranked offense against the nickel and 22nd against everything else.”
The trend has continued this season. The Eagles have averaged 5.9 yards per play against nickel defensive schemes and 4.2 yards against base defenses. Teams, however, have still played five-plus cornerbacks against the Eagles 58% of the time.
“I think you would see that the Eagles’ problems were even more pronounced when they face a five-man front at the snap, but I can’t find that stat anywhere,” the source said. “That doesn’t mean they rush five. It just means they put five on the line of scrimmage, which makes it harder to figure out who is covering who.”
Hurts has a 67.7 completion percentage this season against five-plus coverage schemes and is averaging 7.9 yards per attempt. He has a 64.7 completion percentage and is averaging 6.1 yards per throw against base defensive schemes.
The source said those numbers are a definite outlier among NFL quarterbacks, then pointed out how the Eagles further exploited them by abusing teams in the running game.
The Eagles, including their four playoff games, averaged 5.8 yard per rush against nickel defensive schemes last season and just 3.8 against other defensive schemes.
“They were running a lot against light boxes and having massive success,” the source said. “And still teams were stupidly playing nickel against them.”
This season, the Eagles are averaging 4.6 yards against five-plus cornerbacks and 3.8 against base defenses, which means teams have been better at stopping the run in the nickel.
But the secret to beating the Eagles could very well be not playing the nickel and make them try to beat you in the passing game.
“So if the Cowboys stay in the five-man line and don’t play a lot of nickel, the Eagles won’t score a lot of points,” the source said. “Twenty is probably the most they’ve scored against teams that have done that.”
And 20 might not be enough against a Dallas team that is averaging 35.3 per game at home this season.
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